Shadow Comes

A week ago I bought a CD collection named The complete Works of Johann Sebastian Bach ( 1685 – 1750). The 172 CD collection presents the entire oeuvre of this genial German composer, generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. However, while reading through the booklet included in this marvelous  music collection, I came upon the following lines:

“  Every generation, every epoch played “its own Bach” to the best of their knowledge, belief, taste and their mental and esthetic horizon, standards which we today should not disparage merely because we boast a broader knowledge. Nor can we expect this plurality, which from a chronological point of view is developing horizontally and dynamically, to come to an end in the future. Hence there never will nor ever can be one solely, eternally valid interpretation of Bach.”

Johann Sebastian Bach

Well, it is not my intention to talk about the music, although it is a very important part of my daily working routine, but I would like to say something about  interpretation.  I have repeatedly heard  people saying – all the essential things, things that really matter in life, have already been invented. The podium has already been, more or less, set up - only the props change and develop…

Anyway, whether we agree with this statement or not, when it comes to the illustration art, and depicting / illustrating already existing books, stories or famous characters, we are inevitably dealing with the interpretation.

Interpretation is a necessity, especially when we take in consideration the stories (the classics) that have properly and vividly articulated a certain phenomenon, or a situation that contains the universal, timeless character. All that is asked from the artist in that particular case is to retold the story by using a symbolic pictorial language that would appeal to the contemporary public and therefore help them to understand the message that is being communicated. In other words, this contemporary pictorial language has to make the connection between the old spectacle and the new spectator possible – to reconnect them.

Besides,  an artist is allowed to emphasize a certain aspect of the story, while at the same time neglecting to a certain degree the other aspects (we call it the artistic freedom (don’t mention it to the art directors…)). His intention to accentuate the elements of the story that are, according to his feeling, closely connected to the essence of the whole, justifies the use of this freedom.   

While working on the Gandalf painting (see the previous post), the thoughts  like, whether Gandalf should wear a gray, a white or a brown and red clothes , were irrelevant because my primary aim was to depict the essence of the wizard's character and his function in the book. I gave Gandalf the red sleeves because he is a dynamic, flamboyant defender of Good, and I thought that a bit of red color would properly stress that side of his character. At the same time, through the use of red color I wanted to bring even more drama and energy into this dynamic composition.  

But, not everyone is able to appreciate the notion of the artistic freedom, when it comes to interpreting the widely known story. For instance, a few years ago a group of Tolkien fans approached me demanding from me to clarify the true character of the creature Gandalf is fighting with on my painting. Was it a Balrog, or was it the creature from the dark waters of the lake in front of the gates of Moria? Somehow I got the feeling that they were not quite happy with my plea for the artistic freedom and the necessity of interpretation.

At the time I was  working on Gandalf, I was also being busy with another picture inspired by The Lord of the Rings book, titled Shadow comes.  I still can remember that summer day back in 1999, when I got the inspiration “punch” while sitting with my wife on the terrace near one of the Amsterdam’s famous channels and sipping a glass of refreshing drink. I asked  my wife for a piece of paper, for she always carried with her a small notebook and a pen, and quickly sketched the rough outlines of the future composition.

Back in my studio, I made a series of sketches, and eventually a developed preliminary drawing came into being. I used this drawing as a guideline for the photo session with one of my best Orc-models, who was always ready to pose for me when the Dark Side had to be depicted.

Shadow comes does not depict any particular moment from the book. It is rather an interpretation of the crucial aspect of the story, the rising of Sauron and coming of the Shadow. From the approaching Shadow the Orcs are launching their attack on the Light, and whatever is in the light, representing it and protecting it.



Shadow Comes, 50 x 70 cm, oil on Masonite, 1999



At the end of the nineties I used quite often the modeling pasta and the painting pasta  in the painting process. The modeling pasta was mostly  used in order to create the rough, rich structure of the stones and rocks. When the surface was dry I applied the subsequent layers of paint and tiny glazes of different color on the top of it.

Gandalf, detail

I used the painting pasta to make the paint more transparent. The shadow parts on both of the paintings were created with the help of the painting pasta. Nowadays I do not use that stuff anymore. Why? - Well, I do not use the modeling pasta because I feel that it makes the painting process a bit too orchestrated, that it takes the aspect of unpredictability, the “chivalrousness” out of the creative process.

As for the painting pasta – in the mean time I learned how to deal with the transparent colors, so the need for the painting pasta gradually “evaporated”.

The Shadow Comes original painting was purchased by an American collector. After he received and framed the picture, I asked him to supply me with a photo of the framed painting. He generously sent me the photo from below. On the left side you can see a painting done by the master Rick Berry - in the middle hangs a brilliantly executed painting of another master, John Jude Palancar. The Shadow comes painting is to the right.

Story behind the picture 3

Mighty Gandalf

While taking  a little rest from writing the demanding Flashback posts, I  am going to tell you the story of my Gandalf painting.

After the completion of the frustrating and literarily painful King Arthur book project at the beginning of 1999 (as mentioned in a previous post), I decided to heal my “wounds” through the work on a few pictures that I wanted to do just to please myself. One of these paintings was Gandalf, that would later on become one of the most important paintings I did until now. After the picture was finished I had the feeling of finally crossing the invisible line and stepping  onto the next level of my artistic development, and by doing so convincing myself that, after all, I am able to make a good painting.

Gandalf painting was first published in Spectrum 7, page 171 -  chapter Unpublished. After that it was used by Verkerke Reproducties and published as a poster. But, the publication of the picture in the Spectrum annual was a turning point. Soon after that, I was approached by a collector, a couple from the US, who were interested in buying the piece. At first I  did not want  to sell the painting because I liked it and wanted to keep it near me for a little longer. Eventually, and after a good portion of thinking and reflecting, I decided to sell the painting. Everything went smooth and well and soon the new owners received the original painting. They were so happy with it that they invited me and my wife for a visit. We accepted and in August 2001 went to the US, for the first time. Also for the first time in my life I was finally able to see the original paintings of my artistic idols and “teachers”. I saw the originals of Norman Rockwell, Frank Frazetta, Howard Pyle, N.C. Whyet and alike and it was a revelation.  

However, the owners of Gandalf painting turned to be extremely kind people and soon we became friends, good friends, friends for Life, I dare say. This friendship enriched our Life in many different ways and we are honestly very grateful  for the opportunity given to us, by the mysterious destiny, for getting to know them.  We visited many beautiful and inspiring places together and even attended the Millennium Philcon – 59th World Science Fiction Convention , held in Philadelphia, where Gandalf got the Judge's Choice Award.

Gandalf, oil on Masonite, 50 x 70 cm, 1999

My wife and I visited our new friends again in 2005, when we attended the firs Spectrum Show at the Society of Illustrators, in New York. The Legend of Steel Bashaw 9 was included in the exhibition.

We saw each other for the third time in 2010, after they convinced me to attend the Illuxcon show. At first I refused because I could not see the point in me shipping many of my paintings over Atlantic Ocean, paying for all the costs, while remembering that my piggy bank was quite meagre at that moment. After all,  my work was pretty unknown to the American public, I thought, and that made the prospects for selling a painting quite insignificant. But, when our friends generously offered to cover almost all our costs, and after the organizers of Illuxcon, also generously, offered me their own Spotlight table at the Showcase Event, (all other tables where already sold out), we decided to accept. The Illuxcon 2010 show turned to be my breakthrough on the US fantasy illustration market and one of the most important and elating events of my entire career.

Some of you who attended the Illuxcon show where able to see Gandal painting “in person”, for it was exhibited on our booth.

So,  after all, and as far as I am concerned,  Gandalf has proven to be  a true wizard, and a great one, indeed! He infused not only my and my wife’s life with true magic, but the lives of other people as well, which is a truly wonder-full thing!!

Flashback 3

Start of the Art career

“In (his book/drama) Faust Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749 – 1832) provides a Prelude on the stage in which the manager who is responsible for the finances talks with a poet-playwright  and  ‘a cheerful person’:  one who is going to be in the audience  and wants a good evening’s entertainment. Three perspectives are developed: theatre (illustration art) as a business; writing (illustrating/painting) as the creation of the ideal; and plays (illustrated books/illustrations/paintings) as a form of entertainment. These characters dispute among themselves without reaching any resolution. They have divergent aspirations that, somehow, have to be contained in a single work. If the play is to succeed it has to turn a profit, has to be enjoyable and (or) stimulating, and yet has to be a vehicle for the more noble ambitions of the poet (artist/illustrator) …” *

When I started my career back in 1981, I was just a boy who did not even dream of the existence of  such questions and dilemmas, let alone to let them resonate in my artistic pursuits. I was a simple, common and relatively shallow teenager (shallowness being one of the trademarks of youth), whose life consisted of going to school, drawing comics, playing football with friends, going after the girls and drinking Coca-Cola.  Such philosophical questions, as those above, had not yet dawned on my Art horizon. The only concerns I had at that time in connection to art, were how to draw things as good and as convincing as possible. The problems of anatomy, proportions, composition, inking, the  balance between black and white; these were the things that caused my headaches.

Detail from unpublished comic

Nowadays the things are different – the questions that penetrate deeper into the art flesh and tend to come closer to the essence and the purpose of art making, are preoccupying me lately and causing a new sorts of headaches.  I know I am not the only one out there who struggles trying to find the balance between those opposing demands within the “business” of Art, especially the illustration art,  as presented in the Prelude to the Goethe’s play. I find this particular dilemma being quite crucial these days, having in mind the current aspirations of the modern (western) neo-liberal, turbo-speedy consumption, profit-leisure seeking society – wherein the instant-fast living-special effects attitude towards Life seem to be prevailing above the time-consuming, hard to reach, noble ideals of the past.

The absence of these kind of heavy thoughts,  and the simplicity of my artistic aspirations, made my life as a fledgling artist clarifying and light, giving the youth’s enthusiasm, joy and elation the free hand.

However, in the eighties Yugoslavia was a kind of “in-between” country. Although geographically and culturally a part of the East Europe, the Balkans, it did not belong to the Eastern Bloc Countries. It was also not a part of the Western Bloc either, but rather an independent country that had connections with both sides, and that was ruled by Tito and the communist party. It had a strong social attitudes, where the individual, the worker,( for it was a land of the proletariat),  was well protected in terms of the social care, education and job. It was generally speaking a safe country (I never had to lock my bike when leaving it on the street, and the door of our house was almost never locked either). All in all, you had a reasonably good life as long as you did not oppose the political system. In this atmosphere of relative freedom, the Art and culture prospered.

Pictures from unpublished comic '90 / '91

The eighties also marked the golden age of the Yugoslav comics. During that period many talented comic artist emerged and matured. After Yugoslavia fell apart in a bloody civil war at the beginning of the nineties, many of these exceptional artists left the country, settled themselves elsewhere and gradually started to work for major European and US comic publishers. More about them in a future post.

A healthy and reliable podium for emerging talent was offered by a few big Yugoslav publishing companies.  One of the best, the most vital and enduring of all was Marketprint, from Novi Sad. Their most famous comic magazine was, and still is, Stripoteka.  The best European and US comics, as well as the comics made by Yugoslav artists, where published in this legendary comic magazine.

As far as I am concerned, my career officially started on June 9, 1981, when the first three strips of my comic series named Krampi was published in Stripoteka, issue 654. This was a marvelous achievement for a boy of less than 16 years of age. My little comic series was being published within the greatest comic magazine in the country, and along with the comics of the legendary US and European comic creators. When that issue of Stripoteka was published,  I was in the seventh heaven! It was as important to me, as the great Goethe’s Faust was important to the Western culture.

Stripoteka, issue 654 - June 9, 1981

For the next 10 years I published a number of short comics, as well in Stripoteka as in the other Marketprint’s comic magazines.



Krampi, the first three strips, 1981



Krampi '81 / '82

Kreker Kid, 1982

Čuvar Istine (Guardian of the Truth), my
first comic drawn in the realistic stile,1983

'84

'84

'84

Esmeralda, 1986

Esmeralda, '86

Esmeralda, '86

Esmeralda, '86

In 1983 Marketprint obtained the rights to produce the licensed Tarzan comic books, that have been previously done by the Spanish. The team of artists and scenario writers was formed that would, in the next 7 years, produce more than 1600 comic pages, about 100 episodes – 16 pages each. In the mid-eighties I too became a member of the Marketprint Tarzan team. Because I studied painting at the Art academy at that time, I had to divide my time between my studies and drawing comics. Therefore I produced only 4 episodes (64 pages and a few cover illustrations).

'88

'86 / '87



'88



'88

'88

'88

'89

'89

'90

'90

In 1991 I started to work on my firs, and the last, full size comic book, Kanoo. The synopsis of the story was written by Sergio Aragones, and I drew the comic for SAF publishing house and agency from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Due to the already mentioned civil war, I did not finish this comic book until 1992, after my arrival to the Netherlands. It contains 44 pages and it has never been published. Kanoo was the last comic I did. After its completion I decided to abandon comic art and to further express my creative urges through illustration and painting. So it happened that, in 1992 one circle had been closed, and the new one had begun.

Pages from Kanoo, '91 / '92

* From the book Love, Life, Goethe – Lessons of the imagination from the Great German Poet, by John Armstrong; except for the inserted words in brackets.