The POSCA Pen wizardry of Oskunk
One of my favourite artists is Keith Haring. His ability to create art anywhere made his work accessible to anyone. It courted controversy within the art world when he was alive and that only enhanced his appeal to me.
Oskunk offers a similar approach to his art. Based in Paris, the French artist combines video games, Japanese manga, graffiti, and comics to create incredible typographical pieces.
He started out in 2007 after viewing a custom art exhibition and started out by customizing a NES. He uploaded the result online and requests came flooding in. Now, Oskunk prefers paintings using a “tag cloud” aesthetic with comic book style typographic mixed with art from his pool of pop culture inspiration. And he’s mean with a Posca pen too.
But talk is cheap in art. Let’s take a look at a few of Oskunk’s best works.
Customised Wario Gameboy
I’m a sucker for customised Gameboys (I’ve even made some myself). This was the first Oskunk custom design I saw and it’s glorious. He brightened up a beaten-up yellow Gameboy DMG with a cool Wario Posca pen design.
Undead Magneto Pop Figure
Oskunk transformed a plain pop figure into a bright but frightening undead zombie Magneto with the help of his black Posca marker and some brilliant paints. It certainly looks better than the newer X-Men movies.
Calavera Iron Man
This stunning render strips Iron Man down to a monochrome palette with a Mexican calavera design. Can you imagine Antonio Rígido (Tony Stark translated to Spanish) as a luchador?
Lindt Bunny Skeleton
Following on from the macabre theme is this quick custom job on a Lindt bunny. Ever wondered what a Lindt bunny skeleton would look like? Well, now you can. (No bunnies were harmed in the making of this piece and the chocolate bunny does not contain any bones.)
Thanos
This spectacular work uses just six Posca markers on black paper. Thanos’s rendered face is amazing in its use of negative space but the star of the show is the typographical gauntlet, made up of the Marvel heroes’ names.
Create your own art with these tools
Want to try your hand at making great art? These are some of the resources you might need (please note, these are Amazon affiliate links. For more information, please read our Disclaimer page):
- Posca Market 16 Pen Set
- House of Card & Paper A2 220 GSM Card – Black (Pack of 50 Sheets)
- Royal & Langnickel Artist Paint 24 x 12ml Set – Acrylic
- Royal & Langnickel sketching artist pencils – set of 12 drawing pencils 5H to 6B
- Stan Lee’s How to Draw Superheroes