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So, who are some of your favorite Champions artists?


Wakshaani

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Current or past, and examples of what struck you solid if possible. (IE, George Perez4E cover, the Enemies I picture of Utlity, whatever.)

I'm curious to see what peoples' favorites are. No need for a "Top five, in order" or the like, just a handful that really sing to you.

(Edited to the correct artist. This is my face of shame!)

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Yeah, 

 

I'm the odd man out, but I've never made a secret of my favorite:

 

Mark Williams.

 

Yep.  Nothing fancy.  Looked almost like it was drawn with a ruler in hand.

 

 

But two things:

 

First:  While I was never a comic book kid (never made a secret out of that, either), his art looked so much like the comic books of my childhood.  It was _huge_ pull-in for me.  At the time, there were a couple of "super hero" choices.  It was Williams' art that led me to find a Champions group over anything else:  it _looked_ like a comic book looked in my head.  (Again, it's not like I was -- or ever became-- very familiar with them.  Second aside: Superbabes or whatever it was called had appeal for art reasons as well-- the "comic book rightness"; not the idea that you're thinking). Champions or V&V at that time.  Williams' art told me Champions was what I wanted.

 

Second:  You have to see this from the point of view from a guy who _all of his life_ wanted to be able to draw.  A guy who killed hundreds and hundreds of trees "practicing" because that's what everyone who could draw kept saying was the key.  (I'm hear to tell that they are all hands-down a pack of lying bastards.  Practice is undoubtably super-important, but it is _not_ "the key."  If there is not at least a hint of talent, twenty hours a day of practice will get you nowhere).

 

Anyway-- let's say that you're me: a guy who his whole life wanted to be able to draw-- a guy who had several siblings who could sit down with a pencil and in ten minutes whip up an entire page of a comic book or a photo-realistic drawing of a trout breaking from the creek, leaping for a hand-tied fly.  A guy who had all these ideas and images and notions in his head yet found himself completely powerless to share them with even his closest friends.   Mark Williams' art looked  _attainable_.  It looked like something that I could _eventually_, with practice and determination, be able to do myself, and it was, apparently, good enough to go into a commercial product.  (Yeah: I know.  RPGs of the day would ink a chicken's foot and let it walk across the page and still publish it, but again: you had to be me to really appreciate how much Mr. Williams' art meant to me at that time-- and frankly, still does.)

 

I could never fool myself enough to believe I could achieve what Storn Cook does, or the covers of 4e Fantasy books, or anything else.  But the simple-- someone on this board once characterized it as "workman-like," and I can't over-stress how accurate this description is, nor can I ever fully explain how complimentary that is to his work from my point of view:  it's something that I could achieve....

 

Now, what-- pushing 40 years later?-- it's clear to me it's not something I can achieve. :(   Believe it or not (and it's not important if you do, because I don't do it for you anyway)-- I still practice.  Yes: I am fifty-nine years old, and I have been practicing drawing _every single day_ with rare exception since I was six.  Fifty-three years, and all I have to show for it is a large missing forest somewhere. Why?  Because it still looks like everything I ever did when I was six.  No; I'm not kidding.  Practice is _not_ the key.

 

But I still practice.  And when I do, without fail, the thing I'm trying to draw is usually one of those simple unshaded, un-lit characters drawn by Mark Williams.   Even knowing that I will _never_ get there, he still inspires me.

 

So regardless of just how amazing the artwork by any other contributing artist, none of them have had the effect on me that Williams did, and still does.

 

 

 

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18 hours ago, Hermit said:

It's particularly fun to see someone give Storn a whacky concept and watch Storn make it work :)

But who would give Storn a wacky concept ?

Is it Cygnia the poster of many pictures ?

No

Is it Hermit the sitter on many fences ?

No

Is it, well you get the picture.

 

I liked Mark Williams because he created the initial versions in the first Enemies book and he was responsible for the creation of Foxbat. He drew him on the cover and then someone came up with the powers for him.

And of course Storn Cook for reasons that the long term posters here will know all to well 

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