What inspires my people art – a blog on art style

I have two seperate main art styles: drawing animals and drawing people. In this blog I will share what inspires my people art and how I keep the style consistent.

I love drawing animals more often than not, but what excites me about drawing people is the use of shape language. The more exaggerated the better! More akin to character design with a semi-realistic twist.

Other elements I get excited about are the eyes, hair, jewelry, and clothing.

My current style of drawing people is inspired by comic book art and 80’s anime. There are some animated adult shows, like Black Dynamite, that also use infamous comic book style. Other inspirations include Bratz Dolls and tattoo designs.

Why these? It is their strategic use of black. The color is used to show form on a character in sharp, contrasting ways. This gives the style a rough but “shiny” look to it.

Consistency in art styles can be tricky, so I keep it simple by implementing the black highlights and shadows strategically. Rather than wide-spread. The black only takes up a max 20% of the the composition and is otherwise balanced by texture or flat color.

Examples of my people art with this style below:

This comic book and anime art style excites me, I look forward to drawing more people in this way!

The logo of illustrator Dominique Ramsey. It reads "Dominique Ramsey".
An image showing scenes from the animated shows Black Dynamite, Yu Gi Oh, Panty and stocking, and Yu Yu Hakusho. Comic covers from DC and Marvel, tattoo designs by Brian Bruno, and Bratz Dolls.

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