California-based comics artist Ryan Sook’s style has evolved rapidly over the last decade. His first work displayed a strong and sometimes overly imitative Mignola influence which was put to good use by Mike Mignola himself when he chose Sook to illustrate the Hollow Earth story arc for the Hellboy spinoff series, B.P.R.D.
Sook’s art has since grown more personal, acquiring confidence and achieving a unique blend of elegance and sensuality. A master of composition and colors, Sook is a highly sought-after cover artist.
Preliminati is a signed and numbered, limited edition, 24-page book of preliminary drawings for DC comics. The back cover has a blank space that Sook fills in with an original sketch. The gallery on Sook’s website reveals a love for the classic Frankensteins, with the traditional flathead Monster and lovely sketches of the Bride — with neck bolts! — interspersed among the images of DC superheroes.
Preliminati, Vol. 1 is available directly from the artist.
2 comments:
One of the things I kick myself about to this day is when one of my former editors suggested Ryan Sook for one of my projects and I said "no."
His sketches didn't seem suited to the projects, and with the samples I had I had no way of knowing whether he could draw backgrounds, which were important to the project.
Of course, about two weeks later I saw some of his other work and wondered why this work wasn't what was shown to me in the first place. It knocked my socks off and I knew he was the right guy.
I told him all this when I met him, (after apologizing profusely) and hope he and I get to work together in the future.
His artwork is really something special.
As beautiful as Sook's sketches are, I still prefer Brett Booth's work on Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: The Comic Book. His characters are fleshy, interesting and alive. And as a side note, before his drawings I had no idea that Frankenstein's creature (a thing stitched together out of corpses) could be...well...hot =).
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