Arcade Girl

This is a pin-up style piece I did as an idea for a shirt and art print at Splitreason. It's been a while since I've done a drawing with just fun design elements that don't necessarily make up a literal scene. This was also the first piece of "cheesecake" art I've ever submitted to Splitreason; just to test the waters for that sort of thing with their demographic.

I have always loved art styles that combine a bit of realism with a more cartoony look, and I feel like my style is getting closer and closer to that all the time. What I mean is that the girl in the drawing has very cartoony proportions and body structure, but at the same time more detail than you would normally see on such a cartoonish frame. This is something I'm personally striving for, but I'm not sure how well other people dig it.

Two of my biggest artistic influences are (in my opinion) able to do this very well. The first is comic artist J. Scott Campbell, who despite drawing women with not-so-realistic proportions manages to pack a ton of detail and realism into his figures. They are always well structured and look like they actually exist in space, while still having fun angles and compositions that can only exist on the page. Like most of his fans, I can't deny that when I was a preteen his women are what turned me onto his work, but as an artist I can't help but appreciate his talent as a whole. If you can manage to look behind the curvy ladies in skimpy outfits for just a second, take a look at his expressions, hands, backgrounds, vehicles, machinery, etc, and you'll see what I mean.

The second is John K, creator of Ren and Stimpy. Even though he is known for drawings that push cartooning to its limits, his characters are always put together well and are based on realistic principles and properties. I think it's this contrast that makes his work so successful. He doesn't just slap a drawing on the page, he pays attention; as is evidenced by the regular animation studies that he posts on his outstanding blog.

At any rate, hopefully someday I'll be able to do this as well as those guys. Images have to be submitted to Splitreason in a horizontal format, so I had to mangle the above piece quite a bit to get it to fit properly, which is one of the reasons why I've posted it here. It will in fact be available as a shirt and print in the future, so keep a look out!