You might recognize some of John Duvengar’s work from recent Weekly Inspiration posts. His Bigfoot illustration is one of my favorite illustrations I have come across lately. John’s attention to strokes and subtle textures give his strong vector shapes character and a slight non-digital feel. John has some great replies to the Anchor Points questions, so read on!
The Chat
Hey John, thanks for chatting with Vectips! To start, could you tell us a little about yourself?
Hi Vectips crew and community. It’s a great pleasure and honor to be part of Anchor Points.
My artist name is John Duvengar, which is an anagram of my real name. I choose it when I decided to quit law to become an artist. It was not an easy decision, but I felt I really had to live my dream. I started working as an illustrator for an economic review where i experienced various technics from traditional paper and ink to digital ones. The vector technic is now my favorite one because it allows me to have an extremely precise control of my trace. The few things that I need to work are: a good tablet, a good computer, a good chair and like to be listening to good music.
If you could magically turn into a Illustrator tool, what tool would it be and why?
My favorite tool is the paintbrush, because it combines the traditional hand gestural and the flexibility of the digital tools.
What’s your favorite Illustrator technique?
There is a lot! But I in particular like the halftones filter from the plugin Phantasm CS. I have lost so much time trying to do perfect halftones into illustrator before it.
Do you use any non-digital tools in your work?
All my designs are a combination of digital and no-digital technics. I always start working with quick and dirty sketches on my moleskine before choosing one of them to make it cleaner in a bigger size. Besides, I always dreamt about making completely non-digital comics one day, but I know it would be a huge challenge. This is my personal Holy Graal.
What are your favorite sources of inspiration?
I always have been very inspired by old comics and cartoons like Popeye, to name only one. I’m also very curious about street art and I began to understand a little more about contemporary art, especially abstract art. I’m currently doing some experiments in this field.
Thanks again for the interview! Any parting words of wisdom?
Be yourself, create your own style and make love not war!
Sick work. Good googa mooga.
good ones!
Eternal Melody and Morrison Brandy = http://blog.mcbess.com/
thank you for crediting mcbess!! i think it’s funny he says “create your own style”
Im confused – is that an mcbess influenced illustration or is it actually a mcbess peice accidently included?
Everything posted here is John’s work. But you can’t look at those pieces without seeing the Mcbess influence. I think this could open a good discusion about how much influence is too much.
For me I can see the influence but not too bothered.
What about everyone else?
Yea, I think both artists have a similar source of inspiration in the antiquated disney toons – and naturally seeing mcbess leading some trends in that style, being the badman he is..
Anyone know of any other artists who lean to this kind of style/inspiration?