Lovely picture: Jackson Sze's Laputa

Just wow. Jackson Sze.

Of course Hellboy drives a muscle car!

Dusty Abel's poster of 1970s action heroes is simply class! But I like his take on Mike Mignola's Hellboy even better.

(via Conor via Wired)

Lovely picture: Kali Fontecchio

I haven’t written one of these posts in a while. Let’s go!

After seeing Kali Fontecchio’s work at Sketch Theatre (via Scamp) - and drawn in, I admit, by her awesome name - I went to her blog and spent ages looking at her work. It's amazing.

Fontecchio is a recent graduate from Otis College of Art & Design in California (Kim Gordon, from Sonic Youth went there) and now works with cult animation... er, person, John Kricfalusi (of Ren and Stimpy fame).

Fontecchio has a unique style that is tricky to pin down. She blends classic Walt Disney, Loony Tunes, satirical cartooning and greeting card schmaltz together in a compelling (disturbing!?) way; there's an interesting interview with her here in which she cites Buster Keaton and Laurel and Hardy as influences.

The sketch above is a good example of Fontecchio's style (though there is loads on her blog): sweet, beautifully rendered, but with something askew. Her cartoons are either cute to the point of grotesqueness or grotesque to the point of cuteness.

Lovely Picture: Sam Hiti 2

I recently posted a lovely picture of a Samurai/ Archer putting on battle dress, but erroneously attributed it to Paul Pope, on whose blog I had seen it. Whew!

Anway, that lovely picture (and this one), is by the talented Sam Hiti, a Xeric Foundation Award-winner and creator of the brilliant fist-a-cuffs. His comic, Tiempo Finales, won the award in 2002 and has since been optioned as a movie.

Lovely picture: Ashley Wood

Australian artist and illustrator Ashley Wood (probably best known here for illustrating Tank Girl: The Gifting) loves war and robots. He's a fine draughtsman, but it is in his painting that he really shows off his talent; and this painting (above) illustrates it, with three qualities in particular (four, if you count robots!):

1. The composition gives a sense of tension and anticipation (the robot to the left, gun raised in readiness, the shadowed foreground and the crooked street sign in what looks like a modern city street all evoke feelings of disharmony and uncertainty).
   
2. Wood's trademark muted palette, all browns of varying degrees of warmth, plays on conventions of war-reportage, economically and realistically evoking hot, dusty futuristic warfare.
   
3. finally, eerie light effects, give the painting depth and add to the realism of the scene. The main subjects, are in the middle-ground in mid-tones, the empty foreground is bisected by shadows and squeezed off to the right by shadows from the building on the left and in the background pale, dusty ruins loom out of a paler void.

Nice one!

Lovely Picture: Sam Hiti

Comics illustrator Paul Pope posted this wonderful diagrammatic illustration, by Sam Hiti, of a Japanese archer/ samurai donning his armour.

Lovely Picture: Michael Hague

Keeping up the Hobbit theme from last week, here is a beautiful illustration by Michael Hague.

Hague's realistic style and lush use of colour really brought The Hobbit to life for me, as a child, and I pored over the pictures for hours, wishing I was in Tolkien's world.

Hague says:
"Only after coloring everything do I go in with my ink lines. This is in some ways working backward."

Perhaps this is what gives Hague's illustrations their wonderful, soft, lived-in feeling.

Lovely picture: Nicolas Klein

Nic Klein is a German artist and illustrator, who has worked on a lot of comics, most recently Marvel's Dead of Night: Man Thing 4. Nic's painterly work shows elements of manga, golden age comics and graphic design.

Of his influences, Nic says, "I believe everything we see and do influences the art-making process; reading a book, watching a film, sitting in a cafe and watching people. It all gets stored somewhere in the back of the mind and perhaps works its way into a piece or a process of creating."

[via ConceptArt.org]

Back on the streets

On my first day back in Dublin, I came across this rather nice throwup on the little victorian kiosk on the main road.

The reason for the cropping is because the kiosk faces a wall. I couldn't get far enough away from it to fit the whole piece in!

Lovely picture: Feanne

Idle browsing reveals rapturous delights.

A lovely drawing by Feanne.

[via Drawn]