Noir and Crime are my favorite genres…Don’t misunderstand me I love drawing other genres as well: Sci-fi, military, Horror, Superheros etc…but when the lights turn Off and the party is over I always get back to my noir alley.
I think this is reflected on my art work as well…even if I draw a Cow Boys or Gi story…you can see a “noir” approach.
People think of me as Noir artist due to the way I approach both black and white balancing in the page and the way I use cast shadows.
I’m a fan of old classic black and white movies and I learned a lot from them, I studied the way both lights and shadows and camera angles were used to add drama, mystery, fear ecc.. and and I tried to apply the same in my work.
What I’m saying it’s not new at all and wonderful example can be seen in the amazing work of several artists I admire and follow.
I run into Gene Colan work on Dare Devil and Doctor Strange when I was a kid and it’s been love at first sight. I was captured by that dark style and this was just the kickoff of my learning journey that had important milestones when I knew the work of Zaffino, Bernet, Trigo, Mandrafina, Milazzo, Battaglia, Breccia, Munoz, Williamson, Toth, Raymond etc… And I’m still learning from today masters: Sean Phillips, Steve Epting, Michael Lark, Corrado Mastantuono, Tommy Lee Edwards, Shawn Martinbrough etc…I’m just an absolute beginner compare to their work.
Did it put a “noir artist” label on me? It did. Almost 80% of the work requests I receive are about noir or crime stories, the rest is split between Horror and Military stories.
I’m Ok with it. I’m totally fine.
“I didn’t know I was doing film noir, I thought they were detective stories with low lighting!” Marie Windsor
I kicked off 2017 with a Skyfall “Q” character commission.
I’m happy customer asked for this character played by Ben Wishaw in SkyFall movie.
we decided to capture a moment of the film where Q standing in front of the map screen has the face turned toward to us. I’ve been immediiatly captured by the intricate map in the background and decided to use it to focus the redader eyes to the character besides I drew a dramatic cast shadow on his face and body to pop him out of the background even more.
Customer is happy ow it turned out and I hope you like it too 🙂
Take care
Simone
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