This week I realized, I don’t have too many artist whos work I like enough to feature.
As I was going through my sites i am a member of looking through my saved artist I came across Lasean Thomas. I had totally forgotten about him because I had slightly moved past the phase I was in when I was into him heavily, but today I re-realized Lasean is a monster.
Hes a perfect example on the other extreme of my argument that my beef with more modern art from 1900 onward I guess is that art is such a “oh we have to keep doing the totally opposite than the last guys” thing. So much so that it all begins to just feel forced.. like that group who had an incredible first album, whos second album sucked because “all real artist make total 100% different sounds between every album because thats how you know they are true artist” bullshit.
We have the fortune to be alive after so many great artist in ALL fields to draw inspiration and learn from that we don’t have to completely deny their existence for the sake of sake of...
Lasean proves my point in the face that his style is obviously more cartoony (specificially because he does story boarding for Ben 10 and boondocks).
What I love about his style is the dynamism his images creates, he sat down for years and learned his anatomy and honed his technical skill, and knew all along is was for the improvement of his cartooning.
Laseans work reminds me of Disney in the sense that like an old Tom and Jerry cartoon his characters animations are pushed to the exaggerated breaking point to really make them truly dynamic
As I was going through my sites i am a member of looking through my saved artist I came across Lasean Thomas. I had totally forgotten about him because I had slightly moved past the phase I was in when I was into him heavily, but today I re-realized Lasean is a monster.
Hes a perfect example on the other extreme of my argument that my beef with more modern art from 1900 onward I guess is that art is such a “oh we have to keep doing the totally opposite than the last guys” thing. So much so that it all begins to just feel forced.. like that group who had an incredible first album, whos second album sucked because “all real artist make total 100% different sounds between every album because thats how you know they are true artist” bullshit.
We have the fortune to be alive after so many great artist in ALL fields to draw inspiration and learn from that we don’t have to completely deny their existence for the sake of sake of...
Lasean proves my point in the face that his style is obviously more cartoony (specificially because he does story boarding for Ben 10 and boondocks).
What I love about his style is the dynamism his images creates, he sat down for years and learned his anatomy and honed his technical skill, and knew all along is was for the improvement of his cartooning.
Laseans work reminds me of Disney in the sense that like an old Tom and Jerry cartoon his characters animations are pushed to the exaggerated breaking point to really make them truly dynamic
Yes, learning anatomy is important. Learning perspective an how to exaggerate anatomy to get a point across is more important. I think this is more what you're talking about when you say honing technical skills and learning anatomy. Illustration can be informed by everything going on around it, including modern art.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused at what argument you are trying to make though. Are you talking about illustration since 1900 or art since 1900. They are intertwined but their context is different. A lot of new materials and techniques allowed for a wide array of experimentation in the last 100 years. You may not like the aesthetic look of something, but that's hardly reason to call it bullshit.
For example, if you were to analyze the influence of this artist's sketching style, you might say he is influenced by the mangaka's of Japan. They are informed by Hokusai and Hiroshige, Japanese printmakers. Heavy outlines and flowing curves are indicative of Art Nouveau.
In the second image one could even make a connection to the splatter paintings of Jackson Pollock. What does it have in common? Laseans Thomas uses a pencil to create figural shapes that come together in a cohesive composition. There are sight lines created to guide the viewer's eye through the composition. Pollock used blobs and drips of paint to achieve the same thing in a different manner.
Before you go and discredit something as bullshit, try to learn something from it. You might be surprised where it takes your own work.