Drawing inspiration from the joy of discovering Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang and revisiting my Robert McGinnis post I bring you the work of Shane Glines.

I discovered the work of Shane Glines several years ago and became an instant fan. The work featured on his website is primarily of the good girl variety and much of it reminds me the noir cover art of McGinnis done 50’s cartoon style.

Much of the art has a very retro feel to it which is not surprising considering Gline’s obvious love of and efforts to draw attention to the illustration efforts of many underappreciated illustrators. Shane Glines hosts a site called Cartoon Retro in which he does just that. Unfortunately the site is now a pay site but if you close the password screen and hit “tour” you can see many of the different illustration types featured on this site.

Gline’s appreciation for the illustrators who have paved the way is one of the many reasons why I like him and his work. There is a fresh, “retro-sexy” feel to Glines work that makes him one of my favorites of this type of cartoon illustration. The Gline Girls have a girl-next-door quality to them that mirrors the feelings I get from Dan DeCarlo’s work on Betty and Veronica.

If Gline’s work looks familar there are a couple of reasons. First you may be familiar with the work of Bruce Timm whose work has been featured on many DC and Marvel comics and animated shows. There is a striking similarity to their work and yet after looking at it for a bit you can see their own unique styles coming through.

(Hellboy)

Glines work may also be familar because he started out doing character design work for Spumco working on one of the best irreverant cartoons of all time: Ren and Stimpy! He also has done character design for the animated shows Batman Beyond, Superman, JLA, and Gotham Girls.

Ultimately I like Shane Glines work because I think it is very well done. The line work is clean and crisp making the work look simple in a way that belies the true skill in this type of illustration. Artists like Glines can take a few curvy lines and bring amazing, fully realized characters to life. Although his finished illustrations are wonderful, his unfinished pencil work is great as well.

(Click for larger image)

I really loved these colored versions of the above pencils:

I hope you enjoyed the fun and talented work of this week’s Friday Favorite: Shane Glines. I just love his work and it seemed very fitting to the recent theme to share it today. The style and content falls into that category of retro-inspired illustration that I really enjoy.

If you go to Glines’ site here you can watch a musical slide show of many of Gline’s other pieces (warning, does contain some nudity and you have to have Quicktime).

Have a wonderful, fun, and…if you’re in Kansas City…sweltering weekend everyone!!!

(Poison Ivy)