Collection: Marko Djurdjevic Artist Biography and Art Gallery Collection

Marko Djurdjevic is a German illustrator and concept artist, best known for his character designs. He was born January 23, 1979 in Koblenz, West Germany. He has produced a large body of cover art, as well as promotional designs, character concepts, and interior artwork. As a child he exhibited a talent for drawing, inspired by cartoons such as He-Man.  When he was 11, he discovered Burne Hogarth's book Dynamic Anatomy, a major turning point in his self education. Studying the guide for two years, Djurdjevic then put the book away and began to add a layer of realism to his drawings. He used what he learned from Hogarth as a foundation, while at the same time pulling ideas from his everyday life observations. As a teenager, Marko Djurdjevic became influenced by American comic books such as Spider-Man, a foreshadowing of his later career as a Marvel Comics illustrator. He rejected the comic style of drawing a couple of years later, citing it as "too stylized" and "exaggerated", which was contrary to his training early on. At the age of 17, Marko began working professionally as an illustrator. Upon the urging of a friend, Marko Djurdjevic recreated 18 characters from a long time favorite series of theirs, the X-Men.

Marko Djurdjevic finished the drawings in a mere three days, and posted them on the conceptart.org forums. The quality of his illustrations needed no explanation beyond that which was obvious at first glance: the sleekly stylized figure work, his masterful command of colors, and the layers and subtext that formed an essential part of his vision. The response was huge, and Marko Djurdjevic was immediately flooded with fan and hate mail over the creations. The designs increased his popularity online, and the characters were eventually discovered by an editor working at Marvel Comics, who contacted Djurdjevic and offered him an exclusive contract to produce illustrations for some of their title's covers. He accepted the offer after producing a test cover for the series X-23. Marvel then offered Marko Djurdjevic the opportunity to draw covers for some of their popular series, like Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Thor. At the end of 2006, Massive Black released the DVD Character Ideation. This event cemented him as a world-renowned artist. At FanExpo Canada 2011, he announced that his exclusivity with Marvel had ended. The artwork of Marko Djurdjevic is currently credited in 465 separate comic book issues.