Artist Analysis: Brian Ching

I'm starting a line of artist analysis threads in the same vein as Havac's author analysis threads. Thank you Havac for giving me permission to do this.

And since I can't possibly put it any better than he already has*:

*edited so that it made sense.

Starting off with Brian Ching who has worked in both Republic and Empire and is now drawing for Knights of the Old Republic.

Republic arcs
Blast Radius (53)
Last Stand on Jabiim (55-58)
And the Obsession miniseries.

Empire Arcs
Target Vader (19)
Model Officer (35)

Knights of the Old Republic
Commencement (1-7)

Lets get started.

 

I like him.

 

I don't mind his sketchy style, or his implausibly gorgeous women, but his art isn't to everyone's taste.

 

Warcraft 3 was made for me. You know my dislike of fantasy archetypes. Assaulting the Night Elfs as the Undead is a grinning pleasure. I don't need to conquer all of Silvermoon, just the Sunwell Guardians, but you bet your Mara muffins I'm going to do it anyway, the whole elfy lot of them. As soon as Warcraft stops monopolising me, I'll Exsense some Ching art. His art was influenced by the story style. When it comes to art I just can't quaff a breezy mug. It's three intertwined ingredients beggars more than just a passing breeze, and illustrations are just half the Hutt head without colouring, but tell that to Gargonn. I really gotta stop smiling at my own jokes, don't I, although maybe I wasn't.

 

I really like Ching, I think he's my fave SW artist today. He and Blackman make a great team, not quite on the par of Ostander/Duursema, and from what I hear he and Miller and giving us a whale of a time in the KotOR era (hurry up and TPB it, Dark Horse ). 5* artist.

 

Chingy is one of my favourite current SW artists. He has a fantastic grasp of the look of SW, exemplified by his ability to draw the aliens and vehicles to perfection.

His depictions of established characters is excellent. While not a photorealistic facsimile (have a look at his Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Mace in 'Blast Radius'), he still manages to convey exactly who it is.

I think he's been helped (in his SW work at least, I've never checked out his other stuff) by some good inking and colouring. There was very understated colouring (Joe Wayne) on Republic #53 'Blast Radius', and the inking (Joe Weems) also seemed to adhere to the pencils pretty finely.

Obsession was a bit smoother than Republic #53, I guess because Brian inked his own pencils, and the colours from Sno Cone Studios were excellent. Very much in the prequel/Clone Wars 'palette'.

It's interesting to me how this compares to Jan Duursema. I'd like to check out some straight pencilled pages from her work some day. There's something that really bugs me about Duursema's art, and that's how Quinlan's appearance seems to be in constant flux. His eyes, for one thing, are hardly ever the same from issue to issue. There's also a bit of inconsistency in the lines. I suspect it's a problem coming from whoever's been inking her.

 

He can draw a lot of things well, but I don't tihnk he does faces very good, the eyes always look a bit small and far apart and he usually makes the men look to rugged.

But I think apart from people he is one of my favs, next to Jan.

 

I really like him.

I know this is heresy, but I prefer him to Jan Duursema. Her quasi-photorealistic style seems so static and lifeless to me, whereas Ching's "fuzzier" lines convey a better sense of life and movement.

 

I like his art, all his characters look the same. Especially the women. It's confusing.

 

I like his art, the somewhat "rough" edges convey a sense of realism that is unmatched among the SW new "Big Three" artists (Ching, Duursema and the fellow from Empire whos name escapes me ATM). Really though, all three do wonderful work and we're blessed as fans to have sucn wonderful artwork in our comics.

 

Davide Fabri or Adriana Melo?

Among other things Fabri did the Sunber arcs and Melo did the Jabiim story.

 

Maybe he means Brandon Badeaux, who looks to be the chief artist of Rebellion?

 

Badeaux only did one issue of Empire IIRC. Most of his SW works are in Tales and Republic.

 

But it was an awesome issue. BoShek's Issue, with great art, a good story, and a splended Kilian Plunkett cover.

I wish we'd see more of Kilian Plunkett. I like nearly all of his stuff, especially the stories he's done with Ryder Windham (even the Matrix comic.) In fact, I might like them more than Jan and John.

 

D'oh, yup. That's who I meant, still not used to the title change I guess.

 

Save it for Kilian Plunkett analysis thread.

 

Oops...

 

He's good. Not my fave SW artist, but pretty far up there.

 

This might've been Brandon's total intention all along, but the Imp sleeper-agent lady in that issue was kinda ugly, in a "why-on-earth-would-BoShek-hit-that?" type of way -- she had a fat ass, and nasty-looking pepperonis.

 

Good first choice, rogue.

I'm not really that big a fan of Ching. His art to me just looks a little too messy, a little too sloppy. I'm not seeing the great poses, the fantastic detail of Duursema, nor am I getting the gorgeous photorealism of Wheatley. Maybe I expect too much of my comics, but Ching's art for Republic (the only place I've seen it) doesn't grab me. I really don't care for his poor likenesses of the mains, and especially not the marks he feels the need to put all over their faces like it makes them look haggard or something.

Occasionally, in places in Obsession, like that first swoop sequence, he gets a sort of impressionistic effect going that I like. Otherwise it just seems meh.

Now, I've seen a little of KOTOR, and that looks much better. Heck, it doesn't even look like the same artist. I'm looking forward to the TPB so I can really get into that, and the art doesn't look like it will be a problem as it was in CW 2, 3, and 7. With KOTOR, he may very well have entered the ranks of top-flight SW artists.

 

Yeah I like chiang or whatever his fricking name might be. But I like Dough Wheatley more. He uses much more detail than chiang. Just take a look at Starwars republic 79/80 and purge. There's so much more detail in the characters. And while you're at it take a look at the free comic book day preview.

 

Brian Ching's work is generally very good. I like the way that he styles characters so you can tell who they are yet they are distinctivly Ching. I like how his art seems kind of gritty. And he does a great job with armor both with clones and Darth Vader.

But I have two pet peeves with his artwork. The first is that his version of Durge is different from the other versions. The second are his Bothans. I hate the long faced Bothans and his drive me crazy. Maybe I wouldn't have that much of a problem with it, but with Gavin and Asyr I think authors should make them look less like humanoid camels.

 

Seconded.

 

Is it really that hard to spell my name? Just 5 letters

BTW,I'm with you, I like Doug Wheatley a lot more as well. Honestly, Doug is an awesome artist that I look up to and I think he has influenced me a little bit with my work on KOTOR.

To the people who like my art-- THANKS!

To the people who don't-- thanks for being gentle.

As for the way I draw Bothans-- it has to do with the ref I was given, it's from the Essential Guide to Alien Species, pg 16-- my first time ever seeing Bothans.

Also, I wanted to clear some things up. My work on Republic was inked. My work on Obsession was the beginning of pencils only, no inks. The scans of my drawings are supposed to be cleaned up digitally by either the production department or by the colorist. Unfortunately, this never happened and we got a very sketchy look that none of us really liked. My work on KOTOR is how Obsession should have looked. I am still working in pencils only but now I scan and correct everything myself before it reaches our colorist, Mike Atiyeh. You can see some behind-the-scenes type stuff of KOTOR on my blog.

Thanks,

Brian Ching

 

Ooh, the big man is here (BTW, if he is the big man, how come dude doesn't have colors?)! Thanks for dropping in.


(BTW, I'm really looking forward to KOTOR when it comes to TPB time)