Part 4 Exercise 1: Identifying tools and materials

Catalogue the illustrators according to similarities in the way that they use tools and materials (at the bottom of the page). How do they distort or exaggerate the representation of elements in their work? How do they communicate through use of metaphor or symbols?

They are all very similar in the sense they all create a fantasy and fictional scenes through concept art. The way elements are exaggerated is the use of digital effects to create distorted views and camera flares bringing a bit of realism to the image. All the artists use layers in the image which gives perspective and depth needed to make the environment seem great and separates the foreground from the background elements and the small details in the whole scene. Another thing all these artists do is blur and fade out certain parts of the image so there is a focus on certain parts of the illustration, parts that they want the audience to be drawn to the most.

The way they communicate through their pictures is sometimes using characters, expressions, words on signs. The environments reflect the message as concept art is focused on environments and fictional concepts which are usually inspired by real life scenes such as a busy city street or a vast landscape with hills or a small cottage in the middle of no where with the lights on. These illustrations don’t seem to be very metaphorical as they don’t really need to be unless there’s a certain message an artist wants to communicate such as a possible outlook of the future of earth or the possibilities of other life in the universe. For example

 

 Done by Nicolai Lockertsen of a girl wanting the obviously ugly giant “pet” apparently free but her mother isn’t letting her. Suppose this could be a metaphor for something like how it’s not always good to take something just because its free.

 

 

 Done by Ayan Nag these are either glimpses of the future or another universe or planet.

 

 

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Walk the dog - narrated timelapse. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/J_hlXGteDsA [Accessed 23 Aug. 2021].

Narrated timelapse of the artist drawing this. ^

How is the image composed? How are colour, tone, and texture used to evoke mood or convey an idea? Has the illustrator distorted the content within the imagery and how does this work for the purpose the image fulfils?

I chose this picture by Nikolai Lockertsen. In it I can see that there is 2 human characters and a large wolf/dog. The environment is beautiful and busy, it is a very layered scene. The main composition is made up of signs, lampposts a well-lit building (shop) in the front and a lot more lesser detailed and buildings in the middle gradually becoming less detailed in the back as well as having a boat, cargo equipment and things you would typically see at a harbour dotted around the page. The horizon line is quite low on the page meaning the perspective we see from is as if someone’s standing a few meters away and they’re looking up slightly and seeing the whole scene. The view is quite wide and tall as we see the ground and the top of the high-rise buildings. Watching the narrated time lapse of the artist drawing this he talks about how he uses a perspective tool as reference to have the detail and objects he can and make it look natural. The colours create are a mixture of eerie but also a comforting feeling.

There is a contrast between the warm light and reddish tones in the front and the colder mistier blues of the background can directly be linked to the weather. It looks like it is a lot colder because it’s night-time and there is fog but the light and reds, oranges and yellows of the shop makes it, so it looks like it is producing some sort of heat. In addition to this, I think the use of these colours and light sources direct the focus to the shop and the little girl with her companion, it separates the environment making you feel different sensations depending on where you look. When you see the little girl, you can imagine a scenario where the cold eerie background would be daunting and dangerous for her to be alone, but there is that sense of comfort knowing when with her wolf she has protection. The tones and textures of the image vary from intense to vague, but it is all clear. There are so many shadows, highlight and details throughout. The lights from the buildings in the back have a subtle glow, enough to make out what they are and the darkness of the surroundings when they aren’t under a light source are just light enough to still see the textures of things. This is evident looking at the rope attached to the harbour on the left or the lit windows of the building in the middle ground of the picture. You can also see some the fur of the wolf when it is stood in the light which gives you an idea of its whole body most likely being furry too even though the full detail isn’t there. The signs also differ in tones, the closer they are to the light the lighter that portion is, and it slowly fades into darkness the further away it is from the light. He’s really used all these elements and merged a fictional concept with realistic features using tones, details, lights, and a perspective grid.

The wolfs expression is relaxed which also communicates a calmer atmosphere and its quite a cute and light-hearted scene seeing how the shopkeeper is in shock from the huge dog she has with her and how the little girl is just after her candy floss, for her the wolf is nothing more than a loyal pet.

The only distortion I can see is the blurring and misty components scattered within the environment, he uses a lot of it in the background to mask the building, so they don’t take the focus away from the main elements of the scene. There is fog and smoke used also giving the scene an urban feel, it reflects real life fumes and cold weather. There is a subtle distortion in all the buildings too like he wanted to make the style so that it remained lively and not too realistic but more fantasy and malleable, the buildings aren’t made up off perfectly distinct lines, everything is kind of softer and your eyes have a feast looking at all the different shapes and components in the scene.

On the other hand concept art has been around before the digital age and an example of a contemporary concpet artist is Salvador Dali, his work was produced using traditional media. He too created environements in which characters or strange concepts occured. A lot fo his paintingswere quite warped, everything was slightly off or exaggerated in a weird way. In comparision to the digital artists above both are siamilar in the sense its a world created that may not always reflect realism however the mediums they use differ. Digital is a lot eaiser to work with and it can really make your work effective however dali who used paint would have proably had to spend a lot more time getting things right and having less room for mistake.

 

Some of the artists for this exercise I found their work intriging me the style of concept art alway baffles me. Not all of them had official websites which was unfortunate. But the websites they do use there were plenty of examples of work on each. 

 

shannon2020. (n.d.). PORTFOLIO. [online] Available at: https://www.shannonhallstein.com/ [Accessed 23 Aug. 2021].

ArtStation. (n.d.). Nikolai Lockertsen. [online] Available at: https://www.artstation.com/nikolailockertsen [Accessed 23 Aug. 2021].

leahdouw.myportfolio.com. (n.d.). Leah Douw. [online] Available at: https://leahdouw.myportfolio.com/?ltclid=a

Linktree. (n.d.). @shinsyl. [online] Available at: https://linktr.ee/shinsyl [Accessed 23 Aug. 2021].

68e0e

artofayan.com. (n.d.). Art of Ayan. [online] Available at: https://artofayan.com/ [Accessed 23 Aug. 2021].

f5-b399-4fba-8d59-8750a6ca1c0d [Accessed 23 Aug. 2021].

 

 

 I chose this visual of an old photograph I created in a previous exercise. I guessed the colours of the buildings. In order to capture Nikolai's technique I watched and have bought some of his tutorials and tried to apply the to both this one and teh one below. Most if not all of his work is on procreate which is my main digital platform for art. In his tutorials he talks about perspective, thumbnail sketching to get general shapes before the playing with the colours and details. Also I used tools on the app to change the hue/contrast/brightness and so on which he uses to give his pictures a more defined and effective piece.  

For this one underneath I used simsilar technique but from a tutorial on portraits and creatures. The process was more or less the same except a lot more rubbing out involved to create prominent and more realistic features before applying the low opacity brushes to make the skin smooth or tough or blurred texture. The Apple pencil for the ipad also had touch sensitvity so experimenting wiht darker and lighter lines was intresting.

 

 

 Original

                                                                         Re-creation