"Concept" Art

I came across this Jon Foster piece in one of the Illustration annuals. It struck me. It is a good example of making an otherwise normal composition exciting by tilting the subject matter. That crow seems to really be irking that Robot where he is almost leaning or falling away. So I looked Jonny boy up. Unfortunately, this was the only piece that I liked. Sure, he's got skills, but the rest of his work is ho-hum fantasy illustration.

Now, I grew up a Star Wars geek, so I still have an affinity towards this style, like a long gone first love. But it disappoints me so much when I see people monkey it over and over again (Like Anime or Dungeons and Dragons. Can you honestly tell that shit apart?). This brand of illustration is inappropriately called Concept Art. The "concept" comes from the fact the ideas presented gets used later in a film or video game. However, it is not conceptual. In fact, very little thought goes into the piece other than the formal elements, or gadgetry. Often, not even the formal elements, but only the gadgets. Or only the giant breasts on the nearly naked warrior girl.

Anyway, SCAD now has a representative from this realm of the illustration world, Michael Phillippi. I am excited to learn how he uses Photoshop only for his pieces. I tend to think that makes really fake-looking art, but he makes it work for him. (At this point I think of Photoshop as a pre or post production tool rather than the only one.) He still suffers from the tendencies to draw dragons and dwarves over and over again, but I guess that makes money for him. I can think of worse jobs than painting the same "bad ass" elves, or whatnot, repeatedly. It's those people that get to work on Lord of the Rings and Matrix movies. I can think of a lot of worse jobs than that.