Concept art References

This books there in the Srishti Library. It is really awesome to be able to flip the pages of hundreds and of fantastically done concept art for the greatest movie trilogies of all time. These are pictures from The Art Of Lord Of The Rings.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Lord-Rings-Gary-Russell/dp/0618510982

Edgar Degas

My grandfather had a print of Degas's Ballet dancers at his house, which I have been staring at from the time I knew what I was looking at. And the colour treatment still will not let me go. Its wormed its way into some scenes in my script.

Frank Miller

We cannot NOT talk about Frank Miller. Actually I have before. But this is purely the art.

Mike Mignola

His name is awesome sounding too. Along with him being one of the best comic artists in the business, that is. Its like you're talking about the Sopranos of Comic books. The name in itself that awesome.

Albrecht Durer

Perhaps the greatest engraver that ever was there. Very few people know that he was prodigy who was good at pretty much anything he put his hands to. What brings me to Albrecht Durer, other than the fact that he was hot as hell, was because of Lines, lines, lines, lines and lines. Beautiful lines. I was first introduced to Durer when I was doing my graduation in history. The lines of his engravings stood out pristine and pure, even from the shoddy printing of the text book. That says something of the man's skill, doesn't it? To do such work, hundreds of years ago that maintains itself through the hard rigours of bad printing centuries later...

Dave McKean

I grew up on this guys work. The obsession started understandably enough from Sandman. Its actually interesting that how much of my influences start from that one graphic novel collection. Yes. I will admit it before anyone else has to come to the tiresome job of a conclusion. I am a LITTLE obsessed with Neil Gaiman.
 But Dave Mckean has moved beyond that obsession. He has a place of his own in my  gallery of obsessions. Let me put it this way, this guy made look at typography and design composition before I knew what the hell design was. This was the time when in school I used to doodle on classmates hands and they in their infinite wisdom said, "Oh, I bet you'll be a Fashion Designer when you leave school!" and I scoffed. In their defense, they were more clueless about art and design. But still, this guy made me look. Plus his disturbing images also soothes the Photoshop freak in me. But he does it all manually, of course, because he is brilliant, and well, I'm not. I'd say you will understand his true brilliance when you see the titles of the 90's tv series, Neverwhere. It clicked then and it just gets better and better.

and watch this. how taking the grainy quality of a plain ol video camera to make it work for art. purposely.

Aleksandar Zolotic

All designers have a guilty and common secret. Its called the Behance network. It includes the Served website- Typography, Photography, Illustration etc.
Aleksandar Zolotic works with a style that adore. Reminds me of Dave Mckean.  Who will come next.

The start of Visual Referencing

Its Late. I know. Its SUPER LATE. To update the blog about this, I mean. I assure you my references have always been in my head. Honestly. Would I LIE TO YOU? I hope you have more confidence in me. But better late than never, eh?

Charles Vess

Gives fantasy illustration back the integrity in the word fantasy. His work is nothing if not ethereal. And the best part is that he works with my favorite medium, water colours.