CHENNAI: A set of coincidences guide Loganathan aka Maniam Selvan’s life. Years before the Ponniyin Selvan storm took everybody in, Loganathan was introduced to his father-illustrator TU Subramaniam’s legacy. When the first issue of the novel was published on October 27, 1950, Maniam visited his newborn son with a copy. Carrying forward his father’s legacy by becoming an illustrator was another coincidence. After years of refining his art, last year, when the Tamil film industry announced that Velperi, the historical novel for which he had illustrated, is being adapted into a movie, he was excited — another coincidence.
With all these coincidences that life kept bringing to him, it was his determination and passion that brought life to his craft. Maniam Selvan or Ma.Se (Maniam’s son), talks about his works and journey.
Musings of Maniam
Creativity follows Ma.Se wherever he goes. He finds inspiration from what he reads, watches, and feels. The magazines bought by his father for reference, Disney movies, historical stories, paintings of Norman Rockwell, and places like Ajanta Caves, helped in articulating his passion on canvas. “Even though appa was an artist, he didn’t force me to take up his path. My first memory of illustrating is a work done for the school magazine, recreating an illustration of a painting. I also remember drawing the portrait of Lal Bahadur Shastri,” recollects the illustrator.
After his father’s demise, Ma.Se took to art academically and joined the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Chennai. With a gold medal in Diploma in Fine arts in Commercial Art, he aspired to work in the advertising field. But he quit it after a year, realising that his freedom as an artist was being restricted. Taking up freelancing at the beginning of his career, he struggled to make ends meet but pursued his passion.
“I would like to describe my initial freelancing days as a warm-up period that is necessary for any artist. In the art field, rather than the experience, we get paid according to the work, so I had focussed on improving my work. For three years, my salary was not even Rs 300. What kept me going was the appreciation from the rasikas. I used to work as a part-time photographer, clicking pictures for events and weddings,” says Ma.Se, adding that photography is quite similar to illustration. “As an illustrator, I am solely responsible for my work. I have to sit down, do the research, frame the composition, and enhance the scene with colours. The same thing goes for photography too. With my Asahi Pentax 35 mm camera, I used to click photos whenever I travelled. This also helped me in my artistic work whenever I struggled for inspiration,” he adds.
The artist has contributed to popular Tamil magazines like Amudasurabhi, Ananda Vikatan, Aval Vikatan, Dinamani Kadir, Kalki, Kumudam, Kungumam, and more.
Experimenting and exploring
From experimenting watercolour, graphite pencil, mixed media, acrylics, ink, and pastel work to a combination of different media, he became a versatile artist. “Earlier, it used to be one illustrator per magazine to paint for different stories. We had to try different styles otherwise it would get monotonous. So I experimented with different media,” he says.
Ma.Se believes in changing with the changing times. “Even though I do my groundwork on paper, illustrating the outline and mixing colours, I scan them and work on my iPad for enhancements. Digital tools like airbrushes give me new designs. Rather than sticking to one form, I want to keep evolving.”
Be it the classic movies like Ten Commandments and Ben Hur or the new ones like Soul, Ma.Se also watches all kinds of movies and derives inspiration from them.
“For historical novel illustrations, we already have a vague idea about how the characters are going to be. For science fiction and futuristic novels, we have to imagine and create characters and scenes. Academically learning human anatomy has helped me in carving out characters and watching movies helps me build a scene,” he says. Ma.Se has consciously stepped away from creating illustrations that depict violence.
All this fame comes with its share of challenges. “Most of us put in a lot of effort into creating an artwork but often, the recognition received is less. I am happy that appa’s works are being valued even today. In foreign countries, there are different specialisations for illustrators. Cartoons will be done by one person, caricatures by another, and human anatomy by another.
In India, a single illustrator has to do everything,” he says. More than five decades in the field, Ma.Se has the zeal to do more. He hopes to share his artworks and his knowledge through online platforms and other media. As an artist he wants to keep entertaining his followers with new styles and as a passionate learner he wants to keep evolving.