In an era where digital rendering and AI-generated visuals dominate creative industries, James Martin continues to champion the charm of hand-drawn work. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and now based in Oslo, Norway, the American illustrator and animator operates through Studio Cartoons Deluxe, specialising in hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animation, along with illustrations that blend retro manga energy with motorsport, sci-fi, fantasy, and surf culture.

Martin’s visual language draws heavily from daytime cartoons, 1980s Japanese anime, and the bold colouring styles of Bronze Age science-fiction and fantasy comics from the 1970s. While his portfolio stretches far beyond automotive culture, including collaborations with Netflix, Jägermeister, Forum Snow, and Brain Dead, it’s his motorsport and car-related projects that have particularly captured our attention.

Martin openly describes himself as a genuine car enthusiast, and his connection to the automotive world began through a collaboration involving Bremont and Williams Racing. From there, projects with Porsche Norway soon followed, before brands including Porsche Motorsport, Lotus, Honda Racing, Hyundai, and Aston Martin F1 also entered the picture.

One of his latest Porsche collaborations emerged following a visit to Tokyo earlier this year for the first Asian edition of Luftgekühlt. Drawing direct inspiration from photographs captured during the event, Martin combined classic Porsche imagery with Japanese visual motifs, including sakura blossoms, rising sun graphics, and arcade-game aesthetics. Among the standout creations is a Transformer-inspired robot wearing an unmistakable Advan-style racing livery, merging Japanese pop culture and automotive obsession into a single hand-drawn composition.

Enjoy the hand-drawn work of James Martin, and head over to Studio Cartoons Deluxe’s website to explore more of his artwork and animations.