Imaginative Realism

Staying on the topic of books I thought I'd share something that I've found to be really helpful.

The reason I believe this art book by James Gurney stands out so well is that it focuses on the approach to an illustration rather than a step-by-step techniques. Which those can be nice to help understand how a particular artist works. But it can be difficult sometimes to take away anything useful from the book that relates to you and the medium you work in. James hits on a large variety of topics and doesn't spend page after page boring you with one subject. Great information short and to the point. His next book, Color and Light is due out this November. Can't wait

Books

Recently I went out in search of some personal inspiration in the form of a book. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.
 

 

Draw & Paint the Realm of Faerie by Ed Org, is a beautiful and useful book.  For me, this book contains all the most useful information an artistic book should have. It describes the tools used, and how to use them. Also, it shows step by step techniques that Ed Org utilizes. And, the best part for me personally, is the artists gallery.

Experimenting

Lately I've been finding that I'm becoming more and more interested in more cartoonish looks. But the painter in me still wants to give it a slightly painted look and feel. I don't think I wanna render things too much and the top image is kind of an example of that. I think any of the realistic type stuff I do should be reserved for book cover type of illustrations. I also think working like this well help me focus more on creating an environment and emotion for the characters. Rather than trying to figure out how to render some material.

The characters designs below are with flat colors. No plan to render these. Just another pic of the look I'm leaning towards.
What's your opinion?

Daily Sketches

I thought it might be helpful to compare our artwork, daily sketches and such. Here are a few of mine from this month. Feel free to share some of yours :).

Questions, Comments, Suggestions? Please comment! :)

Sites to Share

 I just wanted to share some links and info I have found helpful over the past few months. Hope you all enjoy these resources.

Character Design: You can find great photo reference under their archives

DeviantArt tuts: Large list of various DeviantArt tutorials

Textures: This is a great resource for textures to use in your artwork


And here's a shout out to Blake: Thanks for sharing these links, hopefully everyone will find them as useful as I have.

Free books

Info For Illustrators

Improve Your Portfolio

So, any ideas ?

So, the blog is pretty basic right now, and I was curious if any of you guys had ideas to vamp it up?

Maybe we can change the name, or the setup? I would love to see more people join up and contribute so we can all get a great network going.

Thanks guys

Jon Foster... #2

Just because I love his work too, I had to add my favorite of his..... so far :P

 

I think I'm partial to this particular piece because I absolutely love the culture and all the subtle symbolization created within the art. Especially the cherry blossoms.