Week Three - Alex Ross

The artist I chose for my week three blog post was Alex Ross. Considered to be the "Norman Rockwell of comics", Alex went to the Academy of Art right here in Chicago for college. He studied classic American illustrators like Rockwell and J.C. Leyendecker to achieve a hyper-realistic look to his work. I found this quote on his website explaining what goes on in his mind as he illustrates: "hopefully by painting the work, you gain a sense of life and believability that will draw the reader in a little more. You can use color and light and shadow and live models to give the work a certain realism. It might be easier to relate to a character if you look at it and say, ‘Here’s an actor portraying someone. Here’s something that looks real.’ I thought it would draw people in and maybe add to their enjoyment of the work. There’s also a part of me that likes to speculate: ‘What if they made a movie about this character?’ I realize some of my favorite characters will never get the movie treatment, so it’s up to me to present them in a lifelike fashion, to make the movie that would otherwise never get made." More information and illustrations can be found on his website: http://www.alexrossart.com/index.asp