ALEX NINO, born 1940 in tarlac, philippines, is probably one of the most important comic strip artists of the last thirty years. in his very own style he created numerous comics for DC COMICS, MARVEL COMICS, WARREN PUBLISHING and HEAVY METAL, recently DARK HORSE and BIG ENTERTAINMENT. you can find his complete bio here.
I met alex when I worked on the production design for disney’s MULAN, about 1996. he became a visual development artist at disney for a few years and contributed some incredible designs, influencing the look of MULAN quite a bit. I had a chance to see him work, without any sketch – straight out of his unlimited imagination. quite depressing to see the most beautiful drawings being created effortless by a master. we became good friends, and now, that I live in his native country, the philippines, we met again after a few years. together we gonna give a lecture/talk on feb. 17 in the ST.BENILDE SCHOOL OF DESIGN AND ARTS here in manila.
in the wikipedia-bio about alex they forgot to mention his MULAN work, so – ‘to prove it’, here is some of his work on the film…
© disney enterprises, inc
as of feb.18 – here is a very nice article about this event at st.benilde school of design and arts…
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 40 years I lived and worked in duesseldorf, london, paris, los angeles, manila and tokyo. now I am professor for film-design at the nanyang techn. university in singapore.
Wow! Mr. Nino’s work and attention to detail is really amazing. Make’s me very proud to be a Filipino. Did he use ink washes for the illustrations, Sir?
By the way, I’d like to take this time to thank you for the tips you gave us at the Digital Art Chefs office in Marikina. I’m visiting the blogs of other artists like you suggested, and I find it very helpful and inspiring. I was that crazy dude sitting on the school chair.
from hans -
yes I remember. alex used ink washes as well, but mostly he
worked on either black or grey cardboard with white and black
prismacolor pencils and ink.
What an INCREDIBLE TALENT!!!
So amazing and so individual amongst a sea of set looks and ideas.
Beautiful . . . thank you so much for letting us see a glimpse.
Best,
MAC
Spectacular stuff
I absolutely love Alex Nino’s work! Thank you for posting these. its a real shame there hasn’t been a definitive book produced of his work.
[...] by Alex for Mulan in the background (of which I was definitely enjoying). You can check them out here and here (I wish I could post them here, but I can’t – copyright). Mang Alex also worked on [...]
this is incredible! Thanks for sharing! And I heard you are coming to Singapore! It’ll be nice to meet you when you are here.
from hans -
sure. send me an e-mail
This is why mang Alex is my favorite artist ever! thank you so much for posting this.
I’m speechless… WOW.
Thanks for posting these Hans, I remember when he was drawing these.