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Landing my first gig at Dreamworks Animation, I’ve been surrounded by incredible artists. Every time I walk down the halls I have to stop at at least one of the seven-foot-wide poster of some fantasy landscape. The artists here seem to effortlessly create these enormous displays with incredible ease. Since my arrival at the studio, I’ve started ramping up my Google Reader with many amazing artists, who display their craft on blogs and personal websites. Aside from Google Reader, I’ve started ramping up my “real-world” collection of art books–both instructional and not. One book I recently acquired was from the Modern Master’s series specifically on Bruce Timm, one of my favorite artists.

Modern Masters Volume 3: Bruce Timm

The Modern Masters Series
The Modern Masters Series now features over twenty books focusing on individual artists. I must say loud and clear that although this book is adequately stuffed with many amazing illustrations, this series is not just an art gallery of artistic prints. It is more a quick biography of a person, who happens to be an artist, and as such has artwork throughout the book. I’m not trying to be facetious; Modern Masters is obviously about artists. I’d just like to be clear that those who take little interest in an artist’s training, experience, and entry into the comic industry will find much of this book to be rather, um, wordy. Having said that, practically every page of these books feature at least one of the artist’s drawings and the final chapter usually presents a small but well-chosen selection of the artist’s work. These books were meant to be read, not scanned. Comic fans and aspiring artists should both find this series enlightening and appreciate the art that is presented (and explained). If you care little for such things and just want to geek out at the drawings–nothing wrong with that–Google Images is probably a cheaper place for you to get your fix.

Like all books in the series, Modern Masters starts at the beginning of an artist’s life. Such questions might seem mundane or irrelevant like, “How many siblings do you have? Did they collect comics? Who were your heroes growing up? What did you watch on television (or radio)? How did that affect your career?”. Eric Nolen-Weathington, the author and interviewer, tries to pull out these artists upbringings in great detail so the reader can see at what stages these artists transitioned from mere enthusiast to “master”.

Bruce Timm's take on Princess Leia

Getting to Know Bruce Timm
For those unfamiliar with Bruce Timm, he is one of the more prominent figures in the comic industry as a character designer, writer and producer. His most famous work, in my opinion, is his character design in the Batman Animated Series. I grew up watching this show, which still seems fresh and developed even contrasted against the modern Batman films. In this series, Bruce was involved with much of the design of the characters, which feature very strong shapes, extreme curves, and thick dynamic contour lines. Although Bruce and Paul Dini, another talented artist, have done most of their development in the animated end of the Batman universe, much of their work has transitioned back to the graphic novels. Now very popular characters such as Harley Quinn are attributed to these two professionals.

I’ve heard that no artist has a truely unique style and he/she is really imitating someone previously. While that may or may not be true, Bruce Timm’s style seems to be rarely duplicated by other artists. He’s not ashamed to draw an appendage sharp enough to chop wood. His women have strong hour-glass figures and his men have great variations in stature and build. He is also a master in his use of lighting and coloring. This book sells for only $10 on amazon. If you’re a comic book enthusiast, love art, or appreciate anything about the DC Animated Universe, you’ll want this book.