This was originally done as a mood board assignment for Business class at the Kubert school. I put together the most late 90s early 2000s influences on my art as I could fit on one board and named the aesthetic Y2K Redux.
Matt Laskowski: fox-orian or https://www.plasticshards.studio/ (meme originator)
Probably has the best feel for that 2000s vibe I’ve ever seen. Takes heavy inspiration from Mirror’s Edge yet makes it his own. Not to mention he’s one of THE most helpful artists I’ve seen on this DeviantArt I’ve read through his perspective tutorials numerous times. www.deviantart.com/fox-orian/a…. His work drives me to master light and color!
Tobias Zeising: ssilence
Has an excellent eye for mood and atmosphere beyond words.
Asteroid: twitter.com/asteroid_ill
Does some sick Pokemon art in lovely, moody, atmospheric backgrounds inspired by Tsutomu Nihei as well.
Sam Kieth/THE MAXX:
The Maxx is an awesome animated series from 90s MTV. There was so much style to it it made up for some of the limited animation. His comic, Epicurus the Sage has some of the best cartooning I’ve ever seen in comics. Sam Kieth’s style says “to HELL with conventional rules, people should FEEL my art!”.
FLCL:
Do I need to say anything? 6 episodes of this show blows some entire anime series out of the water. It feels like an extended music video with some of the most memorable tracks you’ll ever hear in anime. Not only is it cool and stylish and exceedingly expressive on the surface, it also has an emotional throughline underneath which ties the whole package together. Nothing screams 2000s as loud as this anime!
Darick Robertson:
TRANSMETROPOLITAN is a masterclass in grounding fantastical sci-fi elements in reality. The key is his characters’ human expressions and body language. Working with writer Warren Ellis, the co-creators came up with a whacked-out sci-fi world with a true emotional core.
Archie Comics:
I rarely ever read the comics themselves, but I have a massive Pinterest board (www.pinterest.com/TheCOMIKEN/a…) loaded with wonderful cover art. The characters are wonderfully expressive and flirty. If someone ain’t getting cucked on an Archie cover, it’s not an Archie comic! (as a general rule, of course!).
Jaime Hernandez:
His art was also very much inspired by Archie comics, but he took the expressiveness of his characters to the next level. They live on the page. I can flip to any page in his comics and lose myself in his characters’ lives without realizing it. I have to yank myself away every time. It’s witchcraft I tell you!
Ryan Ottley: RyanOttley
Artist of the comics series, Invincible with writer, Robert Kirkman (Now animated on AMAZON PRIME!) If it weren’t for his art on that book and the amazing inkers and colorists, I probably wouldn’t have bought the whole series. It’s insane the amount of impact and boldness there is in his art. Not only that but the expressiveness of his characters adds even more of an emotional component to the intense, gory action.
Omar Dogan: Omar-Dogan
His Capcom/Udon work is FULL of that lovely 2000s vibe.
Koji Morimoto: https://twitter.com/PhyKojiMorimoto
This animation director is a clear channel conducting the flow of otherworldly experiences from the universe to present humanity something fresh and new. You have to see it to believe. He also pulls inspiration from Andrej Tarkovsky. Check out his music videos on youtube and what I consider his magnum opus: Dimension Bomb.
Tsutomu Nihei
If you ever want to see what bleak, dense nihilism with no hope of escape looks like read BLAME! and take a walk through a true Dyson Sphere. The “story” is just an excuse to draw whatever awesome shit he could conceive of. This guy is pulling artistic rules from another dimension. He’s one artist who’s shown me that your work doesn’t need to look perfect or have the best anatomy or perspective to sell. Nihei operates on the rule of cool (especially in his work, BIOMEGA). If it looks badass, draw it. His work is a near unfiltered look into his mind. The kind of stuff I’d never see in American comics.
George Morikawa
Some the most VISCERAL action you will see in comics and manga PERIODT. The anime does an amazing job of conveying the impact of each blow, but when I finally took a look at the manga, I saw the source of power they were working from. So many creative and distinctive ways to show the devastation of a single punch.
Weilin Zhang Xenophoss
Epic animator I found on twitter! My favorite animation by him: twitter.com/Xenophoss/status/9…
@hanzo1011
I really like the greyscale and angles he uses in his work! twitter.com/hanzo1011/status/8…
Want to see these vibes assimilated into one hard-hitting, action-packed comic?
Check out AIR-RIDER here!
https://globalcomix.com/c/air-rider/chapters/en/1/1
A story about at delinquent boy who attends the same high school where his father was a school SHOOTER.
Now he has to fight the demons his father indirectly spawned!
AIR-RIDER is a mix of all your favorite Saturday morning cartoons.
…with a dash of horror.
Think The Maxx, FLCL, Teen Titans, Danny Phantom, and Codename: KND all rolled into one! If you miss those lazy days watching your favorite Saturday Morning Cartoons, AIR-RIDER’s got you covered!
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