Artists I Like: Les Toil

Brian Clarke, aka Les Toil, is a Californian artist I first encountered in the early days of my internet life, c. 2000 or something. I don't know for sure.

What drew me to his work was that he was drawing Toil Girls... big beautiful women. Like for real, really wonderful, beautiful, actual women. He used to (still does?) take commissions from real models to do their Toil Girls portraits. And man, they are grand.

He's also got a boat load of Big Daddy Roth type of vibes going on that I admire, even though, in those days, I didn't know who Roth was. I didn't grow up in that culture and any vibes I got from it were secondary.

This is the portion of the post where someone might discuss Toil's influences. But I have recently realized I suck at doing that. It happened when I heard someone say that "Magenta Mountain" by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard sounded a lot like the Flaming Lips. As soon as they said it, I heard it. But if they hadn't said it I never would have thought of that. Even though it kind of feels obvious.

I'm the same with a lot of visual art. Of course Toil has influences, one of them being the late great Duane Bryers. But who else influenced Toil? Is he into fantasy artists like Boris Vallejo? Does he love some Robert Williams? I bet he likes some Coop. I'm not sure. I could probably research it and find out. Or just go to Facebook and ask him directly. But I'm pretty shy and I likely won't do that.

Anyway... let's wrap this up. Go check out some Les Toil art, even the fun animal stuff if you're not into the lovely ladies.