(Cover to The Duke’s Ballad)

Update: I have changed the post so that if you can click on any of the paintings (all copyright Daniel Dos Santos) and they will open up to larger versions for you to greater appreciate their awesome detail.

You can’t judge a book by its cover. Up until recently I always took that to have the one meaning…just because a book has a bad or uninteresting cover doesn’t mean that there isn’t a wonderful story in there. Sort of the ugly duckling syndrome. However the opposite is also true. Sometimes the cover of a book is so amazing that it outshines the book that it is advertising. Thankfully my experience has been that by and large when I am drawn to a book because of its cover I find that the entrancing image is simply wrapping for an incredible gift of story. Many of the artists who occupy my Favorites file have gotten there because I have discovered them through their book cover illustrations. It is getting to the point that I can often recognize certain artists’ work before I pick up the book for confirmation, which is really gratifying. And there are some artists whom I gravitate towards every time I am in the bookstore, even if I don’t end up buying the book. Daniel Dos Santos is one of those artists.

Continue reading Friday Favorites 6: Daniel Dos Santos →

Songs Under The Apple Tree ©Linda Bergkvist

Today’s Friday Favorite, coming to you a day early so you have more time to enjoy her work, is Linda Bergkvist. Linda is a digital artist of exceptional skill as can be seen in the work featured here and on her website. Her work is so stunning that I find it difficult to describe in words; her pictures truly speak for themselves. Digital art is still a relatively new medium that, at least initially, had critics crying foul, denigrating its artistic value. I simply reply, “Hogwash!” and allow the work of digital illustrators like Linda Bergkvist to show how foolish that belief is.

(Linda and Azrael) ©Linda Bergkvist

Linda Bergkvist was born in and still resides in Umeå, Sweden. When it came time to pursue a profession Linda was initially unsure of her artistic talent so she studied languages with the intent to become a teacher. After doing that for some time she was offered a job at a local computer company and left her language study to enter the graphics world.

The Melody of Your Demise ©Linda Bergkvist

Linda Bergkvist’s artwork has a definite fairy tale element to it. She describes her inspiration thus, “I love the visual element of fairytales. Things that are fantastic and unnatural and not quite real fascinate me to no end. I suppose I am in love with old, cruel tales and the wickedness that comes wrapped up in lovely forms. I suppose, in a way, I still enjoy the very same things that I have all of my life – a mixture of fantasy and horror with a little twinge of romantic idealisation.”

Shades ©Linda Bergkvist

The realism that skilled digital artists attain in their work is amazing. Even more astounding is the level of photo realism acheived in rendering people.

Porcelain ©Linda Bergkvist

Porcelain is a perfect example. It looks like a painting and yet it looks so real. One of the things I love about Linda’s work is that she uses darker tones and much of her more bright work involves autumnal colors like those shown in the first picture and the following.

Autumn Whisperlings ©Linda Bergkvist

Linda Bergkvist is currently working on a book among other projects and her work has been featured in several other digital art books from Ballistic Publishing. Ballistic is soon to release a poster book under their Ballistic Masters series on the work of Linda Bergkvist.

I want to encourage you to visit Linda Bergkvist’s site Furiae. It features much of her work with various explanations, inspirations, etc. on each piece. Linda Bergkvist is very generous with the use of her art for things like I have used here and she has very specific requests concerning this, one being that a person use no more than 5 works. I have chosen the 5 that impressed me the most upon first viewing her work though there are many other types of work in her portfolio. There are horror related pieces, more fantasy and fairy tale works, and a section on “quick” works that she has done. One of these ‘quick studies’ is a really beautiful self-portrait. I have to laugh at the idea of them being called ‘quick’ simply because they are so incredible. Her site also contains wallpapers and digital art tutorials. Another site to showcasing her work is here.

Linda Bergkvist is a great talent and I hope you enjoy checking out more of her wondrous, enthralling work.

(I apologize if the large images cause slow loading times. The work deserves to be shown big and I didn’t want to minimize it any more than I had to in order to fit in on the site.)

Today’s Friday Favorites features the comic and illustration work of Chris Bishop. If you have young children then you are probably intimately familiar with this guy:

Chris is Associate Creative Director at PBS KIDS Interactive and has designed their website among others. In addition to website design Chris Bishop does illustration work, paintings, and has an online comic strip.

Chris Bishop’s painting is really fun. Bold colors combined with subject matter that appeals to any nerds’ heart: Pretty Girls and Robots. Some great examples from this collection are:

I really like the retro feel of his painting and illustration work. The clean lines, simple designs, and use of bold colors make for some great pieces.

Chris Bishop’s webcomic is called Her! [Girl vs. Pig] It is funny and often, but not always, violent in a twisted, ill sort of way. The violence is something akin to Coyote and the Road Runner with a modern bent. The less violent strips are also hilarious, I found myself cracking up last night as I went back and read several of his strips. These are some that stuck out to me:

and

and

and

Chris has also had some of his work transfered into these really cool buttons:

that can be purchased at Super Buttons. Think I may have to indulge!

Chris Bishop is a fun and funny guy whose work, from his paintings to the adventures of young lady and a pig, makes me happy. I hope you check out Chris Bishop’s other stuff at his site.

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Using the last cartoon as a segue I leave you one more humorous thing to start your weekend off right. If you are thinking of seeing any potential Oscar winning movies this weekend you might want to reconsider and watch this classic instead:

Click Here!

Courtesy of Wayne and his site. Thanks Wayne! Men and women both I encourage you to read this post of Wayne’s, its quite the eye opener.

Happy Friday everyone!!! As Red Green would say, “Keep your stick on the ice”!

With Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Mirrormask coming out on DVD in the last few weeks and the first pictures of next year’s Dark Crystal sequel The Power of the Dark Crystal hitting the internet, puppets, muppets and stop-motion animation are in the air…or at least in the air in my head! In that same spirit today’s Friday Favorite features Red Nose Studio.

[Editor’s Note: just a reminder that Friday Favorites features a site from my Favorites file…in case you forgot, or cared, or wanted to know, or could care less…]

Chris Sickels is the creator behind Red Nose Studio. Chris is an illustrator, but a somewhat unconventional illustrator in that his illustrations are created three dimensionally. Among his clients are The New York Times, Village Voice, Spike TV, the L.A. Times, and H.O.W. Design. It was through the H.O.W. Design magazine that I discovered Chris Sickels’ work and a more thorough article about Chris Sickels can be found on their website. His work has won several awards and it is easy to see why as it is very unique and creative. Because his creations actually exist and are then photographed there is a depth, texture, and “realness” that just cannot be duplicated with traditional two dimensional media. I get excited by many and varied styles of art and creativity and the Red Studios work is really phenomenal.

(Editorial picture entitled Failure of US Intelligence)

Chris creates sets and puppets from a wide variety of materials including wire, fabric, cardboard, wood, minitatures and found objects. Chris Sickels’ puppets are slightly eerie, and oddly whimsical, creations that have an air of the familiar about them. Chris molds the puppet heads from sculpey, fires them in the oven, and then paints them to give them their unique and charming personality. The creatures of Red Nose Studio vary in size often depending on what materials Chris starts with. He may find some object that he wants in the set and will then build everything to scale around that object.

(Cover to The Borribles by Michael de Larrabeiti)

A visit to the Red Nose Studio site will not only reward you with several pictures of Chris’s memorable creations but will give you the opportunity to see his experimentation with stop-motion animation. The four shorts are raw, and weird, but show a great deal of potential. To me Chris Sickels’ work cries out for the stop-motion animation treatment and I am glad to see that he is traveling down that road.

I am very impressed with the work of Chris Sickels. His creations have the look and feel of old friends and I have no doubt if I visited his studio that I would want one of these little guys to follow me home. I will continue to keep regular tabs on the Red Nose Studio site in the hopes of seeing more fun films and more great creations by Chris Sickels.

(The lighting and sense of discovery in this one are fantastic!)

Visit his site, look at the pictures, watch the short films and join me in marveling at the unique talent of Chris Sickels.