Influence Map

Hello once more one and all. I was given an assignment by my new mentor to create an influences map and do some consideration as to why each of the people on the map were there. What it was about these folks that I liked and found interesting. I got excited and finished it rather quickly and I'm happy to share it with you all now. Links to all the artists' work will be provided.

1. Sandara

            Sandara is an artist I primarily know through Deviant art and she was one of the first artists I found when I joined the site almost 3 years ago. Most of my exposure to her has been through her creatures mostly her dragons and the like. She’s got a great sense of the fantastic and creating awe and majesty with her beasts and there’s a level of precision with her craft that I’m kind of in awe of. Her edges are crisp and clear where they need to be and she’s willing to let them haze where it’s less important and that’s a type of control I envy. If I’m 100% honest she’s probably one of the stronger influences right now. Early on I caught myself looking at her work while I painted and trying to figure out how she made what she did and if there were any tricks I could steal. She works primarily digitally.

2. Peter Mohrbacher

            Again we have someone who I consider highly proficient and precise in their painting. His characters also generally have a sense of power and majesty to them and once more the crispness of his work comes through. That said, the thing I enjoy a great deal about him are the colors. He handles his palettes nicely and they’re really a joy to look at pretty much any time. Beyond that I love his Angelarium series where he reinterprets angels into his own strange and unique forms. He works primarily digitally from what I can tell.

3. Dan Dos Santos           

            Find me a fantasy illustrator trying to get into the business right now who ISN’T influenced by Dan Dos Santos. Another one I didn’t realize was an influence until I really sat down and thought about it since my exposure to him has been minimal but I had more from him in my favorites than I thought I would. Like Peter, he’s done work for Magic: The Gathering which is one of my favorite games and a company I’d like to work for one day. I blame my ex girlfriend who was a huge fan for covertly corrupting me ;) There’s a lot to love about Santos. He’s a master with his anatomy and once again, the crisp, precision of a strong draftsman comes through. I love the way he handles his female characters. There’s a definite power emanating from them that I like a lot. I’m also routinely amazed by how saturated his colors are and yet he still manages to make them work so flawlessly. He works in oil but I thought he worked digitally for the longest time his stuff always looked so smooth and that kind of high sheen polish isn’t a look I’m used to seeing from oil.

4. Justin Gerard

            Another guy I like a lot mainly because he’s kind of different. I love the way he draws more than anything and the way he builds up his colors and lighting. He works mainly in watercolor and his control of the medium is amazing to me but then scans it in and uses digital to touch things up. He also handles digital the same way he handles water color: with numerous layers of thin washes to build things up over time. No matter what he gets this great story book look that I think is awesome.

5. Steve Argyle

            Sleek and polished, Steve has some strong compositions and great looking figures. He falls into some traps with his female characters I’m not fond of but his rendering has a really high polish that I like a great deal as well as a great sense of light. His character designs though are detailed and dripping with story tidbits. He works primarily digitally.

6. Jason Chan

            Jason’s another one who I knew but didn’t know I knew. I’d seen his work before in Magic but didn’t know his name. Once more the rendering is definitely on point and I like a number of his compositions. They’re simple but powerful. His color palettes tend to be a bit more controlled than some of the others on here in their level of saturation but only just. He too is mainly a digital artist.

7. Michael C-Hayes

            This guy is the real deal. I’m not as big a fan of his clothing design choices for his women. Sometimes they fit what he’s doing and sometimes it just seems like eye candy for eye candy’s sake (or the request of the client) but on this issue I can say to each their own. His appreciation for the female form is striking and leaps out to hit you in the face. His rendering of the form in general is astounding and there’s so much drama in his characters. Their forms have the finesse of some of the great old masters to me. He works primarily in oil and uses some really detailed pencil drawings before going to that point.

8. Clint Cearley

            Probably the most restrained guy on this list color wise now that I think about it as he tends to lean a bit more to the pastel side of the spectrum with his palettes having a bit more white to them which creates a lighter more airy atmosphere most of the time. He works digitally and does a black and white under painting before moving to color work and I find his methodical process of comforting. His compositions are simple for the most part it seems with an emphasis on the characters.

9. Anna Shoemaker

            Anna’s image has a bit more room allotted to it than might be entirely necessary if one is looking at a size to influence ratio. She’s a purely digital up and comer who’s career is really just getting going but there is a good reason. Anna and I were in school together and she is literally the person who taught me to digitally paint. She couldn’t help but influence me in that regard. I didn’t feel like I could avoid putting her on here since even though my current working method owes more to Clint Cearley, some of what she taught me is always knocking around in my head.

10. Michael Whelan

            This is a guy who’s name I didn’t know for years but he was one of my first examples of fantasy art as a child looking at the Dragonriders of Pern books that belonged to my mother. His dragons were different enough from the ones I was used to seeing that it started making me rethink how one could design creatures. He had some wonderful compositions too that relied on repetition to lead the eye through the piece. He would obviously have worked traditionally either in oil or acrylic.

11. Gustave Dore           

            Now we’re getting into what I call the foundational influences. These are the old dead guys who I studied in school and fell in love with. Dore had some masterful compositions. He was a phenomenal storyteller and could convey a lot with just how he positioned things on the page. His black and white engraving work was always so dramatic and powerful.

12. The Golden Age illustrators

            It’s a bit category but I’m mostly focused on Wyeth and Pyle here. Both men and their contemporaries were great draftsmen AND masters of composition. Their works are just fantastic to look at for interesting camera angles and viewing decisions.

13. The Baroque period artists

            The Renaissance is great and all but if I’m honest with myself the Baroque period paintings probably had a greater influence on the way I think about making pictures. Strong light sources (ones that are much brighter than they actually might be) dramatic shadows and striking compositions all over the place.

Alright time for some observations

-My perfectionism is showing. Strong rendering and precision draftsmanship are big sticking points for me and the art I like.

-Most of these folks are digital painters but use traditional drawing somewhere in their process.

-The colored lighting is great on pretty much everyone here who work sin color and it’s something I really need to make sure I work on.

-There really aren’t any heavy environment painters on this list which is weird because I love environments and think they’re a big part of the story you’re telling. If I were to add a painter that did that it would probably be John Avon.

-My love of Magic is strong.

-Most of these folks are representational artists and often very figurative working in what is commonly dubbed fantastic realism but mostly they’re still unafraid to be paintings. Sometimes digital artists try to render to the point of looking like photographs but these folks don’t for the most part. They’re all proud of the fact their paintings. DDS and Michael C. Hayes come the closest to moving away from that and even they still stay firmly rooted in the highly rendered painting.

-My penchant for colors is REALLY saturated, bright and bold. I’m not sure what that means right now but I do know that’s something I’ll have to think long and hard about since that’s really hard to do well.
-I like drama in my paintings. That's probably the biggest connecting thread in the whole thing. A lot of these influences ended up being a little subconscious but all of them have so much excitement and interest in their story telling even when the image isn't about an action scene or anything. There's a huge amount of drama and scope in the work. 

-Most of the modern influences have interesting ways they depict their women. A couple are known specifically for their female characters. They have a sense of power about them equal to what I’ve seen in most of the males in fantasy art and I think that’s what draws me to them.

“Strong female protagonist” has become a go to term for many things with a female lead in fiction and on some level I think it’s a bit limiting. It’s often well intended I think but too often it’s used as a short hand for a female character who’s just conforming to the male action hero mold rather than being her own thing or the writer forging their own tropes. While this is awesome in a lot of ways, inadvertently or otherwise still makes it seem as if the only way to be strong and have an effect on the world or story is to use a type of strength that is generally coded male. A powerful female lead on the other hand has a slightly different connotation to me at least. It manages to convey more while being much more nebulous and encompasses to me at least, many types of power: from outright force, and mystic might, to deceptions to the use of people’s ingrained ideas against them, to just the power to effect an audience’s mood and emotions within the framework of a story.