Since he was little, his way of learning to draw comic books was always self-taught. Initially, he was only copying magazines, stories and characters. Later on, he started creating his own scripts and stories. He was always inspired by other artists and using the same techniques. By the time he was 12 years old, he already knew a lot.
“I thought what a distant planet would be like and I began to draw it. I could spend the whole day. Now with technology I can know what a space game looks like, and that helps me on my drawings.
The answer was that I wanted to escape the land, from my teachers, from the daily life of a guy who was burdened with having to study horrible things. Like math. However, over the years I discovered that everything I studied served me well. Math , chemistry. It ‘s incredible «.
Around that age, he would to go to the cinema and draw the most impressive sequences of films. He would recreate micro-spaces in plasticine with all the characters and monsters. Without knowing it, he was learning some things that would later be very helpful in his career: narrating, telling a story fluently and creating sequences.
His talent for drawing, his perseverance and subsequent studies in Industrial Design proved to be very helpful when he later entered the world of comics.
When Juan finished high school, he entered the Faculty of Industrial Design, a branch of Architecture. There, he learnt about ergonomics and how to apply it in everything that he designed.
Everything he learnt enriched his style of drawing. During the two years of Industrial Design studies, he learnt about advanced math, descriptive geometry, physics, hydraulics, technical drawing, etc. He made use of all this knowledge in his comics.
In every mechanical and architectural contraption he made, he tried to provide a rationale for its function and functionality. Paradoxically, the last subject he failed was drawing.
“Suddenly you learn how a machine works, how an internal combustion engine works, why an airplane flies… and what you want is to count things based on that”
He then attended attented School of Arts and Design at National University of Cuyo in Argentina. Later, moved to Europe he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Barcelona.
All these studies greatly influenced Juan’s designs. They helped him materialise his designs with a depth of detail. His drawings always gave a feeling of reality, no matter how fanciful they were.
The references of a young
juan gimenez
Until the age of 15, he was painting only for pleasure. He was fascinated by American magazines like Tommy Futuro (his favorite at that time), Batman Eternal, Superman, and The Lone Ranger.
Other artworks and artists wich inspired him were Argentine magazines like Misterix, Sargento Hugo Pratt and screenwriter Héctor G.Oesterheld, Bull Rocket (his favourite comic book) by Italian Dino Battaglia and Osterheld, and the Argentine artist Solano Lopez.