1500 Essay:
The artist I have chosen to research is
Carlos D’anda. He is one of the comic book artists for DC comics.
I have chosen this artist because I
want to become a comic artist too, and I find that his work looks
extremely professional and I really like the style of his characters
and how much emotion he conveys through their expressions.
These are two examples of his character
designs. Unlike me, he uses the computer to line and colour them,
where as I like the use Copic markers. The lines I find are very
bold, which really works well the the characters and the style. I
find it makes it look very striking and is very eye catching.
These images are from when he was
creating the concept artwork for the video game: Batman: Arkham
asylum and Arkham city. He also used these creations for the comic
book the was created from these games, as you can see them as
character designs in the back of the comics that he has illustrated.
I find that his work is very creative
and that he looks at every detail when designing the clothing, facial
expressions, etc.
He does work with traditional media as
well, which is another reason I really like him because he can work
well with both traditional and computer generated.
These images, from what I have seen on
his website on
Deviantart are some images he's just
quickly sketched for
the fun of it.
I personally prefer his computer
generated work because it looks cleaner, but I find that his
traditional work shows a lot more talent.
Carlos D'anda obviously does all of the
inking and colouring (digitally and traditionally) himself, which is
another reason why I really like him. Usually when doing a comic, you
would have two separate people doing the colouring and inking, but he
takes the time, even though it's so time consuming and does it all
himself! He even stated on his blog that it took up most of his days
and he literally had to stay cooped up in the house, but he didn't
mind as long as he got it done, which I find really inspiring.
His linework I find is very bold, which
is extremely effective due to him drawing for a comic, it makes it
stand out. But I find his characters have a certain realistic feel to
them. Even though they are slightly out of propertion in some areas,
I find that certain features are very realistic and give the comic a
slightly eary feel to it, (which I'm guessing he was trying to get
across due to the storyline of the comic.)
His colouring is very unique. He uses
so many different tones to give his artwork lots of depth which works
in his favour as you can tell his style apart from any other artist
dramatically; It's very different.
I also find some of his digital work to
be quite pop arty, such as this piece:
This piece was just a random
illustration he drew randomly. I don't think it's of anyone specific,
more like just a random sketch made up in his head.
Pop Art piece:
As you can see, the imagaes are very
similar the way they are portrayed. Though the pop art works a lot
with pointilism, and Carlos D'anda doesn't, they are still very
similar as he uses very vibrant colours like the pop art style, and
the way the image has been done is very similar to a lot of the pop
art pieces, such as the one I have shown above.
I find he uses thicker lines and random
colouring and shading to give this effect. I really like how he does
this because it shows he is able to work in more than one style.
Though I prefer the way he usually works.
Another thing I find really admiring
about his work is that he is able to fit a characters personality
with the way they look, with things such as their hair, clothes, the
way the character expresses their emotions through their face and
body language and so on, and I find he is able to do that really
well, he's probably the best artist that can convey the characters
personality through the way they look.
Carlos D'anda isn't a recurring artist
for the Batman series as far as I know, they usually use a lot of
different artists, hence the reason the Batman comic book franchise
has so many different styles. Carlos did the artwork for the comic
book: 'Batman Arkham city' which is based off the video game version
of the story. He has done other art for other comics such as:
Deathblow, Starwars and many more, so he is quite a famous artist and
works for many different, famous series.
He designs all of his own characters
for the comics as well. Granted they aren't HIS own, made up
characters, but he designs the way they look and then designs all of
their outfits to fit the story he has been told to illustrate. He
does do a lot of his own characters though, as shown above, there are
a few images that are his own, such as the womans face done in the
pop art style.
I think with a lot of his works, he
practices different styles, as you can see in the images above, he
has worked with a variation of different styles and I think this is
due to the fact that he gets commisioned, because from what I have
seen on his website, he gets a lot of commisions and I think that
would be because of him illustrating the Batman comics and
characters, so he tries to work in many different styles so that he
can work in any style that the commisioner asks.
This image shows another way he works.
This image looks a lot more scratchy and rouchly done, but you can
definitley see the style of his character designs in this image. He
seems to work with typography in his images a lot too, mainly with
random pictures like this image, which I find works really well
because he does it in a certain way where you know it would be Carlos
D'anda's work.
Another example of the way he works
with typography. He really knows how to make the style of the text
fit with the actual image. So obviously here the image is very dark
and scratchy and he has chosen graffiti styled text for the writing
in the background which goes very well with the image and the style
of it.
I find that Carlos D'anda is definitley
one of my favourite comic artists and find he is definitley talented
in working in lots of diferent styles.
