Jim Lee (DC Comics Artist/Editor) Draws Son Gokuu.

[JulieYBM]

Jim Lee of DC Comics fame has drawn some fan art of Son Gokuu!



I like some of the shading on the dark parts of his clothing, but the flat, eye-level angle makes the body language look awkward. Additionally, the hair is too stiff, it has that Yamamuro Tadayoshi problem of looking like Lego hair. >_<

[Kunzait_83]

Whoa! My worlds, they are colliding.

[Apollo Fungus]

I like some of the shading on the dark parts of his clothing, but the flat, eye-level angle makes the body language look awkward. Additionally, the hair is too stiff, it has that Yamamuro Tadayoshi problem of looking like Lego hair. >_<

Agreed. Hell, I'd argue the hair is worse than anything Yamamuro's ever drawn in that regard. At least his hair looks like it's one complete do, whereas this looks too much like two different bits of hair clumped together like in a Mr Potato Head-esque manner.

I hate being negative, especially when I'm discussing this in response to the guy posting fan-art of all things, but I can't stand Jim Lee as an artist. To me, he epitomizes the worst in modern superhero comic artwork with his obsession to minute detail, at the expense of any inspiring imagery. Yes, it can be impressive how much detail he puts into even the smallest of things, but I feel like it has the two-fold effect of making the art too busy to find anything appreciate other than the baffling amount of lines, and the implication that all this detail is covering up for the fact that the artwork, when you get down to it, isn't much more than functional. The composition is okay, most of the details are correct, but I can't help but see it as the comic book equivalent of those overly detailed, but otherwise unremarkable toys designed by Tetsuya Nomura.

This isn't to say that intricately detailed art is inherently bad; any movement or artstyle in visual mediums has the potential to create gorgeous, inspiring pieces (e.g. though the imagery is often nightmarishly horrifying, Junji Ito's work is a prime example of how beautiful detailed visuals can be). But I feel like Lee's art doesn't use that detail to its benefit, and that he's otherwise a rather mediocre artist. Granted, this is entirely a subjective opinion, and I'll admit that I'm the kind of guy to find much more beauty in comparatively simpler artwork (for some examples, this, or this, or hell, even this [VAGUELY NSFW]), but I just don't see what's so great about his artwork. And I hate that.

I want to look at this fanart and think "Aw, man! That's so cool!" in the same way I do when I look at just about any other piece of fanart, but I can't.

[FoolsGil]

Makes me wish Marvel or DC could borrow the series from Toei, do a limited issue run. I sure would love to see Goku in a professional job by a western company, instead of just fan art.

[ekrolo2]

I'd love to see Toriyama draw Superman.

[Kanassa]

His face seems off to me...

[sintzu]

His face seems off to me...

Jim Lee is one of my favorite artists but you have a good point, the face is very off to say the least. It's just a quick thing for fun so if given a chance to do a real work I'm sure he'd do a better job with it.

Makes me wish Marvel or DC could borrow the series from Toei, do a limited issue run. I sure would love to see Goku in a professional job by a western company, instead of just fan art.

DB's companies would be able to make so much $$$ doing that, same goes with other series. They could try limited runs with multiple companies to see what works best and once that's figured out the winner can make more stories.

[Luso Saiyan]

This was live streamed, apparently. One thing I noted was that Jim Lee, in his ignorance regarding Dragon Ball, actually pronounced Saiyan correctly at the beginning, only for the people that follow the franchise to advise him with the wrong pronounciation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWGsSvh_YeM

[Makaioshin]

Makes me wish Marvel or DC could borrow the series from Toei, do a limited issue run. I sure would love to see Goku in a professional job by a western company, instead of just fan art.

It would have to be Shueisha not Toei. I remember Jason Thompson mentioned that DC was slightly interested in something like that but Shueisha shot them down saying DB has to involve Toriyama. That stance seems to be changing a bit with the Dragon Room but I think they would rightfully hesitant still given the last time the west adapted the series.

I'd love to see Toriyama draw Superman.

It's been done.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[DragonBallFoodie]

Not bad, Mr. Lee.

His face seems off to me...

Yes, it's more realistic and less of Toriyama's unique cartoonish style.

I'd love to see Toriyama draw Superman.

We'd get something like this.

[Apollo Fungus]

Er, lads? Toriyama did draw Superman. Look:



Well, S(o)uperman, at any rate. (Damn you Kanzenshuu and oddly resizing the image!)

[Chuquita]

It looks like one artist drew the body and another drew the head. Yikes. What reference material did he use for this? And if he didn't use a reference at all (though I can't imagine why you would not use a reference if it's a character you've never drawn before) at least use the knowledge you already have of how hair works. I don't follow DC or Marvel, but surely there's someone in that gigantic library of characters with upward-facing flowy hair.The body looks good, real superhero-like, but the eyes and hair look like a plastic Halloween mask.

I'm reminded of:

[Luso Saiyan]

Watch the video, guys. It was done live, on the fly. He explains that he tried to put a bit of his own style into it, and he left the face for last because he wasn't sure how he was going to approach it.

For what it is, it looks pretty good.

[Chuquita]

I didn't know any of that. There's a live video?
That does explain the hair.

I still like the body a lot better than I do the face, but at least now I understand why it looks the way it does.

[Jackalope89]

Eh, certainly not the artist I would go with.

Liam Sharp would be an artist I wouldn't mind seeing tackle the Dragon Ball franchise.

Here's what his most recent run, Batman and Wonder Woman: The Brave and The Bold looks like.

[FoolsGil]

Suppaman is a clear parody. Let's see Toriyama drawing Superman with reverence. Like he did when he drew Naruto

[Kunzait_83]

Agreed. Hell, I'd argue the hair is worse than anything Yamamuro's ever drawn in that regard. At least his hair looks like it's one complete do, whereas this looks too much like two different bits of hair clumped together like in a Mr Potato Head-esque manner.

I hate being negative, especially when I'm discussing this in response to the guy posting fan-art of all things, but I can't stand Jim Lee as an artist. To me, he epitomizes the worst in modern superhero comic artwork with his obsession to minute detail, at the expense of any inspiring imagery. Yes, it can be impressive how much detail he puts into even the smallest of things, but I feel like it has the two-fold effect of making the art too busy to find anything appreciate other than the baffling amount of lines, and the implication that all this detail is covering up for the fact that the artwork, when you get down to it, isn't much more than functional. The composition is okay, most of the details are correct, but I can't help but see it as the comic book equivalent of those overly detailed, but otherwise unremarkable toys designed by Tetsuya Nomura.

This isn't to say that intricately detailed art is inherently bad; any movement or artstyle in visual mediums has the potential to create gorgeous, inspiring pieces (e.g. though the imagery is often nightmarishly horrifying, Junji Ito's work is a prime example of how beautiful detailed visuals can be). But I feel like Lee's art doesn't use that detail to its benefit, and that he's otherwise a rather mediocre artist. Granted, this is entirely a subjective opinion, and I'll admit that I'm the kind of guy to find much more beauty in comparatively simpler artwork (for some examples, this, or this, or hell, even this [VAGUELY NSFW]), but I just don't see what's so great about his artwork. And I hate that.

I want to look at this fanart and think "Aw, man! That's so cool!" in the same way I do when I look at just about any other piece of fanart, but I can't.

I don't even know where to start on this one, except that I vehemently disagree with almost every single part of it (save for the fact that Lee's Goku piece here is fairly underwhelming: but that's mostly due to the face and the hair, which suffer from Lee trying to adapt Toriyama's distinctive facial/hair style into his own, when really he'd have probably just been better off drawing Goku in his own style full stop: the rest of the body and background are perfectly fine).

First of all, and I only recently touched on this in another thread: but by and large I tend to be on the EXACT opposing flipside of the "detail vs "simple" spectrum than the overwhelming majority of this entire community (which overwhelmingly favors simplicity, which generally equates to "cartoonish"). I err tremendously more on the side of detail, while being more than fully aware of the possible pitfalls of detail and some of the virtues of simplicity.

Obviously I think that a lot of this boils down to raw subjectivity, but I also think there's an element (at times anyway) of limited experience and confirmation bias as well: I've found in a broad sense that a lot of folks who tend to prefer more cartoon-like simplicity over more "realistic" detail in many cases seem to find themselves exposed mostly to some of the worst, or most overly flogged to death strawmen examples of poorly executed detailed art (since Western superhero comics came up here, Rob Liefeld is probably one of the go-to patron saints of internet commentators flocking en masse to one of the worst possible examples of an artist who relies on detail to cover for lack of skill in other areas, while in the process moving focus away from countless more phenomenal examples, like Arthur Adams or Barry Windsor-Smith) without really exploring other (and far less meme-ified) artists more thoroughly outside the realms of their own preferred tastes (note that I'm not necessarily accusing Apollo of doing this mind you, since I don't really know him at all; this is more just a general thing I've noticed in a lot of other folks with similar views whenever I've gotten into these kinds of discussions over the years).

As far as Jim Lee in particular goes: I'll say up front, I'm FAR more a fan of his from his earlier Marvel days than I am his later DC years. Largely because I generally prefer Marvel over DC overall (in terms of comics that is) and also specifically because I ESPECIALLY am not fond of the era of DC into which Lee became involved with the company in the first place, and I think that over time his later work has indeed suffered (to some degree or other) the more time he's spent over at DC.

As just an overall artist though, I'd be lying if I said that Jim Lee wasn't one of my go-to most all time influential favorites, someone who had a MASSIVE impact on how I view not just comics but also hand drawn art in general. It goes to something VERY much raw and primal at the core of how I look at art and what speaks to me, hence how I noted that a lot of this comes down to raw subjectivity in the end. But I'll try my best to explain further as I go through and respond to some of the individual broader points about art that Apollo made.

First of all, I think the idea Apollo raised that an artist making heavy use of detail creates some sort of "implication" that he's covering up for deficiencies in other areas is a totally made-up one, and yes, I do think in a lot of these sorts of internet discussions this stems from a particular "bias" against more detailed art that has been slowly, steadily building up as a consensus in a great many online forums and fandoms for various comic book or animated properties. As I said before, obviously there are artists out there to whom this notion of using of detail to cover for other deficiencies is indeed accurate: but I would say that that in NO way constitutes anywhere near a majority of professional artists out there, who generally used detail to incredible, stirring effect (fan artists however are a whole other matter). Certainly its not to where it should become this built-in, automatic knee-jerk response toward seeing and kind of heavily detailed art crop up.

Imagine looking at a Kent Williams piece for example, and instead of one's first initial response being struck by the incredibly vivid and achingly human depictions of his (often tortured) figures, one's immediate response instead would be to question and second-guess the artists' (abundantly obvious) skill simply due to the fact that they naturally gravitate to a heavy use of realism and detail in their figures. To me this is just mind-bogglingly, not to mention senselessly, reductive thinking and an astoundingly backwards view of art in general.

But getting back to Lee specifically: if I had to sum up Lee's art style in a word, it'd probably be "idealized". And that makes sense and is fitting, since the superhero genre is, by its very core nature, one of idealization. Lee's particular vision of idealized figures though is definitely one that spoke to me very early on, and has continued to stir something incredibly visceral within me throughout most of all these years. There's an aesthetic of raw, elegant, almost effortless sexiness and virility to both his male and female figures alike, but not without a sense of discernible grit and rough edges; there's also an excellent sense of emotional authenticity - as well as subtlety - to how his characters' faces are shown to register pain, pleasure, joy, wry slyness, anger, sorrow/grief, surprise, sensuality, fear, and charisma.

Spoiler:

Few characters exhibit this more in his art than Gambit, a character that he co-created and was the first to draw and design. A lot of later-comic fans have questioned Gambit's entire purpose and viability as a character, but everything that was ever fun, cool, and enticing about Gambit as a personality can easily be seen in Lee's many early renderings of the character as the embodiment of this particular kind of sleazy, greasy roguishness that manages to be endlessly affable and charming at the same time and in the same breath.

And as far as any lack of ability in Lee's art to evoke "inspiring imagery"... Lee has crafted some of the most enduring and iconic moments and scenes in all of X-Men history, to say nothing of some of the all time most breathtaking action sequences in all of superhero comics history, bar none.

Spoiler:

This also extends even outside of X-Men to a certain iconic and immediately recognizable shot of another major Marvel character:



Is all this to say that I find Lee to be the all time greatest Western comics artist there ever was? Oh certainly not or nowhere close to it: in many ways he's an obvious student of Arthur Adams, and Adams alone is an artist I'd put well above Lee overall, to say nothing of COUNTLESS other great artists who've worked in just the superhero genre alone. But without question Lee is certainly an artist who's had a VERY sizable impact on both myself, and on Western comics overall throughout the years (certainly across my lifetime), and contrary to what a lot of fans have tried to argue in the last 15 years, I wouldn't call that impact an entirely (or even largely) negative one by any means whatsoever.

If nothing else, Lee's art DAMN sure doesn't warrant even the flimsiest comparison with a godawful hack like Tetsuya Nomura: apart from resembling Lee's classy, handsome figures in utterly NO way even remotely, Nomura's an artist who genuinely has a tacky, hideously gaudy sense of aesthetic and design that I cannot even begin to fathom being held up as resembling Lee's work in this or any other sphere of reality.

Hell if there's any Final Fantasy-related artist that Lee, on some rare occasions, bears a some slight resemblance to, its probably Amano.



And lastly: I don't mean to slag on personal taste here, but come on man: you're telling me you find more inherent beauty in something like THIS over something like THIS? Come on: I know taste is subjective and all, but I find it INCREDIBLY hard to defend this one.

[JulieYBM]

Lee made a pretty poor political calculation drawing and releasing this on the fly, I think. It's poorly composed and with his general unfamiliarity with the character (or even the exploits of other artists with the character) I think he really did little more than make himself look the amateur. Those arms and those legs just send me into a tizzy.

From what I can remember reading of Lee's work (which is just a piece or two of his modern DC stuff) I'm not impressed. I think he'd do well to pare down his art until he learned a better take on body language and drawing characters to no look stiff. One of the masters with regards to that is muh boy Tate Naoki. The general outline of the characters should have a good flow so that their postures look natural and loose.


[spoiler]






[/spoiler]

[Kunzait_83]

From what I can remember reading of Lee's work (which is just a piece or two of his modern DC stuff) I'm not impressed. I think he'd do well to pare down his art until he learned a better take on body language and drawing characters to no look stiff.

Then you haven't really dug into Lee's work (certainly not his best or the stuff that made him into a major name artist) and don't have very much in the way of any real substance to back up your appraisal. Glancing at a couple of his recent DC drawings in NO way gets even within lightyears of seeing the full breadth of what it was that had built Lee's career into the industry legend that it's been for the better part of the last 30-something years.

That Goku drawing is far from great (for obvious reasons that have been well noted here), but calling a guy of his (VERY well known and documented) caliber and raw talent within the Western comics industry an "amateur" is just... thuddingly ignorant. On FAR too many levels for me to go into with any brevity. This was the same guy who, back in the late 80s, blew the minds of some of Marvel's most legendary 1960s and 70s-era talents (including Steve Ditko himself) by drawing a flawlessly rendered sketch of Psylocke within moments... completely freehand, and with a marker rather than a pencil.

What happened here was he tried to adapt to another (MARKEDLY different) artist's distinctive style rather than put his own stamp on the character, and the results turned out fairly bleh. Hardly surprising, given how IMMENSELY Lee and Toriyama's art styles clash and share so little in the way of common ground between them.

Also noting the unbelievably priceless irony that Sabertooth in those last few screencaps of yours is wearing the immediately recognizable and iconic costume that Lee himself designed for that character in the first place, as your using the clip as an example of "how characters should be drawn" to contrast against Lee. While Lee didn't originally create Sabertooth, he CERTAINLY indeed created his most well known appearance and is probably one of THE artists who singlehandedly defined the character's visual portrayal that virtually ALL his subsequent appearances throughout all media across the decades would draw directly from. Up to, and including that clip you posted there.

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Basically you just used a character that this particular artist had an INCREDIBLY LARGE HAND in helping to develop as a model to effectively demonstrate how this character "should" be drawn in contrast with the work of the guy who helped develop him in the first place.

[Blondiebear_17]

It's pretty scary looking to me. He looks so bulky and unattractive almost like the Hulk or the Thing. Doesn't really look human to me.