Week 7 - Pendleton Ward

Pendleton Ward

http://www.buenothebear.com/

Pendleton Ward, although not technically an illustrator, is most known for his creation Adventure Time, a Cartoon Network cartoon. He has also worked on The Misadventures of Flapjack series as well. I wanted to showcase his cartoon and illustrative work because of his style. It's very simple yet very expressive. Most of his figures and objects are drawn with simple lines. His coloring is flat. There are rarely any tonal renderings on his characters or objects.  Eyes are expressed as circles or black dots. Mouths take very simple geometric forms, sometime mimicking the shapes of letters as seen in internet emoticons. Example: =C or D: or =O. 

Even though his work is very simple, lacking much detail, and colorful, his characters come to life through their facial expressions and wacky poses. It really comes to show that the base of communicating emotion in a character doesn't lie in painstaking detail, but rather capturing the essence of the expression and movement of the person. For this, I think Pendleton Ward is an amazing illustrator, cartoonist, and animator. 

Mark Frauenfelder

Mark Frauenfelder is a writer and illustrator who co-founded bOINGbOING, the magazine that would eventually become the major blog of the same name. His illustrations use flat colors and bold outlines, and are often throwbacks to the cartoons and comics of the 60s and 70s. I would be surprised if he doesn't use Adobe Illustrator for the bulk of his work, because they look mostly like vector art. I have this shirt with a design from his then 9-year-old daughter, which he took and vectorized to sell as a Woot tee.

Mark wrote this book after immersing himself for a year in pursuing do-it-yourself projects. He kept chickens and bees, took up organic gardening, and built cigar box guitars. The cover you see is for the paperback edition; the hardcover edition uses a photograph depicting Mark with a cigar box guitar. I think this illustrated cover works far better, as it is literally made by hand, and shows more of Mark's personality and who he is. It also gives off a more adventurous tone, which suits a book about delving into projects you might not have considered before. There's also the chance to show a lot of the things included in the book, which might have looked tacky if done so with a photographic cover.

Week 7 - Daniel Danger, Tiny Media Empire

This piece was done by Daniel Danger, creator of Tiny Media Empire. I came across his work while stumbling, and I was kind of surprised to find out that he has a vast amount of professional experience. Some of his clients include Universal Pictures, Dreamworks, ABC, and Penguin Books. He has also done work for Star Wars, Star Trek, The Walking Dead, The Black Keys, and Andrew Bird, among others. Most of his work has kind of an eerie, mystical feel to it. I picked this image, titled “I Have Troubles Today I Had Not Yesterday,” because I personally found it to be the creepiest. It depicts a dilapidated Wonder Wheel at Coney Island. I’ve always found Coney Island to be on the verge of creepy most of the time, but a deserted Coney Island is like the perfect setting for a horror movie. What makes this image especially eerie is the one girl in an otherwise empty theme park. It is a silkscreen print, like a lot of his other work.

Website: http://tinymediaempire.com/

Mrzyk & Moriceau

The Châtillon-sur-Indre, France-based artists are known for their "detailed black-and-white ink drawings and have been working collaboratively since 1998. They also animated a few videos for artists like Sebastien Tellier and the band Air. Their work teeters on the absurd, humorous, and perverse. With an ironic nod to commercial illustration, comics, and graphic design. I love the fact that they up with funny characters in their work and everything is so detailed. I just found out about these guys a few days ago and thought I would share.

Check out the website:

http://www.airdeparis.com/jfp.html

This is the video that they did for Sebastien Tellier: http://vimeo.com/10153198

Week 7 ~ Ōkami

Ōkami is an action-adventure video game developed by Clover Studio and published by Capcom. It combines several Japanese myths, legends and folklore and tells a soty of how the land was saved from darkness by Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu, who took the form of a white wolf.

This is one of my favorite games on the wii mainly because of the graphics. I love how this game took on a different art style instead of the regular pixel or photo-realistic 3D graphic images you see in most games now. It's style is more woodcut, watercolor style in a cel-shaded environment which looks like an animated Japanese ink-illustration known as sumi-e. I believe this fits well into the environment and time period the plot of the game takes place. It really succeeds in making the whole atmosphere of the game feel more authentic because its set in a historical time period in Japan where you might have seen many Japanese watercolor and wood carving art of the Ukiyo-e style like Hokusai. I feel this game is not only artistic by itself with stunning illustrations but also inspires gamers to get creative and artistic themselves where they are required to also draw using the Celestial brush to help the main character fight and progress. I just love this game and its art.

Week 7 Halloween special

http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/398395_700b.jpg

for some reason the uploader isn't working so i have to attach a link.

Just a zombie Stormtropper.

This was done as concept art for a Star wars novel called death troopers, which takes places before a year before a new hope. for more info click this link http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Troopers

I couldnt find an artist but i thought this would be a fun image to upload in spirit of the season. i find it interesting how in the recent years the zombification of well known characters has become very popular. I'm not sure where it all started but you see things like this floating around the internet pretty often, be it zombie disney characters or zombie final fantasy characters. A few years ago Marvel even released a comic series with the basis of "what if our characters all became zombies?"

Leandro Fernandez (punisher again I know)

This is a page from Punisher MAX by Leandro Fernandez, one of my all time favorite artists. Fernandez employs a number of techniques here, some interesting camera angles introducing our tittle character, stark black shading to match theme and the setting, and he textures what might have been a boring black background to give it more visual interest. The use of high contrast images with light texturing can create beautiful finishes especially when combined with the work of a talented colorist.

Week Seven. Hellen Jo

http://helllllen.org/

Hellen Jo who is a self proclaimed "asshole from Burbank, CA." Much of the work she creates is done with ink and watercolor. She draws teenagers smoking, conjoined twins, zombies, and Lady Gaga. She has an interest in comics and illustration. She uses vivid colors and excellent detailed pen work to give off a teen punk vibe. Most of her work is personal but she has created a comic called "Jin and Jam," a simple video game called "C & H's Bogus Adventure," as well as a theme for iGoogle. I'm in love with her style and the awesome "go to hell!" vibe her work emits.

Week 7 - John sumrow

I had come across this image while looking up a project idea for another class. I believe the composition and cool colors is really what drew me to this picture. The artist has positioned the zombie in a way that its body combined with the grave hole produce the letter "Z." What I also liked is that in making the zombie appear as a "Z" it does not look like an abnormal pose that one may see a zombie in. I like that the main focus is kept on the foreground object and the background is very minimal, but yet feels as if it is still complete. The color choice is also nice for this picture, only three colors are used besides black and white. Normally zombies are depicted as green or grey but here it's blue with touches of orange to bring out certain aspects of the picture. The name on the tombstone was also a clever idea. It reads "Sumrow," which is the artists las name. The name isn't displayed in a fancy way and is even kind of hard to read, but adds a nice original touch to it. Adding in aspects of the zombie in the word zombie also was I believe better that just using plain old font. It really tied the image and type together into one whole picture.

Week Seven - Bobby Chiu

The artist I chose for week seven is one of my all time favorite artists, Bobby Chiu. Bobby's art career started when he was seventeen years old, designing Disney, Warner Bros., and Star Wars toys at Thinkway Toys in Toronto, Canada. Bobby has since won a number of awards for his independent work. He currently works as an illustrator for film (doing concept art) and teaches digital painting online at Schoolism.com, and also publishes art books. A lot of his work focuses on fantasy creatures that look like animal hybrids. I was drawn to his style because it is so bizarre but endearing. I've been wanting to buy some of his books now for a while but I don't think they are tutorials. To view more of his work you can visit his profile at the website : http://www.imaginismstudios.com/index.php

Week 7 - realistic disney

Keeping in line with my Disney posts, I just happened to stumble upon this and find it amazing. Much like the adult princes, which feature a more realistic yet true to the fashion of animation style, these are probably the best portrayal of disney princess I have seen outside of disney itself. Of course this is a mix of photography and digital illustration, and maybe does fit the guidelines of this blog, but whatever its freaking cool. this of course is Meg from Hercules and I picked this one specifically because I think it looks the most like right out of the movie. I think its the curve of the lips. Here is a link to the website of the artist, who has many more illustrations of the women of disney. jirkavinse.wordpress.com

Week 6 - Artist Unknown

Artist Unknown

"After all of the stories, how weird would it be to discover that the world's worst enemy might look like this?"

In wake of the recent Occupy protests, heightened military activity, and general unrest in the world, I decided to post this picture as my blog entry. I found it while on Tumblr looking at articles about the Occupy Wall Street protests happening in the USA and around the globe. This work, while simple and child-like in appearance, has a powerful message. Throughout history, people have written and fantasized about the destruction of the human race through external means - aliens, robots, zombies, and monsters. Yet only a small amount of people realize that one of the biggest components of human destruction in our world is greed, symbolized by the white male in a business suit. 

People are waking up and realizing that the growing separation of wealth in the world, caused by human greed and want of power, is causing pain and grief to most of the population. A small percent of people own the vast majority of the world's wealth, while millions live below the line of poverty. Most of the richest people in the world are in the banking and business class, which is why the cartoon man is sporting a suit, tie, and briefcase. It's also worth pointing out that our fantasies about human destruction point the finger at other things. Up until recently, people have not been looking inward to solve problems concerning humanity. Luckily there is a general awakening among the masses. People are realizing that if everyone is to survive and lead a happy life with the basic necessities, wealth has to be distributed in a more reasonable manner and people must learn to let go of their wants and desires until the NEEDS of the people are met.

Week 6. SKINNER

http://theartofskinner.com/

The artist I chose for this week was Skinner. He has many different pieces with horrifying creatures complimented by beautiful color. I like Skinners work for his attention to detail and the florescent colors he uses. Much of his work seems alien in nature. In an interview of his he says most of his work is due to inspiration from his childhood. He would watch 90s cartoons and read old comic books. His style has a rock n roll tone to it, and he does a lot of freelance work doing posters and other designs. Under his work he had this little explaination which I love.

In regards to those desperate ambitions an ancient seaman may carry, none was forgotten faster than fear and hesitancy. The sea has always been at the heart of man's discovery and held fast a sacred corner in his fear swollen mind. What uncovered, slithering beings lurk eternally in that deep abyss? It is best not to ponder these things when at the mercy of it's thrashing waves. For pondering too deeply may call up some impossible thing, some great god and....unto the sea a gleaming destroyer.

With this piece I think he was trying to give off a fantastical old god sort of feeling. Much of his work is just like it. Skinner continues to do work today in many different styles. 

Week 6 - Marker Renderings from Disney

Going back to my concept art, this is an image from Disney. It is for the new Little Mermaid attracting currently being build in the new fantasyland expansion of the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. This is a simple rendering that blows my mind because of how simple it is, yet how complex it is too. Most of the time, concept art is really polished with realistic colors, and characters, but this is an early stage drawing, which I assume is done in a color pen or marker, then colored in with markers to give a feel and understanding of light. I like this piece so much because for years I have wanted to know how you draw like this. Something so simple looking, that still looks good and professional and like a lot of time went into it. I recently learned this technique, and to see that it is still used today in 2011, and that the computer hasn't completely replaced the marker and pen, I am very excited and motivated to know that I can not only recreate work like this, but that there are still jobs out there for designers and renders like me. And like all concept art, this is to become a real thing, that soon you can walk around and see and touch and experience, all which came from this simple drawing. Powerful stuff.

Week 6 Scott Dikkers: Dikkers Cartoon Company

http://www.dikkers.com/player.php?xmlLoc=xml/bst01.xml&auto=true <- Watch

Sometimes I just miss some of the heart and silliness of old cartoons like Silly Symphonies and other shorts from Disney. I was happy to find cartoons by Scott Dikkers that brings back to old fuzzy feelings.

Scott Dikkers is an American comedy writer, cartoonist, and filmmaker. Dikkers is the co-founder of the humor news paper The Onion. He left The Onion in 2008 to start the Dikkers Cartoon Company. One of the cartoons by his company that I watched was Bright Lights Little Steam, about a talented little iron who can do more than press a wrinkle out a shirt. Watching this short and others on the site was fun, but I worried that the stories may have been too familiar.

I don't think everything needs to explode or be over the top to be good. The stories were complete and concise. It's just I know the stories. It's not necessarily bad to be familiar with the themes like make it big in show biz. Using something non human did help to break up the generality of theme of seeking stardom, but it was slightly predictable.

Then I thought, although I know these stories and themes are they still effective? I laughed and felt empathy toward the characters...I even thought back to when I was younger and how much fun I had with these stories. So, predictability wasn't an issue so much anymore. The fact that I can still feel certain emotions from the stories makes the Dikkers cartoons worthwhile to watch. I think if you feel nothing toward anyone's work, then it's no good; it may be pretty, but useless. Even though the themes in the Dikkers Cartoons are familiar, they still have the power to tug on your heart strings.

*Watch the short in the link at the top