wanted to do that old deviantart influence map since its been years since the last time i did it
i had a tough time trimming the list down to fit but i think these artists/stories say a lot about where im at artistically
my tablet is currently halfway across the country for repairs (my brother's the most tech-savvy in my family and asking him to take a look at it was cheaper than taking it to a shop) so i haven't been able to draw lately. i've made a bunch of traditional sketches in the meantime, but none of them are presentable enough to post here, so i decided to take a trip down memory lane and fill out one of foxorian's influence maps!
below the cut are the names of the artists featured here, as well as a little bit of director's commentary on how they've influenced me :]
yugo limbo (website, tumblr, twitter) - some time last year, i realized something profoundly unnerving: i actually... don't like the art in smile for me's original release all that much? that's not to say it's bad, just that there isn't a whole lot about it outside of maybe its architecture that stands out to me. which is REALLY WEIRD, considering i wrote a whole retrospective about how much this game means to me. art-wise, however, it was only after smile for me's release that yugo limbo's art evolved in a way that really resonated with me; i love how textured everything is, i love the way they simplify clothing folds and the way that skin wrinkles around the joints, i love their love for puppets; all of those things ended up worming their way into my art style and tastes one way or another, and i couldn't be happier!! it didn't feel right to leave smile for me out of the equation entirely, though, so i chose a piece that was both related to that game and that i felt reflected a lot of what i love about yugo's more recent art.
echobsilly (twitter, tumblr) - oh god, speaking of yugo limbo - god. i fucking love echo's art so much i have no idea how to even do it justice in writing. like many people i first found him through his smile for me/limbolane fanart and animations - and those are some of his best work, don't get me wrong, but i really wanted to include one of his original designs to make a point that he's just fuckin great at art in general. character design, facial expressions, body language, composition, LIGHTING... he makes it all just. so so so gorgeous. i always liked "painterly" art styles for lack of a better word, but i think his art is what first pushed me to embrace that more in my digital art. i also like how he talks about dr. habit like he's his dead wife. i'm very proud to call him a friend these days :]
japhers (tumblr, twitter, instagram) - i first found japhers' art in high school and he very quickly became a HUUUUUGE influence on my taste in character and costume design. one of the big reasons i never fully bought into the idea that men's fashion is inherently harder to design is bc so much of his art is already dedicated to exploring fashion Without the restrictions of a gender binary in place which is to say that he's really good at drawing buff dudes in frilly outfits. i also think he gave me more confidence to draw more intricate costumes without having to worry about super dainty and clean lineart, bc a lot of his art looks like it's kinda been carved/rendered out of sketches, and it is Gorgeous.
moe suppe (website, tumblr, cohost) - another artist i found in high school, albeit originally from a long-gone instagram account. his art is what kickstarted my desire to have some Roughness in my art, some Texture. it may not have stuck to my lineart, but it Definitely stuck to my rendering. it helped that i was going through a pretty big angel/demon phase at the time, which meant i was pretty immediately drawn in by his delightfully weird worldbuilding. i should probably read fear not now that it's an actual serial...
val wise (website, itch.io, twitter, instagram) - a more recent influence, but a pretty significant one nonetheless. i featured the cover of délicatesse here because it was the first thing from him that i had ever read, but in general his grasp on the human body really blows me away given how deceptively simple his style looks at first glance, especially his faces. the way fat and hair sits on her bodies, and how much it varies from character to character... it's beautiful without being So glamorous that it feels untouchable. his costume design is also great. i recommend his comics for low fantasy/ursula k. le guin fans who are Dying to see more fat characters in leading roles. i also just found out that i am of two hearts is free on itch.io, so i'll be treating myself to that over spring break.
partycoffin (tumblr, twitter) - if you have known me for any amount of time at all then this should not come as a surprise to you. i actually wasn't going to include partycoffin in this map at first, because while welcome home has inspired me in Many creative pursuits, i didn't think visual art was one of them? i definitely picked up some of clown's love for dramatic lighting and thinner lines with just a smidge of well-placed hatching subconsciously, though.
ryoko kui - probably the most recent artist featured here? anyways i have a confession to make: i have yet to read dungeon meshi. i just know that when i saw a post compiling a bunch of ryoko kui's sketches from her daydream hour series, i was so overwhelmed with this feeling of, like… "oh, yeah, these capture almost everything i love about women as flesh and blood people. when i draw women this is the kind of beauty that i want people to see in them." of course, ryoko kui is a great character designer in general, but something about her women specifically really speak to me. the earthier color palettes and rendering also do a lot to endear her art to me.
shuzo oshimi - specifically his art in blood on the tracks. something that really stood out to me in that series was whenever the shadows would get really intense, and you'd get these big blocks of black with just the faintest bit of hatching to soften out some of their edges. it was always very effective in creating this sense of claustrophobia. i really want to keep incorporating that in my more intense pieces!
person918x (tumblr, instagram) - i don't work with 3d art often and i don't see myself doing so any time soon, but the composition of person918x's pieces is something i take a lot of inspiration of. i also love his sequential art, as someone who does a lot of dream journaling it's sick to see the exact Vibe of a dream be put to (digital) canvas. i also firmly believe that he's one of the only people out there who knows what he's doing when it comes to using generative AI in art.
oops i made this list too long so now i have to put the last two artists in a new block.
10. meatgiri (twitter, instagram) - definitely the artist i've known about the longest out of this selection. i think i've been following her since…. oh god. since i was in middle school. way before she was meatgiri, even. i think her influence probably shows up the least in my art, but there are definitely some characteristics that stuck with me for a very long time (the lil block of black accompanied by one or two lines for shading on the neck, the looser lineart making it really easy to incorporate soft curves and sharp edges, the Eyes, etc etc.) i chose this drawing of her oc juniper bc i thought it was both reflective of her current art And a good embodiment of a lot of things i wanted to emulate from her art as a young'un.
11. dragan bibin (website, instagram) - specifically his 'deimos' series. much like with person918x, it's his compositions that really stand out to me the most, and you probably know by now that i'm a sucker for high contrast. i find it interesting though that he uses high contrast to obscure more than he does to highlight... helps a lot with giving the deimos paintings that air of Quiet Unease. another thing i want to incorporate in my horror-adjacent art! manmade environments gone wrong!
I made an art influence map because @nblemons did it and I wanted to do it too!!
Template here
Honorable mentions/guys I couldnt fit on here: Yume Nikki, SamSketchbook, Monkey Punch, Wolf's Rain, Cowboy Bebop, Henri Matisse, Noda Satoru, Osamu Tezuka.
There are probably more but I've already spent way too long on this lol.
Wanna talk about them all briefly:
Watership Down: no duh. This movie imprinted on me from a very young age and made me way more of a furry than I already was. I always liked how realistic the designs were compared to mainstream rabbit designs which focus on the 'cuteness' of the animal. I think it's dumb because rabbits are kind of stroppy violent jerks and I like them for that.
Aboriginal Art: this is kind of related to Watership Down because I took a lot of inspiration from the intro and the almost cave-painting like designs. It took me way too long to discover that what was so grabbing about that into was that it was inspired by Aboriginal artwork! I hope this is okay to say because I'm neither Aboriginal or even australian and a lot of the cultural meaning is lost on my dumb ass, but I think the shapes, techniques and colours are wonderful. Painting I used in the pic is by Charlene Carrington
Lorne Lanning: is the main designer for the Oddworld series of games and I wish more people knew about him because his character designs and conceptual art are just fantastic and gripped me from a very young age. And he made a game where you play as a cowboy who shoots bugs at people!
Spyro reignited: dragons are hot.
Spirited Away: I love Miyazaki's entire filmography but Spirited Away really had a grip on me one particular summer in school, the same one where I learned how to use watercolour paints, and I think it had more of an influence over my art than the others for some reason. It's a very summer-y movie to me with very bright colours.
Edmund McMillen: probably more well known as 'that guy who made Super Meat Boy' I've always loved the cartoony yet grotesque imagery in the Binding of Isaac which I am about to clock in 1000 hours on on my steam account. Another game of his which really got to me was Aether from the Basement Collection. Watching his segment in Indie Game the Movie and how he translated his fucked up upbringing into fun, heartrending and addictive games really inspired me.
Animal Well: I only just played this game for the first time this year which is why I made it very small but idk what else I have to say other than 'just fucking LOOK at it'.
Frida Kahlo: I did a project on her for school which involved watching a movie about her life which was both fascinating and tragic. Her surreal art can be both bright and evocative and also downright tearjerking.
Pokemon: whenever I'm designing a character I have Pokemon in mind, say what you want about certain designs but Ken Sugimori and all the other artists who have contributed over the years really have the talents to make a cute, fearsome or oddball guy you want to go on adventures with.
William Turner: another one from my school days and an artist from my own country. I always loved the colours and sweeping brushstrokes.
Eiichiro Oda: Yeah man what can you say about One Piece. When I was about 15 and having daily meltdowns, copying the expressions on his characters really helped me figure out how I was feeling. Oda is a menace but good lord he can draw.
David Hockney: When I was also in school I attended an exhibition of his which was basically "im retired and I can draw whatever I want now" with blown up ipad sketches and these strange landscapes with fauvist colours. I thought some of it was dumb at the time but looking back I really admire his use of colours and the looser movements compared to his older work.
Masahiro Ito: Creator of Pyramid Head, Bubble Head Nurse and 'Honey Butter Fuck Toast'. The man, the legend, the 'this is fuck' guy. His blend of the grimy industrial, bloody, monstrous and sexual is so fantastic. I feel like I should also put francis bacon here because most modern horror artists owe everything to him, but god I love Silent Hill and the imagery this man created will live on in my brain forever.
