Nelson Alexander (Alex) Ross is a notable American illustrator, plotter and comic book painter. He has worked for both Marvel Comics and DC Comics since the '90s while also being heavily active creating independent works such as 'Project Superpowers and Astro City' both of which focused on the superhero theme. He has gained great respect and notoriety for his realistic anthropomorphic depictions of classic characters. He is primarily a plotter and cover artist; this is often attributed to the fact his painting style is incredibly time consuming.
Ross initially started out as a storyboard artist and in 1990 his first work was published called Terminator: The Burning Earth. All of his initial work was done with pencils through colouring until 1993 when his first painted superhero assignment was completes; this was the cover of a Superman novel called Superman: Doomsday & Beyond.
It was during this time that Ross met Kurt Beisek and penciller Brent Anderson with whom he went on to create Astro City which continued to explore the superhero theme; Ross painted the covers, help arrange the costumes and the overall look and feel for the collection.
In 1996 he worked on Kingdom Come, a DC Comics limited series with the writer Mark Waid; the series considered the potential future of the DC Universe where characters such as Superman returned from retirement to face a new generation of anti-heroes. It was in this series that saw the inception of Ross' redesigned versions of classic DC characters.
In the early part of the millennium Ross designed and plotted characters for a Marvel limited series Earth X, Universe X and Paradise X. Between 1998 and 2003 with writer Paul Dini he produced work that celebrated the 60th anniversaries of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman as well as specials which featured the Justice League. In August 2005 Ross worked on bi monthly limited series of Justice. After this he worked on Project Superpowers. In 2010 it was announced that he would be the creative director on The Phantom.
Ross' work has not been limited to comic books; he designed a DVD insert for the M Night Shyamalan film Unbreakable and in 2002 he also designed the promotional poster for the Academy Awards. It was in the same year he depicted Spider-man on the front cover of TV Guide, along with four other artists, as a promotional tie in for the release of the film Spider-man with Tobey Maguire. Following on from this for Spider-man 2, he designed 15 paintings for the opening credits depicting key moments from the first film. Ross eventually donated these to be auctioned on eBay for the United Cancer Front.
Ross initially started out as a storyboard artist and in 1990 his first work was published called Terminator: The Burning Earth. All of his initial work was done with pencils through colouring until 1993 when his first painted superhero assignment was completes; this was the cover of a Superman novel called Superman: Doomsday & Beyond.
It was during this time that Ross met Kurt Beisek and penciller Brent Anderson with whom he went on to create Astro City which continued to explore the superhero theme; Ross painted the covers, help arrange the costumes and the overall look and feel for the collection.
In 1996 he worked on Kingdom Come, a DC Comics limited series with the writer Mark Waid; the series considered the potential future of the DC Universe where characters such as Superman returned from retirement to face a new generation of anti-heroes. It was in this series that saw the inception of Ross' redesigned versions of classic DC characters.
In the early part of the millennium Ross designed and plotted characters for a Marvel limited series Earth X, Universe X and Paradise X. Between 1998 and 2003 with writer Paul Dini he produced work that celebrated the 60th anniversaries of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman as well as specials which featured the Justice League. In August 2005 Ross worked on bi monthly limited series of Justice. After this he worked on Project Superpowers. In 2010 it was announced that he would be the creative director on The Phantom.
Ross' work has not been limited to comic books; he designed a DVD insert for the M Night Shyamalan film Unbreakable and in 2002 he also designed the promotional poster for the Academy Awards. It was in the same year he depicted Spider-man on the front cover of TV Guide, along with four other artists, as a promotional tie in for the release of the film Spider-man with Tobey Maguire. Following on from this for Spider-man 2, he designed 15 paintings for the opening credits depicting key moments from the first film. Ross eventually donated these to be auctioned on eBay for the United Cancer Front.
No comments:
Post a Comment