Face it, his work speaks for himself. I've said it before so I may as well shut up. Besides, I've spoken about the guy in the past. I probably said the same thing too.
This was the very first piece by Imperial Boy that I saw. I wasn't that into art as I am now, but this image certainly made an impression on me. I recall the book which had this image saying Imperial Boy wanted to evoke cramped avenues of Hong Kong or Japan, and give that weird rush people get when they go to these seedy joints.
He has a way of drawing his characters as well. They're not exactly the musclebound anatomically accurate human figures of Da Vinci, but they do the trick. They're kind of cute actually! :-)
If you click on this image, you will note just how painstakingly detailed every area of this image actually is. It's not just crappy photomanipulation and cheap Photoshop tricks, mind you. Every art trick in the book can be seen in his stuff.
It's got High Dynamic Range Lighting, perspective, cute anime characters, muted color palette, 3D references, and a whole lot of other technical jargon nobody cares about. A weird gimmick Imperial Boy uses in the Robot artbooks are these pieces, where they scream "Look at all my overly complicated detail!!!!!" or at least, something to that effect.
The guy likes making these fully realized fantasy worlds. Staring at some of his images makes you just wish you were there. His beautiful cityscapes and impossible architecture defy any kind of sense, but who cares?
You don't think when you look at these images sometimes. They're cool and fun to watch, but inject any kind of logic to some of his stuff and you might as well just hit yourself with a sledgehammer. There's one image in one of the Robot books which is literally a school, where each classroom is hung in one giant ferris wheel. Now that's... weird.
Dude,
Your site is awesome! I come here often and so I'd be happy if I could help you defray some of the bandwidth cost. Please let me know how.
Many thanks,
Thomas
Hey Thomas! Thanks so much. Your continued patronage to this place means much to me. You're too kind in your offer, but I'm fine as it is. The fact is I'm not posting as often as I once was, but that's just because I've been so busy on other things as of late.
It would be nice though if you can give me some suggestions or feedback on what I can do to improve the site, or what I can blog about. There's just so much great content out there, I don't know where to begin!
Imperial Boy is amazing...I used one of his art piece as my wallpaper for ages without knowing who the heck the guy was...
Me too, Bluespirit :D Took me a while to track the guy's art down. I first encountered his stuff in the Manga/Manhwa/Manhua artbook a few years back, and only got to really know the guy's work in the Robot series (published by Udon). His contributions there are simply breathtaking, and I can understand why he's he's had such a strong impact on young digital artists today. Wonder where I can find the copycats now...