Artist Feature: John Staub - Concept Artist

Here we are again with another creator feature, this time with the artist who honestly inspired this entire concept for an article. We featured his Medieval DC Trinity pieces on the site for our final edition of Art Friday and I liked them so much I had to track down the man responsible. I didn't know much about him until reading the interview so I won't introduce him too much right now, but I will say that John Staub is a hell of an illustrator and that you should check out his work at any of these fine sites: Dustsplat BloggerDustsplat DeviantArt or CGHub. CB) Your Medieval DC pieces really caught my attention and I'm sure they're very popular on the web. What was the inspiration for the pieces and why did you pick the DC Trinity?

JS) The original purpose of the pieces was to to see what i could do with the designs of these iconic characters. A preconceived notion of these characters are already embedded in peoples minds and i wanted to try and capture that feeling when they think of these characters but in a different design that fit the era and world i wanted to place them in.

CB) What's your background with art? Are you self taught or did you attend a school?

JS) I attended the Academy of Art in san francisco majoring in illustration.

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CB) I'm guessing that you use a computer program for your art, if so what do you use?

JS) For programs I mainly use photoshop.

CB) Follow up to that one, do you do any hand drawings or do you find that its a faster process to go straight to the computer?

JS) When im at home doing my own work or sketching for myself i prefer hand drawing. When i'm at work however, i work straight on the computer because its just faster and more in tuned with the company's work flow.

CB) When you're not making awesome DC pics, what do you do?

JS) I work as a full time concept artist and i also work on a bunch of personal art related projects at home.

CB) Where do you see yourself taking your art?

JS) Hmm, that's a big one. i just try to keep working and keep my options open and see where the opportunities i receive take me.

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CB) What's your history with comics? Do you currently read any titles?

JS) Back in the late 90's and early 2000, I bought read a lot of comics. However it became difficult to keep up with all the story arcs and multiverses that became established, so now i just tend to follow and buy comics by artists that i like.

CB) Are there any artists (comic or non-comic) that inspire you or that you use for inspiration?

JS) Too many influences, but recently i have been looking at Iain Mccaig and Carlos Arellano, as well as Ilya Repin and Richard Sschmidt and a whole lot of european comic book artists. When actually working on something however, i try to put away my heroes and try to look to real life as much as possible. -- Again we'd like to thank John for talking to us and allowing us to once again spotlight his incredible pieces. We look forward to seeing more of his work, be it comic inspired or not!