ADEL DESIGN Blog

You might recognize some of John Duvengar’s work from recent Weekly Inspiration posts. His Bigfoot illustration is one of my favorite illustrations I have come across lately. John’s attention to strokes and subtle textures give his strong vector shapes character and a slight non-digital feel. John has some great replies to the Anchor Points questions, so read on!

The Chat

Hey John, thanks for chatting with Vectips! To start, could you tell us a little about yourself?

Hi Vectips crew and community. It’s a great pleasure and honor to be part of Anchor Points.
My artist name is John Duvengar, which is an anagram of my real name. I choose it when I decided to quit law to become an artist. It was not an easy decision, but I felt I really had to live my dream. I started working as an illustrator for an economic review where i experienced various technics from traditional paper and ink to digital ones. The vector technic is now my favorite one because it allows me to have an extremely precise control of my trace. The few things that I need to work are: a good tablet, a good computer, a good chair and like to be listening to good music.

If you could magically turn into a Illustrator tool, what tool would it be and why?

My favorite tool is the paintbrush, because it combines the traditional hand gestural and the flexibility of the digital tools.

What’s your favorite Illustrator technique?

There is a lot! But I in particular like the halftones filter from the plugin Phantasm CS. I have lost so much time trying to do perfect halftones into illustrator before it.

Do you use any non-digital tools in your work?

All my designs are a combination of digital and no-digital technics. I always start working with quick and dirty sketches on my moleskine before choosing one of them to make it cleaner in a bigger size. Besides, I always dreamt about making completely non-digital comics one day, but I know it would be a huge challenge. This is my personal Holy Graal.

What are your favorite sources of inspiration?

I always have been very inspired by old comics and cartoons like Popeye, to name only one. I’m also very curious about street art and I began to understand a little more about contemporary art, especially abstract art. I’m currently doing some experiments in this field.