Tuesday, 6 March 2012

WEEK 7 - MARCH 6TH 2012

Here's a few pics to help you fill in the gaps so you are up to speed for the 2nd part next week.

Apologies for it being a short post but I am absolutely knackered.

See you all next week.

A couple of the preliminary sketches.

This is where we are at....

and here are some images for detail

Monday, 5 March 2012

As those of you who attend my class will know, I regularly advocate the watching other artists working whether amateur or professional. Attend comic cons, watch artists draw quick con sketches, attend workshops held by professionals and watch youtube videos. The internet is a wonderful place to find great tutorials and footage of artists at work.

I am not a great follower or collector of David Finch's printed work, which is kind of strange as I really like his art is awesome. I will link some good examples of his art for those new to his work at the end of this post.

When Jim Lee drew Batman for Jeph Leob's Hush, I thought, wow! this is as good as it gets, no one will draw a Batman comic better than this. Well, when David Finch took over Batman duties in 2010's Batman:The Dark Knight, I reconsidered my original opinion. I am not going debate who is the better artist Lee or Finch, because I think it would be pointless, but I will put it this way, I think Lee's Batman is a 15 certificate ,while Finch's is an 18. It just looks darker and grittier.

Ok, enough waffle! Here is the real reason for the post. Check out Finch at work on youtube.

This clip is almost identical to the tutorial I gave in my class.

Here's another good one.

There are loads more clips on youtube worth watching. I hope you will find this clips of interest and that they will have inspired you in some way.

Saturday, 3 March 2012

HORROR COMICS

I have blogged about horror comics in the past and I think it's time I returned to the subject as there are many first rate artists' work to be found in those pages.

The artists and comics mentioned are from my own collection and are what inspired me as a teenager and what I feel are relevant to the course, and so this is by no means meant to be a comprehensive stroll through the twilight world of horror comics.

My favourite horror comic has to be DC's The Witching Hour, mostly because the early issues (#1 to #10 at least) contain the work of Alex Toth. Many. Many other great artists, Neil Adams, being one of them, produced work for The Witching Hour, but it was always Toth's work that stood out.

Toth's intros to each story (each told by one of three witches based on Macbeth's Weird Sisters:Morded, Mildred and Cynthia), were, for my money, the best art in the comics. Toth's work reminded me of Hanna Barbera cartoons of the day(which I was a huge fan of), which is not surprising since Toth was responsible for the look of many of those early productions.

Below are Toth's character designs for The Three Musketeers and Shazzan.

What I was (and still am)drawn to about Toth's work is his ability to strip down a drawing to it's bare essentials to make bold, striking visuals. Also his skill in the layout and design of a page is still influencing comic book artists today.

Toth was also a very skilled storyboard artist, providing borads for many Hanna Barbera productions.

Some of these are practically comic book art standard themselves.

I am not going to claim to be very knowledgeable about Toth (there are blogs out there who have already posted informative reviews of both the artist and his work and I would only be repeating their words so I will leave links to relevant blogs at the bottom of this post), I do love the guys work but I have found difficulty in obtaining good art books of his work as most are out of print. Fortunately there are some recently published books out there which I will be sure to buy:

Genius, Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Genius-Isolated-Life-Alex-Toth/dp/1600108288/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1330788320&sr=8-2

Genius, Illustrated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Genius-Illustrated-Life-Alex-Toth/dp/1613770243/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330788320&sr=8-1

Toth's Witching Hour art is available in black and white (probably the best way to view his comic art) in an affordable collection in The DC's Showcase Presents:The Witching Hour volume1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Showcase-Presents-Witching-Hour-v/dp/0857681966/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330790382&sr=1-4

points of interest:

http://www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/11toth.html

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2009/01/alex-toth-computerr.html?zx=1ed8b9a9509fd124

Here are some more classic Witching Hour covers

I think that Horror comics of this era had some of the best cover art around. The layout, lighting and style are absolutely solid and put a lot of superhero covers to shame.

House of Secrets was another DC title that produced some really excellent cover art. Just looks at the composition and use of light against dark on #88 by Neil Adams.

DC's Weird War was another interesting horror comic although I was not as big a fan of it as I was The Witching Hour. Joe Kubert produced some really neat cover art but generally Witching Hour had the stronger covers (in my opinion).

I have posted about Bernie Wrightson (another fave artist of mine, plus a master of horror comics) already on this blog http://fantasyartclass.blogspot.com/2011/12/bernie-wrightson.html and here http://fantasyartclass.blogspot.com/2011/07/bernie-wrightson.html so I move onto my other of my fave horror comic artist, Mike Ploog. Ploog's art drew me to #1 of The Monster of Frankenstein and Marvel Spotlight #2, the first Werewolf by Night comic and Marvel Spotlight #5 the first Ghost Rider comic (as a biker, not a horse rider). Ploog has a great eye for the macabre and his art is awesome. Great use of shadows and lighting. I some ways Ploog's art reminds me of Will Eisner's art in The Spirit comics and also Bernie Wrightson's art.

Ploog was also employed as a concept artist on Jim Henson's Dark Crystal and John Carpenter's The Thing. Below a is a small selection of his work but check out his work collected on comicartfans.com (which is also great for checking out other artists work ) http://www.comicartfans.com/searchresult.asp?PM=1&txtSearch=mike+ploog&Order=&PI=18

Werewolf By Night

The Monster Of Frankenstein

Manthing

Dark Crystal concept art

The Thing concept art

Gene Colan was another artist who I became obsessed with as a teenager. I have blogged about him in the passed , here: http://fantasyartclass.blogspot.com/2011/06/eugene-gene-colan-september-1-1926-june.html

I first became aware of Colan's work in Tales To Astonish in which he provided art for The Submariner under the name of Adam Austin. I later followed his art in Iron Man in Tales Of Suspense and later in Daredevil. I wonder if I would have picked up and followed Tomb Of Dracula if it had been illustrated by any other artist? I cannot imagine it being so good even if Wrightosn or Ploog had drawn it, even though Ploog did draw Dracula in a Werewolf By Night (#15) crossover story.

Colan captured the mood and tone for Dracula perfectly. I was hooked from the first issue.

Colan also produced some great art for sci-fi short stories in Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction, Slow Glass Mirrors was a particular favourite.

Some samples of Colan art below.

Other sources worth checking out:

Good indepth analaysis of Ploogs cover art on this one

http://pencilink.blogspot.com/search/label/Ploog

http://www.twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/02ploog.html

http://www.wizards-keep.com/index.asp-Q-Page-E-mike-ploog--33778018

Alex Toth

http://www.tothfans.com/

http://www.comicartville.com/tothgallery.htm

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

http://www.collectingfool.com/tothgallery.html

Bernie Wrightson
http://www.wrightsonart.com/
http://pencilink.blogspot.com/search/label/Wrightson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Wrightson

Gene Colan
http://ifanboy.com/articles/r-i-p-gene-colan-1926-2011/
http://ifanboy.com/articles/r-i-p-gene-colan-1926-2011/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Colan

Friday, 2 March 2012

WEEK 6 - 28TH FEBRUARY 2012

In this blog I will briefly recap the exercise for week 5 and 6 and offer a few finishing tips, although

I am hoping that you can still remember the demos I gave you during class.

This exercise came about by a need to re address the image on the poster/flyer promoting the course.

I didn't think that there was anything wrong with the poster art, but I was considering giving it a revamp with a better drawing.

Normally before commencing a drawing I produce a thumbnail but as the figure pose was already determined I figured I could go straight to the final drawing....

and this was my first response which I think is stiff and wooden. I just don't like it.

The Mistake I made was to take an image that worked as a graphic device and tried to produce a more realistic version but I overlooked a couple of things. The way the wings make a kind of halo shape around the head, which was a deliberate Christian iconography reference to create an ambiguous, "is she good is she evil?", image works fine as a graphic device, but cannot be recreated in a more realistic rendering when following rules of anatomy. Also, as a simple graphic it has properties that service a poster more successfully than a more realistic image would.

So, as I was not happy with my initial response I produced a thumbnail.

Straight away I knew this should have been my first step.

Most of you seem to have, for the most part, nailed this one during the time we had in class, but I realise time was short and it was not possible to fully complete this exercise, so here are some finishing tips .

When drawing the face, remember to keep the features and lighting simple. Even though the rendering is more realistic in this drawing, the eyes are simplified using areas of solid and reducing the amount of detail. The lighting/shading is soft.

Remember demo I gave regarding hair and lighting? The highest point of the curve in the hair is the area that will be hit by the light and therefore have a sheen to it.The area that is folding back in on it's self will the furthest or hidden from the light therefore will be in shadow or without highlight.