ARTIST SPOTLIGHT – Johnny Marvel

This week, we welcome Johnny Marvel to the CBFC Artist Spotlight!

Q. Where are you from?

A. I am from West Virginia. I grew up in Appalachia, but moved to KY for a job. I was promoted to a bar manager at TGI Fridays, and they moved me to Kentucky. Due to higher mgmt’s failure to uphold standards, they closed about a year after I left.

Q. How long you’ve been drawing?

A. I wish I had a good answer for this, but I feel like every artist will always say “I’ve been drawing my whole life” and it’s true! I remember drawing Bugs Bunny getting chased by a bull when I was at least 2 or 3.

Q. What materials do you prefer to do your art with?

A. Currently I prefer my iPad/procreate. I feel like my creativity can run more freely, but that does also tend to cause a little executive dysfunction in some rare cases. Which is why now, I’m working on sketching more and practicing expressions and gestures.

Q. Character you love to draw?

A. I’m not really sure I have a favorite character to draw, but if I did it’s either be Mystique from the X-Men, or Aloy from Horizon. Both of them are strong female characters and with strong female characters, you have so many options. Male characters, most people prefer to see them strong, powerful, bulky, and they tend to come off rigid. With strong female characters, they seem to feel more well rounded, and those well rounded personalities fit nicely into multiple different poses and gestures. I can see Mystique in a lot more gender non specific poses and gestures than I can, say Juggernaught, or Magneto.

Q. Character that you want to draw that you haven’t drawn yet?

A. Usually, if I come across a character I wanna draw, I just do it, but the character I wanna draw really badly now, is a character called the Thistlewitch from Holly Black’s fae novels. I drew her once, probably about 17 years ago? Holly’s one of my favorite authors, and Thistlewitch is this really cryptic, gnarly, harsh, fae creature that NO ONE fucks with, but is only present for a short period of time. She made that big of an impression.

Q. What artist inspires you the most and why?

A. My biggest inspiration is Lois Van Baarle. She goes by Loish online. Her art is vibrant, colorful, expressive, technical, and eye popping. Her character work is amazing as well, she brings these characters to life with such magic and story in the art. I’ve been following her work for years, she just blows me away.

Q. What was your first published work?

A. My first published work waaaaasss….. I believe it was a tattoo art book? Back in my apprentice days, a buddy of mine talked me into submitting some of my work to this tattoo book that highlights artists, and we both got published. It might’ve been a small moment, but it was really cool to see my own work printed in a book for the first time.

Q. Which artist would you love to do a collaboration piece with?

A. I’d love to collaborate with either Sam Yang, or Loish herself. I’d love to colour Sam’s sketches/lines, or see Loish colour my linework. Sam is also very colourful, and seems to be blowing up a lot recently, but his background work is inspiring. 

Thank Johnny Marvel for taking the time to answer a few of our questions! Be sure to give him follow!

Don’t forget to check back next week for our next Artist Spotlight! If you’re an artist and are looking to be featured on our page, please hit me up here. I’d love to hear from you.

-Chris