Adam's Blog

I came across a few artists that were doing these influence maps and I thought I would give it a whirl. I mainly did it to reflect on artists that directly influenced my style. There's many I'm probably leaving out (because I find great artists every day) but these guys (and girls) are a list of people who did and still do blow me away. After reading some of Neville Goddard's work on imagination, I realize these are artists that took my imagination to the next level.

These are in no particular order.

1. Jason Chan turned me on to Bouguereau. He talked about his flesh tones and many other elements to his work and I fell in love with his paintings.

2. I wanted to do more painting and fine artsy stuff in comics but I thought it would never fly...then I saw Alex Ross' work. Nuff said.

3. I prefer more of Joe Chiodo's more exaggerated pinup stuff but his draftmanship and mastery of color is insane.

4. Designers usually blow me away but Ryan Church is in a class by himself.

5. Hyung Tae Kim paintings are stunning. He's a designer but his finished illustrations are sick!

6. I always thought Adam Hughes' work was brilliant but when I saw how he could fuse his sense of humor with art my work was changed forever.

7. Years ago I used to call Linda Bergvist my favorite 'digital' painter and soon I realized media didn't matter. She was one of my favorite painters--period!

8. Like Ross, Ignacio Noe does beautiful comics. Most of his stuff was watercolor then he moved on to digital but it is all amazing work.

9. You can see some of the Dean Yeagle in a lot of what I do. Whether it's cute, funny, or downright sexy Dean is the man!

10. Don Flowers' work is priceless.

11. There's nothing you can't learn from Frank Frazetta. It doesn't matter if it's pen and ink, an oil painting, or a pencil sketch, Frazetta was a living legend in my lifetime.

12. To this day I still don't know how Craig Mullins does it. No matter what the media is, his genius comes thru.

13. Mort Drucker is well...Mort Drucker.

14. J Scott Campbell is the person who steered me towards studying animation. His work was always an inspiration to me but he also helped open my eyes to other artists in and around animation.

15. To this day I still draw my noses kinda like John Byrne. I can honestly say I got into comics because of him.

16. Bruce Timm is "one of those". He can go cartoon, realistic, 'comicy', black and white, color...it doesn't matter. He will pull off what you wish you could do--and with minimal lines usually.

17. Barbucci blew me away with Sky Doll but I have to give some credit to Canepa as well because the color palette in Sky Doll was genius. Nonetheless I did and continue to learn a lot from Barbucci.

18. There are lots of illustrators from the last 100 years that I love but Robert McGinnis has a special place in my heart and style.

19. When I was a youngster Boris Vallejo was the first painter I really gravitated to. His female subjects were beautiful and brilliantly painted.