It’s no secret Chris Daughtry is an artist. A musician – that is. What may come as a surprise to some Daughtry fans though, is his art extends beyond music notes.
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After a recent Instagram post from Daughtry, we wanted to investigate his love for comic book art. Turns out – he loves drawing heroes and villains. The American Idol finalist spends his time working on comic book art as hobby whenever he gets the chance. Who knew?
And HERE in full color glory thanks to @sinccolor !!!! #whysoserious #clownprinceofcrime #TheJoker
A photo posted by Chris Daughtry (@chrisdaughtry) on
“I’ve been an artist since I was like five years old way before I had any interest in music at all,” Daughtry told us, exclusively. “Right after I got off of Idol in ’06, I really got back into comic books and realized how bad I was and wanted to hone my skills a little bit!”
What better way to hone your skills than reach out to one of your idols, who is of course an extremely talented comic book artist? “Jim [Lee] was such an influence on me as a kid,” Daughtry said, “Long story short, I sent him a message on MySpace.” That’s right. MySpace. He claims he didn’t even know how to work the premiere social media site at the time, but Daughtry created a profile to try and get in touch with an industry legend.”I wasn’t expecting anything but he called me like ten minutes later. I was like a little school girl yelling down to my wife, ‘Jim Lee’s calling me!’ We became friends and he sort of, unofficially, became my mentor in a way.”
So, with Jim Lee in his ear, Daughtry was able to get better and better at the craft of drawing super heroes. Lee would eventually connect Daughtry to Alex Sinclair and the two would team up a few times to get some color into a few of Daughtry’s creations, including Flash and Wonder Woman pieces.
Sinclair colored the recent Joker portrait featuring Daughtry’s ink work, so that leaves one more piece of the puzzle out – Jamie Johnson, the man who originally penciled it. Daughtry connected with Johnson at San Diego Comic Con this summer. “We hit it off. I had seen that he had posted this warm up sketch of Joker and said, ‘I don’t know why, there’s just something really cool about that and I want to ink it!’” Daughtry explained. “He said, ‘Well, let me tighten it up,’ and I said, ‘Nah, nah, nah! There’s something really cool about it and I just really wanna do my thing with it and see where it goes if you don’t mind!’”
From there, Johnson gave Daughtry total freedom to do with the Joker piece as he pleased. “It took probably a couple months of me going on and off of it. I’d do it while I’m on a plane or in a van traveling to a gig,” Daughtry said of his time with the piece. “I’m always trying to figure out the right brush size and the right line weight and it takes me like two days before I get in a groove.”
He’s never had much interest in drawing full on pages but covers and pin-ups have always interested him. If given the chance to work on any comic book title’s cover, it would be to work on a Justice League book. “Those are all the characters I grew up loving,” he explained.
As for getting any permanent ink – that’s a pretty hard no for Daughtry. He says the specifics of the art which make it so great doesn’t really translate into tattoos. “People always ask me why I don’t have a Batman tattoo,” he said, adding, “There’s a reason why nine-year-old’s can’t get tattoos! I wanted the Bat-Symbol on my chest! As crazy as that sounds, I’m still like, ‘That would actually be pretty cool.’”
When it comes to Daughtry’s career as a comic book artist, let’s hope It’s Not Over. See what I did there?
Check out the progression of the Joker piece in the gallery below. Daughtry’s inking efforts are best seen in the second photo. The first features the pencil work of Jamie Johnson and the third features the coloring of Alex Sinclair.
