James Jean

I got introduced to James Jean's work through my instructor, and if I never got to see Jean's sketchbooks, I would be really be missing out on some amazing skills.

James Jean is a Taiwanese-American illustrator and artist who's career took off when he became a cover artist for DC comics after he graduated in 2001 from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Since then, he received multiple awards and hugely publicized his work as he worked with clients such as Time Magazine, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Prada and others. For someone just reaching 30 this year (born 1979), his success really outshines more than a handful of artists.

Here are some pages from his sketchbook to fuel your creative juices.

I love his way of leaving areas unfinished, and overlapping his images to create the sense of movement. There are areas of detail versus emptiness to create tension, which is one of my favourite parts of sketching. It shows skill-the combination is there not just because he can translate things into lines on paper, it's because he wants people who's looking at the sketch to focus on where he was focusing on when he was sketching. It puts that individuality in his work, Jean leads with his pen to let people see what they don't normally see in common settings.


Images from James Jean's website.