The girl next door
J Scott Campbell produces pin-up art for comic covers and calendars, and with motives as pure as his pin-ups
He’s a Marvel comic cover artist and Adam Hughes’s favourite contemporary pin-up creator, but J Scott Campbell’s pin-up art is infused by the playfulness of his pin-up hero, Gil Elvgren. “I always aim for an approachable quality to my pin up, that adorable ‘girl-next-door’ look that so many of the 60s Playboy models had,” he says.
“As I’m becoming older, I’m fascinated by subtleties,” explains J Scott. “It represents a level of sophistication I’m pursuing, and that really lends itself to drawing women.”
Not surprisingly for a comic artist, this all has to do with character, with story. “The best pin-up artists are not only the ones who are more subtle, but who know how to build a story, who can hint to the reader that there’s a bit of depth to their woman,” says the illustrator. “It makes her all the more intriguing and attractive to the audience.”