How Much Art Can You Take?

Monday, November 16, 2009

Moebius's concepts for Jodorowsky's "Dune"

The Film that never was. The 14-hour long adaption of Dune directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky and starring Salvador Dali and Mick Jagger, might never see the light of day, but the snippets of what was made by artists HR Giger, Chris Foss, and comic-master Jean "Moebius" Giraud has appeared over the years. Check out this website that has some of the storyboards and character designs by Moebius.

Apparently 2 million dollars of the 9.5 million dollar budget was spent on pre-production. Moebius did storyboards for the whoooooooole script, which was apparent the size of a phone book (according to Frank Herbert). I just hope that one day, that gets released, because i know it would pretty much be a Dune graphic novel. Although some of Giger's design bleed over into David Lynch's adaption, the concept art by Moebius makes me wish it was made. It's so fantastic and otherworldly, I can't even put my head around it. Ever since Peter Jackson did his 11 1/2 hour version of The Lord Of The Rings, i feel like a proper adaption of Dune should be made. Not to say David Lynch's version was terrible, it just had a bad flow. And was confusing. You can't condense a novel like Dune into 137 minutes.

Anyways, here's the link- http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/moebius.asp

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Michael Whelan does Elric of Melniboné

When it comes to cover art for fantasy novels, I normally think of bland adventurers hanging out in some painfully boring forest aided with over saturation of primary colors that are accented by an overly glossy polish on the painting. This is the case with a lot of novels that came out in the later 1980s and 1990s on TSR, and even some of the artists commissioned for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. But then there are always those artists who have a good sense of conceptual design, composition, and a strong sense of style tot he point where they wouldn't even need to use a signature to sign their works.

Enter Michael Whelan, fantasy artist supreme. Not only is he one of the better of the genre, but he's also one of the most productive. You can tell he loves what he does by the sheer output of paintings he's done. AND he has galleries of his work all over the nation, trying to break into the art world. I have a lot of respect for that. Amongst all of these art school dropouts trying to imitate Donald Judd *yawn, guess what- minimalism is over* there are people who are doing decent figuration work, but adding character to it. Although his character is more fantastic, nevertheless snobbish art elitist are looking at it and trying to convince themselves they shouldn't it like it because it's blatantly Fantasy-oriented and not pretentious in the least. But I digress

Michael Whelan is known for his art for fantasy novel series for Dragon Riders of Pern, Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom, Tad William's multiple series, Melanie Rawn's Dragon Star and Dragon Prince, and the DAW editions of Michael Moorecock's cult hero Elric of Melniboné in addition to Record jackets for Heavy Metal Bands Sepultura, Obituary, and these guys-

All four original albums by Cirith Ungol uses Michael Whelan's art he was commissioned for the Elric series as their cover art*. One opinion that i still have for most fantasy artists is that their best stuff is made in the earlier part of their career. Whelan breaks away from that to a degree, but I feel that his work from the 1970s-1980s is his strongest. The work he did for the DAW editions of Moorecock's novels are brilliant. Whelan is on the top tier of Fantasy artists not because of his technical abilities as an artists, but because he is one of finest fantasy artists with a sense of composition this side of Frank Frazetta. And that's saying a lot. But I think i understand why, because Elric is one of the the most badass character concepts since Howard's Conan of Cimmeria (the barbarian to you squares.) Check out this powerful image in full-

Elric of Melniboné is the albino emperor of a dissolving empire of a humanoid race (similar to elves, but evolved from cats?) who has to take "herbs"(drugs) to function normally because his body is terminally ill. He is estranged to the decadence of his race's culture and sees the human kingdoms as potential threats to his kingdom and everything else. And he wields a black-bladed long sword called the Stormbringer that drains Elric of his energy and health, but is powered by the souls of those who are slain by the Stormbringer's blade. I need to get every book.

With such a strong literary character, Whelan does wonder's with portraying him. In fact Michael Moorecock said that he's the only artist to depict Elric properly to his liking. And I feel that Whelan does justice by not only making strong compostions of elric being awesome, but also adds atmosphere, something that alot of fantasy artists never even attempt. He is truely a master of his craft, and I hope to own an original by him someday. Plus he can hang with Obituary, and that's okay in my book. Here's a gallery of his images of Elric.

And here's the Cirith Ungol sub-gallery-

*If you claim to like Metal and don't know who Cirith Ungol is, then you pose. Put down the burrito, stop listening to Municipal Waste and get Frost and Fire.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Roger Dean's record jackets: 1970-1974

Progressive Rock bands always have the best cover art. It's usually some kind of otherworldly landscape, sometimes littered with strange animals creepy crawling on giant mushrooms. Or its an image of some strange character (probably some kind of wizard) casting magic or screaming (see King Crimson's self-titled), with a moon or two (or Saturn) thrown in the background for good measure. We've all seen it, and the art works because it makes us pause and look at the record for a few seconds longer when browsing the racks at the nearby record store. Now I'm not as well versed in Prog Rock, but I do know that Roger Dean has been doing art for bands since the genre's early days. You say you don't know who Roger Dean is? Well maybe you might recognize this logo he made:

If your at all familiar with Yes, then you've seen his art. Roger Dean is the primary artists for Yes, and their entire catalog displays the progression of his artwork. They have collaborated so much together that they're trying to currently make a 3D animated film based on his art. Can't say I care to see Roger Dean's landscape in a mediocre computer-generated way. Whenever anyone forces the illustrative style into a three=dimensional CGI image, it is always terrible. But I digress.

Anyways, I'm going to focus on his art from 1970-1974. Why 1970-1974? Well because that's when he was more raw and illustrative, which I'm really into. His images are flatter and less skillful, but come off as honest and imaginative. Don't get me wrong, his later stuff is gorgeous and incredible, but I want to focus on his time before he developed the caliber of craftsmanship he has today. The other reason is because I want to show how illustrative cover art was back then, with heavy use of pen & Ink with watercolor as opposed to the overuse of Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator that we see today. I'm really into watercolor art, since it's so organic and almost chaotic. An artist can release his energy into a watercolor piece of work, and it will be captured but he medium. Anyways, If your a fan of Hard Rock/early Heavy metal, you might also recognize some of these images-

Uriah Heep:

Greensdale:

Gentle Giant:

Osibisa:

Budgie:

Yes:

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Dragonmaster

Back in the fall of 2005, I went over my friend's new apartment. She and I have been friends for awhile at this point, and one of our strongest bonds is over nerdy fanatasy material. Such as getting pumped about classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters and Warhammer figurines. From the moment I entered her apartment, she threw this card game called Dragonmaster in my face. She found it earlier that day at The Goodwill. I FLIPPED out. The artwork is brilliant, and I knew it seemed familiar. Then I FLIPPED out harder when I saw on the game credits that Bob Pepper did the art. This was around the time when I first started to get into his work, so stumbling across this gem was very exciting.

His style sets him apart from any other illustrator I've seen. His figures are very unique looking, somehow portraying a 1970s cartoon-esque style with darkness and depth. It's all so very detailed though, giving everyone on all of the cards their own distinct personality. His style is not using watercolors, surprisingly enough. I'll let him explain how he does it 9Taken from an interview from well-of-souls.com)-

"My technique is to cement down charcoal paper, float water into areas of the illustration, and border the area with dark gouache which spreads and settles in the warpings of the wet paper. After that dries flat, I float dyes on top to color the area. I love the whole process of illustration, but mostly the research and bringing together of many different parts to form a coherent whole design that I like. I also think that your state of mind, (what interests you) has, really, everything to do with it!"

His work is fresh and exciting, even now. He went on to create the art for a board came called Dark Tower, which has become a cult classic amongst board game enthusiasts. I've seen glimpses of his work in in fantasy art books from the 80s that continued this style, which I'm currently trying to hunt down. The following is the complete set of Dragonmaster cards. I'll categorize them by "kingdom" and specialty cards

The Druids