If you’ve been lurking the many communities surrounding the hit game Brawl Stars, there is a good chance that you’ve come across some incredible fan art. Today, we’ve got a guest who goes by the name James Doodles. He’s an artist who can be found hanging out in the brawl stars community.
James is a 30 year old artist from Utah who has always been interested in drawing. Ever since he was little, he would jump in and out of drawing. It wasn’t until he broke his leg in 2014 that he had the time to sit down and get serious about his drawing. The road to recovery was a long one, and the time was spent working to hone his talents.
When he isn’t drawing, you can expect him to be doing a session on his skateboard. James has been actively skateboarding for the past 12 years.
GD: You’ve mentioned that you worked on your drawing skills while recovering from a broken leg, and you’ve also mentioned your passion for skateboarding. Are the two incidents related?
James Doodles: Yeah it was pretty lame. I fell into a bowl while skating and ended up spiral fracturing my tibia pretty much right at the knee joint. It took about a year to recover from that but something still felt wrong. I went back to the doctor to get checked out and it turns out my ACL was severed in half the whole time. So I had another surgery and recovery after that.
The healing process sucked. I’m actually still going through to some point. Almost back completely. I’m way better than I was a year ago. I’ve been back on my board for like a year and a half. Sooo happy to be back.
GD: We’ve all been noticing your awesome brawl stars fan art being posted to Reddit and Facebook. Awesome work! What made you decide to draw the characters from Brawl Stars? You’ve already done quite a few of them!
James Doodles: The series’ characters looked really fun to draw. I love Supercell’s character designs. So far I’ve drawn Shelly, Leon, Nita, Bull, and Jessie. I plan on doing all of the characters over time. I may not do them all in a row. I like to draw characters from other games as well.
GD: I love the way you capture the character’s personalities. What is your process for making them look the way they do? How do you pick which brawler to do next? Are you only drawing brawlers that you’ve unlocked?
James Doodles: I’ve been drawing the ones that catch my eye the most. I did one of Leon, but haven’t had to luck to get him for myself. My process is pretty simple. I’ll get a vision that hits me ahead of time, and then I just go with the flow. I feel that the best of my drawings come from this process.
GD: The art style looks really cool! What did you do to get this specific look for your pieces?
James Doodles: I use Copic brand Sketch and Ciao markers. I saw someone’s work a few years back and it blew my mind. I’d never seen traditional art look so vibrant. It was almost as if it was an animation still from a movie. Since then I’ve always wanted to get to that level. So I’m learning. It’s also really fun to color with them. There’s a lot of tricks you can learn to do certain things with shading etc.
GD: What advice would you give to aspiring artists or just anybody who is interested in drawing?
James Doodles: May sound cliche but just draw what you want and how you want regardless of what anyone else thinks. If you think it’s good then that’s all that matters.
Stay up to date with all of James Doodles artwork by subscribing to James Doodles Facebook page. He does a lot of awesome work for more than just Brawl Stars characters.
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