Artist Series - Day 31: Alex Alice

I love it when something like this happens:  I was in RX Comics yesterday and I saw the cover for Alex Alice's "Siegfried II: The Valkyrie" on the front counter.  I think I've seen this when I was in Belgium  last year, but this is the English version, and I picked it up to check it out.

OMG.

I love this stuff.  I tend to like the style to French comics in general, and this one is beautiful, and the 2nd half of the book is concept art and paintings!  I've been devouring it and sharing with my friends ever since.

http://alexaliceblog.blogspot.com/


This first picture won Gold in Spectrum last year in the comics category:

...and that's the first month of my year-long artist series!  If you are enjoying it, please share and help me reach more people :)

Artist Series - Day 30: Claire Wendling

Ok, if you know no other French comic/animation artists, you should know Claire Wendling.  If you love drawings of cats, you should *really* follow her.  I love the flow her work has.

Artist Series - Day 29: Charles Vess

http://www.greenmanpress.com/ is home on the web to Charles Vess, a man who has drawn/painted many of the things I love in comics and gaming.

He got his start in comics, did a bunch of stuff for Thor and the Warriors Three, plus Neil Gaiman's Stardust and Books of Magic.  He's done RPG book covers for White Wolf, and illustrated several books by Charles deLint.

Artist Series - Day 28: Rien Poortvliet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rien_Poortvliet

This guy has done some amazing watercolours of animals, landscapes and nature, but that's not what we know him for...yeah, he's the "gnome guy."  I cannot tell you how many times I read both "Gnomes" and "Secrets of the Gnomes" as a child.  I love those books, and consider them the first "concept art" world building examples I was exposed to as a child.

Made it into the 52nd Illustration West exhibition!

I have two pieces that will be in the show!  I'm very happy about it, I'm late to reporting, the email went into my spam folder and it took me 3 days to search for it.

Here are my 2 pieces:

Best of all, I'm going to be in LA in March, so I can go to the show :)

Artist Series - Day 27: Thomas Scholes

Tom is a beast.  His work is awesome, he is an amazing teacher (http://motivarti.org/mentorship-program/ to signup for his Spring Motivarti course), and he's an all around nice guy.  It's been great to be able to interact and learn from him as much as I have.


http://artofscholes.com/


My first intro to Tom's work was on Guildwars.

Then there's Halo 4.

And then his project "Oppidium"

His tumblr has a bunch of really cool process stuff:  http://tomscholes.tumblr.com/

Artist Series - Day 26: Crisse

Crisse is the pseudonym of Didier Chrispeels, a Belgium-born comic artist who has done a tremendous amount of work in Europe.  There is a series of sketchbooks called "Comix Buro" that I discovered on my trip to Paris in 2010, and Crisse's book happened to be the first one I picked up.  Very euro-styled, with a dash of Disney.

If you can read French, here's the wiki on him:  http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisse

Do be warned that if you search for his stuff, like much of the European comics, there is a lot of NSFW stuff out there!

Artist Series - Day 25: Matthieu Forichon

Guess I'm continuing my French posts for this week.

http://www.forichon.com/

Again, I know very little about this guy personally, I found his book "Miss In Paris" at Stuart Ng Books at the 2012 CTN Expo, and I fell in love with his fashion illustration and storytelling.

He's quite prolific, and I'd suggest you track down as much of his stuff as you can get your hands on :)

Artist Series - Day 24: Yoshitaka Amano

Ok, Today's artist really needs no introduction, but I did learn some new stuff about him recently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshitaka_Amano

Amano did the designs for Final Fantasy, which I have known for years.  He did a graphic novel with Neil Gaiman's Sandman character, which I also knew....

Looking at his wiki this week, I read that he designed the characters for "Gatchaman."!

That I didn't know, and gives him the distinct honour of being one of my longest-running art heroes.  I started watching "Battle of the Planets" (the American version of Gatchaman) when I was 3.  My brother and I were allowed to pick our younger brother's middle name, and it comes from that cartoon.

When I look at the designs, it's pretty obvious, but I had never made the connection until this week.  It's cool to keep learning these kinds of things!

Artist Series - Day 23: Cyril Corallo

Yesterday I featured one of the concept/layout artists from the French cartoon "Wakfu".  Today is one of the background painters.

http://cyrilcorallo.deviantart.com/

Whenever I look at these, it reminds me I need to learn to use Flash....

Artist Series - Day 22: Santiago Montiel

Ok, anyone who has talked to me this year knows that I've been really into the French cartoon "Wakfu"...and this guy did concept art and layouts for that cartoon.  I don't know much about him, being that I don't speak French, but I love his work.

http://mondocanard.blogspot.com/

I'm definitely going to be keeping an eye on this guy, and I hope I learn more about him!

Artist Series - Day 21: Jake Parker

We close out week 3 with another guy I learned about because of his personal project.  Jake Parker, as far as I know, started the hashtag #inktober, where you are supposed to do a complete ink illustration every day of October.

http://mrjakeparker.com/

He's got a great style that is both whimsical and sophisticated, and I love both his line work and coloured stuff.

And of course, penwork :)

I picked up his book at CTN Expo last year, and it is amazing.  I think you can still get it here:  http://agent44.bigcartel.com/product/drawings-pre-order

Artist Series - Day 20: Ryan Church

Ryan is another artist that will be well known to many of the people reading this.  He's been a concept artist or art director on so many amazing movies that it's hard to know where to start.

http://ryanchurch.com

Star Trek

Tron

Star Wars

Plus training DVDs, classes....This guy is literally one of the first artists I started following when I was trying to be a matte painter 5 years ago....great stuff.

Artist Series - Day 19: James Paick

I suspect many, if not all of the concept artists reading this will already know of James. He's work for Naughty Dog (Uncharted & The Last of Us), NCSoft, Insomniac Games, and he regularly teaches, both online and at the Concept Design Academy in Pasadena.

...but, there are people reading this who aren't concept artists, and this is for them :)

http://www.scribblepadstudios.com/home.htm

He's also done a fair number of cards for Magic: the Gathering

...best of all, I'll be in his class in two weeks at CDA :)

Artist Series - Day 18: Hokusai

Alright, almost everyone out there know's Hokusai's print work, and it's amazing, but it's not what I'm here to talk about.  He created a book series in the early 1800s of his pen & ink sketches, called Hokusai Manga.  Dear lord!  This stuff is what inspires me to be a better lineworker.  I picked up a compiled book of the series yesterday, and I haven't been able to put it down since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokusai_manga

This series has everything from gestural cartoons to detailed examinations and studies of objects from life.

Should you be interested in picking up a copy yourself, you can grab the book from amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Hokusai-Manga-English-Japanese-Edition/dp/4756240690

Artist Series - Day 17: Chris Riddell

Chris Riddell does editorial and kids books illustrations, and he does them well.  I first ran into him when he did the cover for Neil Gaiman's "Graveyard Book", and from there I discovered his "Edge Chronicles" series he co-wrote with Paul Stewart.

http://www.chrisriddell.co.uk/

And I guess I should show some editorial stuff too :)

Artist Series - Day 16: Al Parker

Ok, continuing the theme of "lots of different styles", Al Parker is pretty much the god of this.  He once illustrated an entire issue of Cosmopolitan and used a different pseudonym for each image.  If you can produce that level of variety and each style be appealing enough to sell, you have probably arrived at "Illustration God" levels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Parker_(artist)

Oh, he was also one of the founding artists in the Famous Artists School.