Thank you for sharing all of this, it's really helpful and interesting to see how your process is. On a side note, to me (and judging by the other comments to other people too) you are a living legend! Your art is so distinctive and you've been around for such a long time, it's really cool to see you this active to this day. Can't wait to grab a copy of Full Circle!
Maintaining your individual identity while collaborating on art may best be exemplified when you painted a Wizard cover in '04 from a pencil piece by Jim Lee.
Thank you for your honesty about backgrounds! I hate them too. But when someone as excellent as you says things like that and also comments about how the process can be exhausting, it’s actually very encouraging to aspiring creators like myself. It makes it all seem possible if someone like you is also dealing with these things!
Picked this up last week. The whole book is well designed and printing book quality is excellent. I love your grand vision. Would love to see a black and white version. Truly inspiring!
I remember Alex inking/painting The Thing on a drink and draw and saying that he was trying out a new process for his next book, it's amazing to see how this book came to life now !
I love that Alex Ross challenges himself. A lot of great comic book artists change methods or styles over time, e.g. Mike McMahon started fairly realistic. Now, he's a cubist.
I very much enjoyed the change. I think as artists we have to try new things. outside the norm of whats expected. I started drawinbg on gray paper with white chalk and i love it. its some of my best work. I have tried inking a couple times. and it sucks lol. But i still have a desire to learn it. especially after reading your FF book. You can still retian your style . I loved the work in Thy Kingdom come also. Ink with what looked like colored pencil.
This is insanely good. There’s something beautiful about classic inked comic book pages. I love seeing you use this medium, it feels very exciting and a real labour of love. Thanks for sharing the process. A real inspiration 👍are you doing the colour work on these? Loving the Jack Kirby influences
Alex, your work was truly inspirational to me as a child growing up, and to find your channel as an adult is completely unreal to me. Thank you for this
6:12 Alex, If you ever decided to make your FF models into an action figure set personally overseen by yourself, I'd be the first in line to buy them. 😊
Dude, listening to you describe your process is inspiring to me. It gives me the motivation I need to sketch and do the work that I need to do. Thank you for these introspective moments Alex. And I cannot wait to read full circle when I have the payroll next week to afford it lol.
Actually Alex, I love looking at your drawing. It has the dynamism of your painting, but has a certain reassuring warmth to it. I find it so calming and amazing to look at.
LOVE Chris - his clear and honest views are strong and worthy of note to ALL - but especially the big chiefs who 'run the show' that may well benefit from his absolute clarity and experience.
Your expertise is truly awesome, and your continuing love for the genre is contagious. You've made me fall in love with comics and art all over again. Everything you produce feels like the movies I longed to see as a kid. Only better!
Super excited by this project. I'm not one to say 'instant classic,' but you can really see the love and time that went into every single page. I'm so happy to see Alex stretching himself and doing something different. The love of Kirby and Lee is so evident in every single panel, but it feels so like Alex.
It is beautiful work and it's really exciting to see you going in a different direction. Thank you for not standing still and continuing to push the envelope of what comics can do.
Amazing as always. I got my copy of the book and love the new style. Very inspiring seeing a professional like you chasing new challenges that spark the imagination. Thanks!
This book is....I have to do it....FANTASTIC! This book is part of my top 3 books of the year with Jim Rugg's Hulk Grand Design and Peach Momoko's Demon Wars.
Your work is amazing. I love your style. You should have someone scan your sculpts for this project. Might be worth some money to put the sculpts up on Cults for 3-D printer enthusiasts to printout? I know some Mego fans that would love to have those heads on their Mego figures!
The interesting aspect of his process, to me is the traditional inking. Knowing his process in painting covers, He's done enough studying the legends to add his take on inking fundamentals. Side note: while it's much more convenient to ink digitally, it never beats traditional inking. An indie publisher was showing me traditional inked pages for his new book, scanned in as he was coloring sections in Procreate on the fly. Gorgeous. He left as much of the imperfections in as possible to keep the book from being too synthetic digitally speaking - even though the run will be digitally printed anyways. Alex's new FF book is nothing but amazing and should garner awards next year.
I was introduced to Mr Ross art thanks to a David Finch stream who was working on a mysterious jam piece, Mr Ross drew a beautiful Superman that looked apart from the rest I’m enjoying so much discovering your art Mr Ross it feels like tasting ice cream for the fist time 😂👍
Hey Alex, thanx for the video, greetings from Moore, Texas, you say that everybody first looks at and is more interested in the figures first, not me I really like the backrounds first. Love your work !
I’m reminded of Charlton’s experiments with painted covers in 1974-6. Their (re)production during printing sucked, but with today’s technology would appear awesome!
This is such a fantastic book. I picked up the slipcase version, then decided to pick up the regular for a reader copy. I love seeing these process videos and seeing you do drybrush techniques and how you translate your style to inks. Just curious as to what kind of paper and ink Alex was using on this book? Just wondering if he was able to use the same kind of paper he uses for the gouache work. It's tricky to find a good paper/ink combo today. Big fan of your work!
Artists always need to explore and experiment diferent visions or renderings, if not they could end up doing the same and people would probably left them vanish in the back eventually, almost taking them for granted, so its always good for artists to reinvent themselves and show that theyre not one trick pony. The FF comic looks amazing, respect that those characters deserve.
I draw in pencil (I can't ink to save my life) and I've almost always preferred your pencil sketches to your admittedly amazing paintings. I should note that the Cartoonist Kayfabe UA-cam channel just featured "Full Circle" in a video and they were very impressed with your work on the book. I believe they mentioned liking your pencil work as well. (I'm pretty sure they would like to interview you, if they haven't already done so.)
Having grown up with the likes of Kirby etc drawing the Silver Age books, what I find now when comparing to modern books, is that having less background and less colour actually works better. For me, too much detail and colour can blend everything together too much, whereas less means you can make the main characters and action stand out more. If the main characters and background have a similar range of detail and colour, they look more the same than different and that can blend things together and reduce a lot of the impact. Back then, much of that was due to time constraints and technology, but today, I find modern books lack a lot of the dynamics of the older books, even though technically they are much better.
Saludos Alex Ross maestro del arte y lo fantástico de la imaginación y la creatividad desde Latinoamérica. Ojalá puedas animarte hacer trabajos de los antiguos Reyes Incas y hacer un libro con la gracia de tu fenomenal técnica de pinceladas armoniosas para publicación de algún libro de tapa dura para todo el público en inglés y español. Bendiciones por todos tus logros como dibujante e ilustrador me gusto el trabajo de Monstruos de la Universal para coleccionistas y los Steelbooks . Bendiciones ..............................
Alex , do you know a french artist named Jean Frisano . He has worked in a french Marvel comic book called "Strange ". He has made so many covers , so beautifuls of the Marvel universe . A great artist that i think you really like his works .
One of the things that is sadly lacking in most comics over the last 25 years, ever since image comics became a thing, is storytelling. Most professionals and even knowledgeable amateurs know about Wally woods 22 panels that always work. Or the basic concepts of close-ups versus long shots. But how do you put it together to tell the story? They say that when Picasso was a little boy he did a painting that was so good that his father who is also a painter quit. when Ross collaborated with Marc weed on the Kingdom come series I remember staring at the panels with a magnifying glass. I was amazed at Alex Ross‘s ability to paint light and to do it so effortlessly. I did notice a few things like certain poses that were used for different characters. I could see the photo reference. If there was a sequel to Kingdom come that Ross mentioned in this video and I don’t think it was very good. Not because of the lack of painting but because I could still see that he was using the same photo reference for certain shots. Wow beautifully rendered in his realistic style the characters didn’t seem to interact with each other in the same way that they did in the original kingdom come. I didn’t think the story was that good either but who the hell am I? It was certainly not the same level as the original series. Which brings me to the present. I don’t think I’ve ever seen better storytelling in a comic book than this fantastic four story. I have no idea what the writing is going to be because I haven’t read the book yet I don’t even have copies. But it’s visually stunning in a different way than his normal gouache paintings are. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better version of the thing. Where the anatomy is flawless down to the individual bricks in his skin. It’s really unfair for one person to be so talented, so hard-working and so dedicated to pushing forward.
Some say Tom Cruz is the last true movie star that he's holding Hollywood on his back. I say you are the goat the last true comic artist keep it coming your artwork is a breath of fresh air I have my copy on the way.
![What Level Is Your Art? [Scribble Kibble #39]](/img/n.gif)
Thank you for sharing all of this, it's really helpful and interesting to see how your process is.
On a side note, to me (and judging by the other comments to other people too) you are a living legend! Your art is so distinctive and you've been around for such a long time, it's really cool to see you this active to this day. Can't wait to grab a copy of Full Circle!
This gentleman is inspiration for every comic artist.
Maintaining your individual identity while collaborating on art may best be exemplified when you painted a Wizard cover in '04 from a pencil piece by Jim Lee.
How does the Great Alex Ross only have 86K subscribers? He should be in the millions as far as I am concerned.
As an artist highly inspired by Alex Ross the name dropping is killing me.
I love hearing Alex talk about art process, but I really love it when he digs into the philosophy and history of comic book art.
You're the best. Much love from Egypt ❤
Your art is fantastic. You're a legend my dude
Thank you for your honesty about backgrounds! I hate them too. But when someone as excellent as you says things like that and also comments about how the process can be exhausting, it’s actually very encouraging to aspiring creators like myself. It makes it all seem possible if someone like you is also dealing with these things!
Picked this up last week. The whole book is well designed and printing book quality is excellent. I love your grand vision. Would love to see a black and white version. Truly inspiring!
Alex your art should be on display in art galleries that's how good your art is.
I remember Alex inking/painting The Thing on a drink and draw and saying that he was trying out a new process for his next book, it's amazing to see how this book came to life now !
I love that Alex Ross challenges himself. A lot of great comic book artists change methods or styles over time, e.g. Mike McMahon started fairly realistic. Now, he's a cubist.
Bro dropped the hardest beat of all time at the end 💯💯
I very much enjoyed the change. I think as artists we have to try new things. outside the norm of whats expected. I started drawinbg on gray paper with white chalk and i love it. its some of my best work. I have tried inking a couple times. and it sucks lol. But i still have a desire to learn it. especially after reading your FF book. You can still retian your style . I loved the work in Thy Kingdom come also. Ink with what looked like colored pencil.
I have been a fan of your art since Kingdom Come and Project Superpowers. You're really a legend in comics.
You’ve inspired my wife and I since childhood
This is insanely good. There’s something beautiful about classic inked comic book pages. I love seeing you use this medium, it feels very exciting and a real labour of love. Thanks for sharing the process. A real inspiration 👍are you doing the colour work on these? Loving the Jack Kirby influences
Glad you enjoyed it! The color is done digitally in a process supervised by Alex to capture the look and feel of the classic FF comics.
Alex, your work was truly inspirational to me as a child growing up, and to find your channel as an adult is completely unreal to me. Thank you for this
For what is worth, I love your inking as much as you paintings. In fact is making me inch to go and start drawing. I can just watch this for hours.
The fact you are doing something different is more attractive for me. Fantastic work, no pun intended
6:12 Alex, If you ever decided to make your FF models into an action figure set personally overseen by yourself, I'd be the first in line to buy them. 😊
fast forward to now, prime 1 studio is making an alex ross 1/4 scale superman statue
Colored or Not, your work is AMAZING! Thanks for continuously inspiring us!
Dude, listening to you describe your process is inspiring to me. It gives me the motivation I need to sketch and do the work that I need to do. Thank you for these introspective moments Alex. And I cannot wait to read full circle when I have the payroll next week to afford it lol.
Actually Alex, I love looking at your drawing. It has the dynamism of your painting, but has a certain reassuring warmth to it. I find it so calming and amazing to look at.
I'm buying your book Alex, this is some of the best art i have seen in years!
LOVE Chris - his clear and honest views are strong and worthy of note to ALL - but especially the big chiefs who 'run the show' that may well benefit from his absolute clarity and experience.
Oh yes, Alex, we very much appreciate the inked art. It's absolutely gorgeous!
Your expertise is truly awesome, and your continuing love for the genre is contagious. You've made me fall in love with comics and art all over again. Everything you produce feels like the movies I longed to see as a kid. Only better!
Man those structures in perspective in the background are insane!
Looking forward to my Alex Ross Marvel Mural 2023 Oversized Wall Calendar arriving to beautify my hallway any day now! 🎨👍
Brilliant as always. Thank you for your work, sir.
One of the ink masters!
Super excited by this project. I'm not one to say 'instant classic,' but you can really see the love and time that went into every single page. I'm so happy to see Alex stretching himself and doing something different. The love of Kirby and Lee is so evident in every single panel, but it feels so like Alex.
Full Circle is incredible it was a sincere joy to read and look at... You are the modern master
Always a joy seeing you work Alex.
Please do more work in this style, or other new styles, and more original stories! Full circle is fantastic
The inking in this is amazing. Honestly I prefer it without the color.
It was a surprise to see the work but it was still absolutely amazing. I really loved the colouring as well in this
It is beautiful work and it's really exciting to see you going in a different direction. Thank you for not standing still and continuing to push the envelope of what comics can do.
Pencil and ink is my favorite medium to look at...really enjoying these renderings
Amazing as always. I got my copy of the book and love the new style. Very inspiring seeing a professional like you chasing new challenges that spark the imagination. Thanks!
This book is....I have to do it....FANTASTIC! This book is part of my top 3 books of the year with Jim Rugg's Hulk Grand Design and Peach Momoko's Demon Wars.
I'm loving the inks and the colors. I'm going to have to pick up this Fantastic Four now!
Your work is amazing. I love your style. You should have someone scan your sculpts for this project. Might be worth some money to put the sculpts up on Cults for 3-D printer enthusiasts to printout? I know some Mego fans that would love to have those heads on their Mego figures!
The interesting aspect of his process, to me is the traditional inking. Knowing his process in painting covers, He's done enough studying the legends to add his take on inking fundamentals. Side note: while it's much more convenient to ink digitally, it never beats traditional inking. An indie publisher was showing me traditional inked pages for his new book, scanned in as he was coloring sections in Procreate on the fly. Gorgeous. He left as much of the imperfections in as possible to keep the book from being too synthetic digitally speaking - even though the run will be digitally printed anyways. Alex's new FF book is nothing but amazing and should garner awards next year.
this is incredible. so beautiful, what an inspiration
I'm glad you're making story
I haven't bought a comic book in 30 years. However, I ordered two signed copies of this comic book. Yes, your hard work matters to some people.
I have been loving these videos! Very inspiring. Also the inks on Full Circle were fully appreciated :)
Awesome marvel artwork. I ❤️ all the comic strips and composition too.
I was introduced to Mr Ross art thanks to a David Finch stream who was working on a mysterious jam piece, Mr Ross drew a beautiful Superman that looked apart from the rest I’m enjoying so much discovering your art Mr Ross it feels like tasting ice cream for the fist time 😂👍
Is your Janus the Nega-Man based on Z Man (John LaZar) from the film Beyond The Valley of The Dolls? Absolutely loved this book!
The absolute GOAT!
This FF is both quintessentially Alex Ross and at the same time a remarkable embodiment of Jack Kirby.
Loved the book. Would like to see a black and white edition to paint for fun as a fan
You are one of a kind brother.
Great job Alex!
Hope to see you in the NYCC!
Legendary! Love your vids and how articulate you are about your process.
Thanks for sharing and expressing yourself
I would love a CG animated FF movie that looks like these illustrations come to life.
Hey Alex, thanx for the video, greetings from Moore, Texas, you say that everybody first looks at and is more interested in the figures first, not me I really like the backrounds first. Love your work !
In any method you are wonderful. I love your work, cheers from Brazil.
Three of the most incredible illustrators working today: Alex Ross, Geof Darrow and Kim Jung Gi.
so awesome so cool to hear your thoughts on it all .. looks amazing love it
It's so funny that he does backgrounds last - like a digital artist.
Totally Awesome story of your process of creating. When is this book coming out?
Thank you :)
Are we gonna get an ink version of this awesome book?
Really a Hard WORK!!🥵 Congratulations!!
I’m reminded of Charlton’s experiments with painted covers in 1974-6. Their (re)production during printing sucked, but with today’s technology would appear awesome!
This is such a fantastic book. I picked up the slipcase version, then decided to pick up the regular for a reader copy. I love seeing these process videos and seeing you do drybrush techniques and how you translate your style to inks. Just curious as to what kind of paper and ink Alex was using on this book? Just wondering if he was able to use the same kind of paper he uses for the gouache work. It's tricky to find a good paper/ink combo today. Big fan of your work!
Neal still my icon of how to figure and pose. 😌
Amazing is a small word for your work
Artists always need to explore and experiment diferent visions or renderings, if not they could end up doing the same and people would probably left them vanish in the back eventually, almost taking them for granted, so its always good for artists to reinvent themselves and show that theyre not one trick pony. The FF comic looks amazing, respect that those characters deserve.
I draw in pencil (I can't ink to save my life) and I've almost always preferred your pencil sketches to your admittedly amazing paintings. I should note that the Cartoonist Kayfabe UA-cam channel just featured "Full Circle" in a video and they were very impressed with your work on the book. I believe they mentioned liking your pencil work as well. (I'm pretty sure they would like to interview you, if they haven't already done so.)
2:40 all great illustrators painted, drew and inked. Frazetta, comes to mind. Loomis comes to mind.
This man used his own face for Superman, LEGEND
that panel of Ben Grimm in the rain...
Holy Mackerel!!!
Carravaggio springs to mind...for Me.
I want to buy this comic book! If the story is only half as good as the art, the comic book will still be fantastic ✨🤩✨
Fantastic work! Looks better in black and white. Just my opinion.
Love it!
7:35 Sue's all caked up
Having grown up with the likes of Kirby etc drawing the Silver Age books, what I find now when comparing to modern books, is that having less background and less colour actually works better. For me, too much detail and colour can blend everything together too much, whereas less means you can make the main characters and action stand out more. If the main characters and background have a similar range of detail and colour, they look more the same than different and that can blend things together and reduce a lot of the impact. Back then, much of that was due to time constraints and technology, but today, I find modern books lack a lot of the dynamics of the older books, even though technically they are much better.
Seriously, anything you think looks "nice" is gonna be awesome to us 😁
Alex Ross, Bob Ross. Hey if your last name is Ross pick up a paintbrush cuz you never know lol
Love this book, the art work once is pure truth to the FF world!
Iv gotta try foamboard easel
what book is he talking about at 2:30?
Hey Alex Ross have a good question if you could do anything like with Spider-Man what will you change the suit
Saludos Alex Ross maestro del arte y lo fantástico de la imaginación y la creatividad desde Latinoamérica. Ojalá puedas animarte hacer trabajos de los antiguos Reyes Incas y hacer un libro con la gracia de tu fenomenal técnica de pinceladas armoniosas para publicación de algún libro de tapa dura para todo el público en inglés y español. Bendiciones por todos tus logros como dibujante e ilustrador me gusto el trabajo de Monstruos de la Universal para coleccionistas y los Steelbooks . Bendiciones ..............................
Alex , do you know a french artist named Jean Frisano . He has worked in a french Marvel comic book called "Strange ". He has made so many covers , so beautifuls of the Marvel universe . A great artist that i think you really like his works .
One of the things that is sadly lacking in most comics over the last 25 years, ever since image comics became a thing, is storytelling. Most professionals and even knowledgeable amateurs know about Wally woods 22 panels that always work. Or the basic concepts of close-ups versus long shots. But how do you put it together to tell the story? They say that when Picasso was a little boy he did a painting that was so good that his father who is also a painter quit. when Ross collaborated with Marc weed on the Kingdom come series I remember staring at the panels with a magnifying glass. I was amazed at Alex Ross‘s ability to paint light and to do it so effortlessly. I did notice a few things like certain poses that were used for different characters. I could see the photo reference. If there was a sequel to Kingdom come that Ross mentioned in this video and I don’t think it was very good. Not because of the lack of painting but because I could still see that he was using the same photo reference for certain shots. Wow beautifully rendered in his realistic style the characters didn’t seem to interact with each other in the same way that they did in the original kingdom come. I didn’t think the story was that good either but who the hell am I? It was certainly not the same level as the original series. Which brings me to the present. I don’t think I’ve ever seen better storytelling in a comic book than this fantastic four story. I have no idea what the writing is going to be because I haven’t read the book yet I don’t even have copies. But it’s visually stunning in a different way than his normal gouache paintings are. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better version of the thing. Where the anatomy is flawless down to the individual bricks in his skin. It’s really unfair for one person to be so talented, so hard-working and so dedicated to pushing forward.
genius!!!
How much did Terry Morrow influence your work?
Do a Captain America story in this “style and format” that takes place during KIRBY’s run Please.
The next marvel character dictionary should be drawn by Alex Ross
Some say Tom Cruz is the last true movie star that he's holding Hollywood on his back. I say you are the goat the last true comic artist keep it coming your artwork is a breath of fresh air I have my copy on the way.
Dope 🤙🏾