Shinsuke Nakamura
Ink, liquid acrylic and spray on 14″ x 17″ bristol vellum
I had a totally different approach in mind for this new Shinsuke Nakamura portrait, but when I went looking through my ‘inspiration files’ (I save art that I think I can learn from and put it all in a folder to look through when I get stuck) I opted for this instead. It’s a mix of a Matt Wagner Grendel Prime illustration and the approach of Tim Bradstreet, with a technique I’ve seen Jim Mahfood do. It ended up looking very Brian Bolland, but hell I’ll take that.
As an artist, I’m a sum of every other artist who has influenced me mixed with every piece I’ve made up to this point. I learn from all of it, y’know? This Nakamura illustration (it’s not really a painting, even though I used some liquid acrylic and spray paint on it) shows that pretty succinctly. The old saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s really worth the thousand other pictures the artist made before it.
And that’s why I’m the got-dang artist of WWE, not Shin. Ha!