I found this piece while randomly searching among illustration inspiration and was immediately attracted to it. The artist is Alexandria Neonakis, hailing from Nova Scotia. There wasn't a lot of information to be found on her, but she is apparently a freelance graphic artist who has worked with Valve and various video game development projects.Oddly enough, this doesn't make me think of video game development at all. The first thing that came to mind was Peter Pan, specifically the lost boys. The texture of the piece makes it feel like book art, but the style is very reminiscent of classic western cartooning and animation.
The image on the left is the original interpretation of the owl boy concept, which was reworked into a very different style. I am a lot more partial to the newer version. The line work is both strong but made subtle without the use of black, and the shading and texture of the piece are a lot developed. The sky rendering is quite impressive, in that the sky seems to have a lot of depth and light, yet it sticks to the cartoon-y style. The new one feels a lot softer and seems to have a lot more personality, especially because the owls are given characteristics of their own, allowing separation between characters. It reads as more of a snapshot than as a static image of a boy and two owls on a branch.
I find it interesting that both of the pieces don't look like they use a unified medium. The one on top looks like it was done or finished on the computer; and the second one looks like it was done as a print.
ReplyDeleteI think I like the style and rendering of the first one but the application and look of the second.