Inspiration: Darwyn Cooke

To be honest, I've never been interested in being a comic artist. The task always seemed way too daunting. I think Darwyn Cooke may have cemented in my mind forever that I would never ever be able to do what he does.
I mean... okay I can't even talk about it, I can't really put it into words, but Will brought over a copy of the man with the getaway face and I've just been staring at it completely dumbfounded.
I took a pic of one page that really blew my mind:



Seriously... I can't... really? GOD.

Even the cover is so incredibly SIMPLE but disgustingly gorgeous:



BAAARRRRRFFFF
LOOK AT THIS!!!! (this is from Parker)



I think this may be the most perfect opening page I've ever seen in a comic!

If you don't own anything by Darwyn Cooke, you should correct this immediately.

For Christmas a couple years back I bought Ryan one of his original pages from New Frontiers. Apparently the pages for man with the getaway face are up for grabs, and honestly? I think I might have to drop the 300 bucks, because I am completely in love with the visuals in this comic.

also... his name is Darwyn... like...Charles Darwin my favourite human being who has ever lived.
I need to name my kid some spelling of that name
it apparently is the path to instant awesome.

Inspiration: Canadian Inuit Art

Another huge inspiration to me is the art of the Inuit people of Canada.
They are best known for soap stone sculptures, but I find the prints and paintings absolutely stunning.
They're always simple, usually using no more than three colors, bold patterns and lines:

Inspiration: Xavier Atencio

Xavier Atencio is one of my biggest influences from Disney.
He was an animator, character designer and Imagineer from 1938-1984
The first time I saw his work, I honestly didn't realize how great it was, but I LOVED the Old Mac short as a kid:



now looking at it, it's easy to see why, the character design and colour choices (done by none other than Eyvind Earle) are brilliant.

but even more impressive than that is this:


all stop motion paper cut outs. (ridiculously racist as well but oh man the character design!)

Shubenacadie Wildlife Park

Oh no I made another blog! Hopefully this time I'll actually keep posting in it.

Here's some sketches of animals from the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park. I swear some of them were posing for me. Like the raccoons. The bear just peeked at me from a little den he had dug, it was pretty cute