"Pretty comes at the end of the day, after a shitload of practicing (duh!) paired with an uninhibited urge to tell it all."
One of my rather taken seriously non-paid sidelines (of which there are many...gratuitous wise) is to go search for new (at least to me) illustrators who bring a certain je ne sais quoi. As a teenager my career aspiration was to become a children's book illustrator. (I did retain that wish.) Since then, and the first discovery of the internet, I've established to make a find worthwhile once every two months. More often than not, these artists are either Japanese, Chinese, or their work has an Asian twist to it, usually paired with a highly developed sense of the bizarre. Such as Matsumoto Jiro, Cassandra Jean, Tsuruta Kenji, or A Geng.
I don't prefer manga as a genre, although my affection for a rather edgy, sketchy, free flowing style feels pretty much at home in indie-manga town. But quite often said affection takes a trip to Europe, and so naturally there have been encounters with Bastien Vivès, Kurt Klamann and Boulard & Kerascoët. It's always thrilling to see how artists of the same genre depict subjects with very varied and opposite priorities. And so as I keep collecting, I keep learning (if only theoretically, because my copying days are over since my 17th) what makes a good illustration work. Quite simply, also proven to work on numerous other occasions, humour. Because after all, amusement is the fountain of youth. Just ask the Kandakandero.
One of my rather taken seriously non-paid sidelines (of which there are many...gratuitous wise) is to go search for new (at least to me) illustrators who bring a certain je ne sais quoi. As a teenager my career aspiration was to become a children's book illustrator. (I did retain that wish.) Since then, and the first discovery of the internet, I've established to make a find worthwhile once every two months. More often than not, these artists are either Japanese, Chinese, or their work has an Asian twist to it, usually paired with a highly developed sense of the bizarre. Such as Matsumoto Jiro, Cassandra Jean, Tsuruta Kenji, or A Geng.
I don't prefer manga as a genre, although my affection for a rather edgy, sketchy, free flowing style feels pretty much at home in indie-manga town. But quite often said affection takes a trip to Europe, and so naturally there have been encounters with Bastien Vivès, Kurt Klamann and Boulard & Kerascoët. It's always thrilling to see how artists of the same genre depict subjects with very varied and opposite priorities. And so as I keep collecting, I keep learning (if only theoretically, because my copying days are over since my 17th) what makes a good illustration work. Quite simply, also proven to work on numerous other occasions, humour. Because after all, amusement is the fountain of youth. Just ask the Kandakandero.
