Need and honest answer on this artist Mark Ninness

Met this bloke not to long back and fell in love with his work. His A5 work is amazing and I think he has a lot of talent in his sketch cards. I have given him all the contacts I know about getting into the business and I really hope submits his work. But I would love to hear what you guys think.

What do you guys think?

Some of his A5 work. As I said I think he will make it big if he can get himself out there

I definitely think he should give it a shot with sketch cards. To be honest from what I've seen/heard it's tough to get onto Cryptozoic and Rittenhouse sets. It can take several tries, if you get onto a set at all. They have rejected some artists that are in my opinion very talented. So would probably advise him to try Upper Deck and Topps sets along with all the Independent card company sketch sets (Viceroy etc) first to build up a bit of a portfolio before applying for the bigger companies. Upper Deck doesn't exactly have a good reputation when it comes to their contracts with artists, but at least it's a start and he can get his name out there.

They look better than some of the crud sketches I've pulled over the years.

Nice work. I really like the Deadpool and Harley Quinn stuff. I would suggest to him to try and do as many PSC sketches as he can advertising through here and over on BO also. He would probably have to start his rates pretty low though ($10 a sketch) to build more of a name for himself first, as even some of the bigger sketch artists don't charge a lot - Tim Proctor for example only charges $20 and his work is amazing (he does have a long wait list though!). I would suggest he tries and pickups up a bunch of decoys from packs to try and practice on and maybe do his PSC work on (if he goes that route) rather than just thin paper. I know a couple places in America make personalised sketch blanks for artists to do PSC work on (no idea of their cost though). I would definitely look at getting a PSC if the price is right (like I say I really like the Deadpool and Harley Quinn sketches).

One little piece of constructive criticism I have is work on facial features / detail. Others might (will probably! ) disagree with me here but if the face is not right for me on the sketch I will not look at buying that sketch / piece of artwork. I know this is probably the hardest part of the sketches, getting the face details / features right, but I am quite off put if the face looks very similar throughout different characters.

Also just to add to doing work for some of these bigger companies, I have seen many posts around about how bad some of these companies are to work for (not sending out their required AP's, not paying the artists on time and simply not paying the artists at all!) so be a little cautious if he does get in with one (or more!) of these companies. Also by the sounds of some of the complaints, he should not expect to receive a lot of payment for these sketches (some as little as $1-$2 a sketch!).

At least as good as some of mine I've pulled. That being said, he might want to do more in the vein of the Flash with backgrounds etc as his display samples - the more detail the better I reckon especially if he wants to seperate his work from others ...

Maybe he should put this best stuff up on Facebook or something and follow a lot of current artists/companies to try and get some return interest in his work ? As Cat said, the smaller companies might be easier to get in to..like Viceroy, Breygent, Perna Studios etc

His stuff is fine but he needs backgrounds or action to really make it work. The Supergirl and the Flashes are clearly the best. However, he is definitely good with his figures and poses, just needs a little more 'comic-like' to work well.

Also, if he is applying to the companies, he needs to do their licenses - there is no point in providing comics characters as a portfolio for Star Wars. Rittenhouse have a clear application process (on the front page of their website) so is probably a good place to start. The others are less clear. Final point, he needs to hang out at the Scoundrel Art forum to find out what is happening and how to do things and also to get a reputation going.