John

[John]

My interests lie mostly in animation and comic illustration. I like artists like Mike Mignola or John Kricfalusi, good typography, some contemporary art, and old dudes like Tintoretto and his wacky pals. I like tour posters and good album covers. What I really dislike is badly drawn and unlikeable illustration and characters. Bad character design makes me angry. That does not mean I dislike good stylized or even abstract art. It's all a question of the individual piece, and I don't like to make generalizations about it.
My ambitions are to work on my observational drawing skills, and get better at getting the mood across that I have in mind when I draw things. I am at the moment not looking to work as an artist, but to improve my skill. I found that if I place too much emphasis on drawing, it is less fun for me, and I really like to like doing it. As far as my shortcomings go, I am not sure where I am headed. I have a vague direction, and my lack in technical skill is holding me back as well I think. To really get to where I would like to be, I would probably have to do this full time, which at the moment is just not part of my process. Even if I have the time available, I will get sidetracked or lose interest. I hope that as I find where I am headed, I will gain more focus. So one goal would definitely be finding a path that works for me. I want to get away from the cartoony comic look I do at the moment, but do not want to get into full self serving realism. That's about as much as I can say on the topic at this moment.
A sketchbook link is in my sig. The dude in the photo is hyver, ours truely. The guy in the drawing has a burned eye brow.

[John]

Hooookay, here's the last part of this weeks assignment for me. First the "great success"es:
That Sargent Landscape has been sitting on my desktop for 2 weeks, and I couldn't stop looking at it for some reason. It's just so right. For a picture compiled of a bunch of rocks, it has everything going for it. Composition, execution, color ... I like.
Hellboy, well what can I say. Mignola probably influenced half of the comic-lovers on this forum, and his flat angular style is very fitting for the things he draws. The strong gestural lines he uses don't come out that much on this image, but he has movement down to a science.
The last one is by luc tuymans. I love the vibe I get from it. Not much more to say about that for me. It's one of those things that just stuck with me when I first saw it. It's simple, and elegant, and plays exactly the right notes. A lot of the fantasy art I see is like progressive metal music, using complicated scales, fast runs, and a lot of pathos. This is low key, real, feeling to me.

I had to think hard about these. Theres a comic by Milt Gross that I would have liked to include because it just cracks me up every time I see it, every panel is perfect. Then theres some skateboard designs, the whole casual clothes / skateboard fashion scene has some great illustrators in my opinion, but it's just hard to pick. These guys set the bar for me, in their respective fields.

Now we get to the ew's.
First things first we have this shining example of abysmal cg from the movie Polar Express. I only saw screencaps, but they make me cringe. Theres actually worse parts, but I didn't want to dig for good high res pics of something i loath. This just screams money making zombie evil. Look at his undead boy face. Urgh. Plus it features Tom Hanks!
The second I sorta pussed out. This is like a "don't" in picture shape. No clowns (or dolls for that matter). Don't draw crudely if it doesn't work. Don't use ugly colors. Don't kitsch. Don't uh ... well just don't do that! No No NO!
Optional features are lens flare, shiney sparkley things, teen pop starlets, massive amounts of purple or tears or emo imagery or gnnnn
In favour of my emotional well being I'll stop here, I think you guys get the idea.

[John]

30min portrait done

[John]

I don't have my stuff done for today. Don't know if I'm gonna put it up later. Thats all for now.