Going through my laptop folders I suddenly came across a long lost favourite artist of mine: Justin Cherry (better known as Nivbed). I feel a little bad that I forgot about him in my planned favourite artist posts and now that I think about it there’s probably a few I’ve missed ^^;;. I first discovered Nivbed’s work by chance through another artist’s site back when I was in high school. Since then I’ve always admired his skill and have followed his work for a while.
Nivbed is quite the elusive artist because information about him is hard to come across and he releases finished artwork rarely – sometimes months or years between them. A lot of his old work like the Charlton Mamarlade images have also disappeared over time; a lot being removed particularly after he redesigns his website. Luckily while searching images for this post, I found an archive of his old site and have managed to pull some of older images to share (I will saving the rest of my favourites for safe keeping).
I fell in love with Nivbed’s work at a time when I was getting into drawing and was looking at inspiration. I always feel like I’m transported into another fantasy world and I like the dark undertones as well as the beautiful details in the clothes, weapons and surroundings. I also like how he always draws or composites a light brown paper texture into the background.
You can see his current work on his portfolio website and older items on the archived site (2nd archived site revision with more artwork here). Nivbed also has twitter and tumblr accounts which he seems to update fairly regularly, so it might be worth following them for updates.
Oh wow…… I googled Nivbed because I have a full set of all the MP3s he had uploaded to his site at one time…. kind of a soundtrack to Charlatan Marmalade, I guess? I still love listening to them; like you I also started getting into drawing seriously around that time, and they hold a special place in my heart :3 Thanks for the article and the links! It’s great to see that blast from the past again. Any images I ever saved from artists I liked back then have long since been lost, but somehow the MP3s have lived on in my files for over a decade 😀
I guess he’s never published any form of the story anywhere? It’s such a shame if he hasn’t, it was always so intriguing.
I’ve had very much the same experience as Rebecca! I found out about Nivbed/Justin Cherry roughly 10-15 years ago through Conceptart.org when I started to seriously get into studying to become an artist as well. While his art was influential, his music has held a special place in my mind and heart since then. I too have a full set of MP3s and just recently passed them on to a friend who has since fallen in love with them as well.
I had entirely forgotten his actual name so thanks for the reminder!
Cheers!
I was sufficiently fascinated by the ghost of a story suggested by the Charlatan Marmalade images that I once guessed the url of an unlinked page on his site hosting a long, long written treatment of the whole mythos. Later, when I actually had time to read the rest of it in full, it was gone. But there is a full written version at least… somewhere out there or on Justin Cherry’s hard drive.