Evil Lord Villifarous

I can't draw.

Those three words are the greatest adversary of any artist, no matter what skill level they possess. As a would-be illustrator, I've always learned from others. In elementary school, when my friends were drawing Voltron or various Transformers, I'd try to emulate their style. By high school, I was copying from my favorite comic book artists, and by college I found some good friends who were also aspiring comic book artists.

One such friend was Rey. Each of my friends taught me something, and while one taught me to pay more attention to underlying anatomy than costume designs, Rey taught me by example to loosen up a little. I'd often commit too soon to lines and shapes that weren't quite right, but he had a more frantic, sketchy style, evidenced in a recent Gambit drawing he posted. I've seen him scribble, and his drawing style is a lot like sculpture. A lot of lines hit the page, and as a figure takes shape, he solidifies the ones that look right. In the end, he has a lot more dynamic characters leaping off the page.

The process is fascinating, since every artist has his or her own approach. That's why I love seeing artists like Nico Di Mattia post speed-painting videos. Even accelerated, you see him draw and erase lines until it's precisely the way he wants them to be. Sketching can be a free and fun experience if you let the pencil take over, and it can be frustrating on those frequent occasions when you never find the right line.

Like Rey and many other friends who were all better than me, I eventually dropped my dream of becoming a comic book artist. It's a competitive field in which even the best of the best struggle, and there's no guarantee of wealth or security. Graphic design was a little easier, and something I was better at. These days I'm happy to slap words over illustrations and call them catalog covers or book jackets.

I'm out of practice, and from time to time try to draw and get frustrated. In college I made a LOT of progress, and while I still have no business criticizing the likes of Rob Liefeld, I'm happy that my stick figures and square people developed into renderings I never thought I was capable of. If only for my own personal satisfaction, I might take a page from Rey's book and post a sketch from time to time.

A while back, when Kev Bayer mentioned an “Evil Lord Villifarous”, the mental image was tempting and I doodled several costume designs, none of which were good enough to post. I took another crack at it tonight, and may revisit this character in the future. It should prove interesting if I improve, to see where I started out.



Scary, huh? To be continued...?