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!!

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.

That's all you need to know about him really. The guy's resume is all over the net anyway, and I'm sure they've done waaaay better writeups than I ever would. I just... had to feature him here, that's all.


Okay just so I have something to say for this post, according to Mr. Dan "Adonihs" LuVisi's' lil' deviantART FAQ, he first started out real terrible-like. He said he could draw, sure, but the moment the pen touched the tablet...it was just one of the most irritating processes ever. "I felt like giving up, I found myself not know how to choose colors or do anything." As you can see, he eventually got the hang of it.


Nowadays, he usually works on a canvas roughly around 4500 x 6500 pixels (300 DPI = poster size) with tons of layers. It takes... three to four days to complete a piece.

Most of his skill was derived from the great tutorials at www.thegnomonworkshop.com. He did NOT attend art school. But I think you knew that.