concept central

I like artists who make great Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira tribute art. I also like it if they're generous set up their own website dedicated to helping others improve. That's why I like Randis Albion.

If you take a peek at Randis' deviantART page, you'll find out that he's a huge fan of all this Japanese stuff. And who isn't, really? He loves their music, the anime subculture, everything. He's big on Haruki Murakami's works, which is almost always great.



Now, if you didn't look at Randis' deviantART page, you'll be surprised to learn one of his biggest artistic influences is Yoshitaka Amano. You know... the guy who designed stuff for Gatchaman and Tekkaman? The guy who worked on Vampire Hunter D? Final Fantasy?

Nevermind. Just look at Randis... interpretation of Amano's work. I must admit, I'm not overly familiar with Amano's work, but I don't remember humongous breasts. But I could be wrong! I could be wrong...


As you can see, Randis can render fleshy beings, as well as mechanical objects pretty damn well. There's nothing like a well rounded artist, is there?


Although this portfolio feature fails to fully convey the depth of Mr. Albion's portfolio, I hope you understand that this guy's pretty versatile. OK?

Oh, have you seen his cover for ImagineFX? The image is attached below. C'mon, ImagineFX - one of the last mainstream digital art magazines in PRINT?! If you bought it, good for you. If you haven't, well...



If you happened to stumble on Randis' sketchbook at Conceptart.org, you might some of his really old anime stuff, which looks pretty... good. I definitely see the blueprints of greatness here...





Really, Randis is one of the greats out there. If you're starved to learn a bit of his technique, I suggest you make your way to his Facebook group. At the time of this writing, he posts regular updates and tutorial videos. Head on over there. Now.

Please?

Or... as one reader pointed out - you can check out Randis' Kitchen! Again, it's up to you if you want to get good. Kapeesh?

Since I can't read Japanese, and all I can find are toy-related articles, it seems there's really only so much one can say about the notorious Shunya Yamashita.

Like some of my favorite Heavy Metal artists, all he seems to draw is sexy nymphs.



Sure, he'll draw the occasional big, badass dude, or as you can see above, the nymph with a big gun/hairdryer thing, but that's all part of Mr. Yamashita's appeal.

Would it matter if I spouted stuff from the guy's Wikipedia article? Would you care if I said he worked as a character designer for various Japanese videogames, eventually landing (quite comfortably) on toy design?


Maybe. I suppose it would. I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence, but I guess Mr. Yamashita's just one of those guy's portfolio you just wanna' ogle at and not think about anything else.

Like what makes him popular? Why the anatomy seems very idealized? Or why his annoyingly pricey figures keep disappearing from shelves a day after their release?

Nah. You don't need to ask those questions anymore. All you need to to do is observe what people keep twittering or posting about Mr. Yamashita's latest high-priced toys and you'll get it. Your subconscious will just accept why this guy deserves the success he's having.

If this post read like another one of those poorly researched, train-of-though bullcrap that doesn't make a bit of sense, I truly apologize.
 
His work can be a little distracting you know? I'll try to make it up to you. There's this one decent write-up for Mr. Yamashita's 2008 artbook "Wildflower".



Eh? How does that sound? Good right? Great.

Finally, you might come across this conservative looking illustration below, with a heading called "rick-o-sound". I'm not sure why Japanese likes naming things like this, but it seems its his personal toyline.

Have a nice day! Hope you enjoyed my little treat!!

Born in Madrid, Spain, in 1979, little Mr. Mieglo studied his ass off learning the fundamental of things and at the age of 17 he began interning at various animation studios in Madrid. He moved to jolly ol' London were now he lives and works as a freelance painter, art director, designer and animator for a bunch of companies we'll hear about because of non-disclosure agreements.



 If I could describe his work, I'd say it is... pure eye candy. I get a rush just looking at them sometimes.


According to an interview entitled "Modern Rebel: Alberto Mielgo & Pinkman.tv" at the Motionographer, he is almost completely self taught. So for all you art academy students, listen up... don't do what he did unless you are dedicated and supremely talented!!

It was an early education at animation and guidance from his peers did he evolve to the artist you see today.


He's created some pretty interesting shorts, including “Pill, Kill Your Stress, 女孩陰毛, and PINKMAN” under the banner of "Pinkman.tv" and the thinking behind that is that he feels 2D has pretty much gotten the short end of the stick in recent decades.


Like most of the people working in the 2D animation field, he feels that the cold, calculated world of 3D has collapsed the 2D animation market in such a big way that people view it as an antiquated medium. Unfortunately, with the success of a number of 3D-only animated and live action projects means this trend will only get worse, and 2D work will be relegated to the a very niche crowd... Damn!



But like any fine connoisseur, he believes that the world of 2D can be graphic, and holds no boundaries to the imagination. In fact, he has become somewhat of a spokesperson for the medium, constantly pushing studios to use it more. This has resulted in one of his pride and joys, the Beatles: Rockband intro, which he did color keys and backgrounds for the first half:


Every piece is traditionally animated, frame by frame. The process is simple: scan, pencil, animation. He describes the fairly painstaking process in his own words: "...  Once the animation is right, I do a very basic color action. For example, pink for body and dark pink for shadows. Then, I paint on top of each drawing. As the shadow layer has also been animated, I don’t loose shapes. As each frame is hand painted, the skin has that moving feeling, something that here, I was looking to see in the animation. So, every frame is a painting."


His tools are the usual Adobe Photoshop and After FX. In the end, he has no interest to enter 3D, and I really can't argue with his current output!

Aside from his animation work, he busies himself with conceptual design for commercials and Cartoon Network, as you can see in the images posted here!

One more thing about this amazing artist...

Yeah, apparently he did some comic work for Image Publishing's Popgun anthology. If you're into that sort of greatness, then order one!

Have a nice day!

I admit, I am one of those guys that claims to love indie animation and yet watch only a handful of shorts every few months. However, the fact that I am recommending to you "Fard" a short directed by Luis Bricenco and David Alapont, should tell you how awesome I think it is.



I also recommend you check out some of this other short, this one was partially done by Scott Kravitz, who did the wonderful closing credit sequence in Madagascar 2. It's an ad  for United Airlines, directed by Jamie Caliri (who also did the end sequence of Lemony Snicket) and it's pretty sweet.



And for a little more diversity in style, watch some of this hand-drawn stuff by Argentinian designers Matias Vigliano and animator Dante Zaballa work.



Thanks Cartoon Brew!!

Ever heard of Juan Giménez? No? Nobody? Fine.

I could only find bits and pieces of info about this 'modern master' on the net, which is a good thing as it will make this post shorter. Isn't that the trend now? Shorter blog posts? But I digress. Mr. Jimenez is described as "... one of the most renowned artists in the history of comics, excels in a variety of genres, from fantasy to science fiction, and adventure to erotica."


To my knowledge, he pioneered what I call the "Badass Wearing Helmet Staring Down At You". (Unfortunately, it's not the most clever thing I can come up with at the time of this writing)


Good ol' Giménez was born in 1943 in Argentina. He took up industrial design (always a plus for great sci-fi artists) and then he traveled to Barcelona's Academy of Fine Arts (that always does the trick, doesn't it?)


He settled in Europe at the end of the 1970s where his art has been published in Italian, French and Spanish magazines, graphic novels and books. His collaboration with the likes of Carlos Trillo and Ricardo Barreiro gave the guy a lot of cred.


If you're old enough to remember his published work on the French mag Metal Hurlant, more power to you.


He is probably most well-known for his work in "La Caste des Méta-Barons", published by Les Humanoïdes, where he collaborated with some Chilean writer named Alejandro Jodorowsky. This epic series covered the origins of the powerful clan of the Meta-barons and a lot of other events I don't seem to remember.


Metabarons was the series that introduced me to the all that awesome European comic stuff that nobody seems to really appreciate.


It was brought in the States by Humanoid Publishing in collaboration with some other major publishers in the early 2000's (or noughties or whatever you want to call that decade) but from what I heard it didn't pan out so well.

In any case, Juan Giménez is an awesome artist and I'll leave it at that.