Great illustrators

If you’re spending all your time on the hero pose, you are ignoring a whole massive chunk of what it takes to actually be a great illustrator.

Could I do a piece of art like @real_greg_capullo has done here? Maybe? If I had an insane number of hours and about 20 attempts.

What makes this amazing is the undoubted effortlessness with which he is clearly capable of creating such an overtly complex scene, that in an of itself is relatively mundane, while also managing to make it stunningly beautiful.

Pay attention in particular to the fabrics… to the architecture… to the variety of faces drawn… to the way he manages to simplify the detail of the crowd as it gets deeper into the frame.

Look at how he walks your eye through the page.

Wide shot up angled with Bruce centered beneath a family portrait with a model of the city and the back ground perspective pointing to the top of the page screaming, “start here!”

Reverse wide shot now from Bruce’s vantage point. The contrast of his highly detailed large single figure vs a sea of characters provided with just the right amount of depth for your eye to crawl around.

Panels 3-7… a diverse set of medium shots. Bruce is talking, these are the people he’s addressing. We’re taking notice.

And finally, panel 8… a crowd of tight shots, they’re intrigued and listening deeply to his speech, and we as the viewer are just as engaged.

Absolute mastery at the highest level and he probably did it in a days work.

I gotta make this a focus on my future work.