ballpoint pen heavily with mixed media. Says Mylne, "I think it's not the artwork that is of value but the artist in the artwork. The artist's spirit, thoughts, concerns have to shine through the work." He also describes the series as "a nice break from the rigorously detailed portraits". Style & Technique James Mylne uses only black ink when working in ballpoint pen. Regardless of the many ballpoint pen brands available, he is known to prefer the Bic "biro". To add color, Mylne employs acrylics, gouache, spray paint and paint pens. The artist finds paint pens useful for filling larger areas of black. For background color, Mylne masks off the silhouette of a figure he'll be drawing, then applies flat fields of colour using spray paint. Mylne's Anti Con Art series shows ballpoint-penned characters interacting with others painted in acrylic or gouache. To achieve this trick Mylne will simply paint around previously penned areas or leave those intended areas blank while painting, then ink them afterward. Mylne admits to being "passionate about detail", adding that ballpoints allow for great detail and subtle halftones "if you know how to use them". Halftone effects are achieved by controlled spacing of parallel ballpoint lines while referencing his source material. During a live show-and-tell appearance on Britain's Blue Peter television program, Mylne explained that he works "very slowly", using pencil for preliminary outlines. He begins with what he perceives to be "the most difficult bit" — a person's eyes, for example — "because that's the most important bit to get right". Mylne has admitted to having to start over after making a mistake. For the most part, Mylne finds most of his source-images online. Often, he has to "infer" details into his own drawing to compensate for loss of detail which occurs when "scaling-up" small, inferior data into larger, detailed artwork, describing the process as "almost creating a new image". For his 2014 Torn series, Mylne took an active role in the production of his photographic references, working with photographers and models. Media reception Reaction to James Mylne's artwork has been generally favorable. Orlando Lebron, in a 2015 article for the online trade journal The Ballpointer, observed, "Many other so-called hyper-realist ballpointers' artwork rely on distance or reduction to tighten loosely hatched linework. Mylne's artwork needs no such buffer". Other reviewers have described Mylne as a "master technician", and commended the "stunning likenesses" he