How did you become an artist? 

For as long as I can remember I have loved drawing/art - and when I first saw comic books it was all over - I knew that was what I wanted to do. After high school, I enrolled in University and earned a Bachelors Degree in Illustration. After that I worked various freelance illustration and graphic design gigs until I started gaining some traction in Comic Art.

Most of my professional work has been working as an Inker and as a Colourist on various books and projects. I have recently started getting back into doing complete illustration and digital painting as well.

Colossus from the X-Men - The Pencils and Inks are by Art Adams, Colours by Me

Where do you get inspiration?

Well, Comics are the main source of inspiration for me - I’ve always been a huge fan of the artists that worked on the early image comics titles (Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri etc) and the digital colouring techniques for comics that followed Image’s creation (Colour artists like Marte Gracia, FCO Plascencia and Dave Stewart would rank among my favourites). I am also very inspired by artists like Frank Frazetta and Gerald Brom, I just love the aesthetic they bring to their pieces.

He-Man Image - The Pencils are by Jose Luis, Digital Inking by Me

What’s your hardware setup?

My current set up is a 13” MacBook Air, with a Wacom Intuos Pro Tablet (which I use mainly for working when I’m away from my desk with my laptop) and XP Pen Artist 15” for when I am at my desk.

What do you like best about Clip Studio Paint?

I love CSP for Drawing and Inking. When it comes to lineart it is hands down the best product on the market. I have also recently migrated my colour/painting workflows to CSP and I am really enjoying using it for the majority of my process.

How long does it take you to make a single illustration?

It depends - working in comics is great because the art is often a team effort. The majority of my work, I work with a Penciller, or a Penciller and an Inker to complete the pages or piece. When I am inking, I can generally complete a reasonably complex page in 4-5 hours, when colouring, it is normally around 2-3 hours.

When I am working on a digital painting or illustration as a solo project, I will normally have 6 to 8 hours invested in it before I start looking at it as complete, often it will be a lot more time than that though.

Would you consider Clip Studio Paint an industry tool?

Most definitely - I would go as far as to say it is pretty much a comic industry standard for ink work, it is definitely picking up steam in the pro-comic colourist circles too. It has, of course, long been established with Manga artists - I think us western comic artists are just catching on now.

Would you like to promote some recent project?

 

I don’t really have anything I can pug right now (NDA’s etc..)

Boba Fett - Pencils are by Lee Kohse, Inks by Michael Babinski, Colours by Me

Where can we follow your work?

You can catch me on

Artstation - https://www.artstation.com/mattjames
Twitter - @snakebitstudio
And of course, Instagram - @snakebitartstudio

*** Matt is doing a #Giveaway with us! Reach his post on Instagram, follow him, follow @graphixly and leave a comment. Winners of Clip Studio Paint Pro will be announced on January 25, good luck! ***