Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Ruan Jia


I stumbled upon Ruan Jia's work a while back while browsing through a digital art forum. His unique handling of the digital medium to mimic the glazed look of some traditional media really drew me in. Some people that I've shown his art to disliked the subdued, muted look of his colors, but I think that his color sense, combined with the glazed look, adds a kind of soft, mystical feel to his art that is really appealing. His artwork is beautiful without having to beat you over the head with extreme contrasts and colors. In this particular illustration, I also like the subtlety of the background, which only adds to the mystical feel of the piece.

This is an artist who seems to attach a story to his pictures, and this one is no exception. But even without reading his interpretations, there is something about his work that makes me want to study it and try to figure out the stories behind his characters. In some of his pieces, it's the expression on the character's face, in others, it's their design - but this is where I think that subtlety comes in handy, because his pieces are the kind that reward the viewer for taking the time to look.

The artist's site is here. Be forewarned, you need some patience and a nice big monitor to get the most out of it.. it can load kind of slowly because the images are really big.

2 comments:

  1. I don't know much about digital art but i do like this art work, very nice detail in the face and on the shoulder armor!

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  2. This is a very nice looking image. What grabs my attention the most is the hands. It kind of makes me feel uneasy. In the past, I was totally into odd and uncomfortable looking hand positions. But now it just kind of looks garish and silly, it's like the subject has an intense case of arthritis or something. Her hands just looks so stiff and unappealing.

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