So, who is Byron Wilkins?
Since you are curious, here’s some background on yours truly, Byron Wilkins.
I was born in southern Illinois on a farm in 1957. In 1969, my family moved to Lombard, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, where I took my first drawing lessons at the local park district. I soon was visiting art supply stores to buy quill pens, India ink and Bristol board to draw comics “like Charles Schulz.” I drew illustrations and cartoons for my high school newspaper, and drew my own Sci-Fi comic strip, but I ended up studying Broadcast Television in college and my art was put on hold.
That is until 2007, when at age 50, I decided to make a career change from video production and started training myself to become a comic strip artist. In 2008 I launched my on-line comic “1977 the Comic” which was based very loosely on my antics in college from 1977-1979. The comic became popular enough to attract attention to my artwork and I started taking on commissions and advertising illustration projects.
My influences come from all of the Saturday Morning Cartoons I watched on TV as a child. My style is often compared to the more serious works of the cartoon studio Hanna-Barbera, like Jonny Quest or Space Ghost. I’m best at telling stories, and I try to weave a story of some kind into every drawing, illustration, or commission that I produce.
I am a digital artist, so I use a WACOM tablet and Clip Studio Paint software on my PC to produce all of my art work. Primarily I produce custom commissions and illustrations as well as attend several comic conventions annually to expand my freelance illustration business.
