Taliah Lamonts Year 2 College work: Contemporary and Historical Illustrators- Task 1

A look into Contemporary and Historical Illustrators

Illustration is a very broad, very old subject, to put it simply. It covers comics, graphic novels, artists, illustrators, concept artists, animators, basically any job even slightly connected to visual arts. As such, it has a plethora of artists with greatly varying styles and influences. Here are a few I like, and a couple I don’t:

Slugbox

Slugbox (real name unknown) is, and has been, a very well-known internet artist for 4 years through sites like tumblr, and Deviant Art. He specialises in very comically proportioned monster girls with strong, striking colour palettes, and rounded, bouncy shapes to his images. He is also very popular for having a strong cast of original characters who all work under his main character, Anurae. She runs a famous model and photography agency, and his other characters work as models for her. I like this cute way of giving his images context instead of them just being poses to show off a character.

His main character, Anurae

His work is entirely digital and done through the program Manga Studio 5. His style is also largely cell shaded, even though he occasionally dabbles in more realistically shaded pieces, but regardless of shading style his lines are always very bold, and his colours combine stunningly.

My favourite part about his work is the way in which he draws women, despite them being aliens, and very weirdly proportioned, they carry a certain ‘boinginess’ to them that I like. He adds visible weight to them, even the thin characters seem to have a realistic level of muscle to their body, and the larger characters have realistic gravity, and realistic levels of chubbiness instead of being the stereotypical tall women, with flat tummies, tiny waists, giant hips, and giant chests. It’s a rare combination of fantasy and realism that, to me, makes his work stand out.

Inabuns
Inabuns is a very curious internet artist. They show their art through DeviantArt.com, and tumblr, and their work is done entirely in a Japanese drawing program called Paint Tool Sai. Also, apart from the fact they live in Denmark, we don't know their age, name, or gender, making them one of the few anonymous artists on the internet.

Their art is incredibly weird, its appears slightly messy in the lines, and the colouring and shading is very rough but this style and quality makes their work astounding to observe. The characters are incredibly deformed with thin, elongated limbs, but large flat hands, and feet, and more often than not, with large heart shaped faces.

The faces though are definitely worth mentioning at this point, I love how the facial features are very triangular and severely drawn, but chunky and exaggerated like a traditional cartoon character. Its a contrast rarely found in art styles, but executed superbly. The hair is also worth mentioning as its very drastic also, with sharp angles and lines, but chunky and with body and emphasis.

They also have a very individual way of presenting their characters. They are rarely accompanied with a background, nothing more than a flat colour, or slight gradient is added, but the character is posed interestingly to give the image a more purposeful direction. These characters stand out further as they colour schemes blend and contrast beautifully, they somehow find a way to blend colours together that just seems so effortless but a delight to percieve.

In my opinion, they are singularly intriguing pieces, to say the least, and I hope this artist gets more fame than on the internet alone.

Max Fleischer

Max Fleischer is an incredible classic animator. Active during the 30's and onward, he was responsible for the creations of animated legends such as Popeye the Sailor, Betty Boop, and he even dabbled in Superman. His classic cartoon style set the standard for years to come, and his work is still used as an example today.

What I adore most about his work is the exaggerated styles and animations he gave his characters. Every character had a simple structure and design to them that made each one gorgeous, and they were always animated so perfectly. Cute and bouncy, and very stretched and exaggerated, its

Reference sheet for 'Bimbo'

incredibly fun to watch his cartoons.

My favourite character of his though was Betty Boop. She was styled on the flappers of the time, and he even had an actress and singer to thank for her inspiration. She was ditsy and cute but very short tempered and this balance was delightful. I also love her shape, she has a very slim waist but a very prominent chest, and hips, and she had huge eyes and a cute little pout. She was made to essentially be an animated sex symbol of her time, which you can tell by the way she was animated, if you see what they made her wear and do it becomes blindingly obvious, that and the fact she was given a garter. But she was always fun and hilarious, and her little cartoons were a landmark of many peoples childhood.

A clip of Betty

His work was done traditionally by animating on paper, then tracing over it on a clear sheet of plastic called a 'cell', and acrylic paint was applied to the back to add the colour. There would be different layers of cells for this process, one for the characters, the background, and the foreground. This could lead to very busy, heavy shots but it was a classic style with wonderful charm.

His cartoons were the starting point of childrens animation, and without them we wouldn't have had such a broad and varied collection of our own today.

Hayao Miyazaki

Although Hayao Miyazaki isn't dead, so technically can't be classed as historical, he is now retired which to me is a good enough cause to class him as historical as we will never see new work from him again.

Screen Cap from 'Howls Moving Castle'

Hayao Miyazaki was born January 5, 1941 (73 years old), and born and continued to work in Japan throughout his career. He worked for Toei Animation as an inbetween artist (drawing the frames inbetween the key animation frames) but rose to a better position when he pitched a better ending to the film 'Gullivers Travel, Beyond the Moon' which ended up being used in the final film. After a string of other films, he directed his own film called 'Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro' in 1979. This began a string of films which were produced at the studio he created 'Studio Ghibli'. This studio is now world wide famous since films like 'Spirited Away', 'Howls Moving Castle', and 'Ponyo' were dubbed over and released by Disney in the west.

Screen Cap from 'Spirited Away'

A clip from 'Spirited Away'

What I like about his style is the gorgeous colours he uses mostly. He can combine any number of colours and it just makes a gorgeous and memorable picture. I also adore his character designs, they are always very simple but rather elegant, with fantastic shapes and silhouettes which are always incredibly distinctive on whichever character he creates. I also love how he bases his characters, or their gestures, off real people such as family friends, public figures/celebrities, or even his own employees which makes his characters seem so much more lifelike and 3-D. This is also helped by the way he animated his movies as a whole, they always have such fantastic flow and move with a certain lightness, like gravity is slightly softer than in reality which is almost relaxing to see. But when a character is falling or moving at speed they collide and writhe with a feeling of such weight and speed its crazy to watch, but thrilling,

Overall he is a genius animator, director, and illustrator whose worked will be greatly missed.