Thursday, 14 February 2013

Kazue-Chan´s Valentine´s Day

An alle, deren Valentinstag nicht so gelaufen ist, wie geplant:
Kazue-chan versteht euren Schmerz...

       

        



To all those whose Valentine´s Day did not go as planned: 
Kazue-chan understands your pain...




Monday, 4 February 2013

Let´s talk about art: Beauty VS Diversity

A discussion about art from an artists perspective and the problem of character-fuckability. We are so classy.

Alvene: I don't care much about sameface to be honest as long as it's beautiful, variety for variety alone is kind of pointless.

Nekromantenhase: Well, yes one has different priorities concerning beauty and diversity, but sometimes it just gets ridiculous with groups of people having the same faces and bodies in one picture.
Also, there is more than one way to draw "beautiful". That reminds me too much of super-heroines where you just change the hairstyle and costume and BAM different character. But yes, diversity just for diversity´s sake is the other extreme and does not make much sense either. I personally would just find it boring to draw the same model over and over again.

Alvene: The thing is, not everybody has a diverse taste - maybe, someone really does have one idea of beauty. Like, we all have restrictions and they may be tighter or looser, for example some people can tolerate certain features and abnormalities of the human body, others just find the person automatically ugly.

Nekromantenhase: I´m not even talking about the "extreme" stuff. I´m talking about using literally the same face and the same body http://www.comiccombo.de/images/product_images/original_images/42431_0.jpg
over
http://majorspoilers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/GrimmFairyTalesCover.jpg
and over
http://www.x-comics.de/bilder/produkte/gross/Grimm-Fairy-Tales-Mythen-Legenden.jpg
again -.-

I guess I just can´t accept that someone can only stick to one depiction and one depiction only. One could go with almond-shaped eyes or with round eyes, or tired-looking eyes. One could make the lips of the one person a bit fuller or less full; one does not even have to change the nose if they think it makes their figure automatically ugly. Vary the chest size a bit. Vary the weight a bit. Trying stuff out makes one realize one´s tastes. It´s like that person decided to only eat ice cream and only one flavor of ice cream for the rest of their lives. If he or she likes to, okay, but I would find it boring.
It´s just not how I would do it.

Alvene: I would not believe somebody with such skills has not tried life drawing and all kinds of physique before developing their own style, that's unrealistic. I don't quite agree about realizing one's tastes  - yes, one can certainly discover new things and acquire tastes, but a great lot of stuff is sort of already there, programmed in your core and you won't get rid of it.

Nekromantenhase: But my core point still stands: It´s just not how I would do it. Of course, everyone has a taste in beauty and I do not want anyone to get rid of it, but as I said: staying at that point all my life I would find kinda boring. And diversity is not that hard, really. I mean, honestly those women just look all the same. I just can´t get over it. Fairy tales are such an interesting concept and he ignores all possibilities of drawing interesting ideas for the sake of having an army of Barbie dolls... it´s a shame, that´s all ._.
Regarding him studying anatomy and so on... I do not know about that, but this way or the other he surely ignores those classes. That little red riding hood has no place for organs in that body.

Alvene: I agree about that guy, his fairy-tale work is kind of boring and these bodies are impossible - but it is obvious that he CAN do realistic and decided to work in this style. It is rather possible that he's doing it for the money though, cause sex sells and so do Barbie dolls.
Drawing exactly one face for life does appear strange, but I seriously doubt that anybody would really go to that extreme. Look, that guy can also draw like this:
http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com/gallery/11378688#/d1b0hv3 And like this: http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com/gallery/26557218#/d2zaims   He does have diversity!

Nekromantenhase: Well, I did not want to go there, but... yes. Yes, he can draw different faces. He did draw different faces... mostly on guys.
Case in point:
http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com/art/TRUE-BLOOD-quot-Tainted-Love-quot-covers-1-6-274262731?q=gallery%3Aj-scott-campbell%2F2221546&qo=18
Uh, wait, I am being unfair: There is a non-sameface in the background. But her body is the same XD Ahaha.
Also, I take it back, what I said about red riding hood having too little space for her organs. Yes, you are right, it is stylization, and even when it´s stylization I do not agree of, I don´t have to bitch about it. I was just angry about the double standard once again, because his guys look really awesome, but his women (almost) always have the same face, body and move like bad imitations of porn stars.

Alvene: Indeed, his girls are all the same, like in Marvel. But being able to draw different guys means being capable of doing the same with females too, thus is it is a choice (and double standard), but not inability to draw.

Nekromantenhase: Which is even more tiresome for me because, well, he CAN draw awesome females theoretically, he just chooses not to *sigh* For me that is as if he is able to fly but insists on very elaborate crawling because it looks better in his opinion.

Alvene: Well, that's a matter of taste entirely. I sort of still have a strong feeling it's a commercial thing, but one never knows.

Nekromantenhase:  If all his work would be just for pin-up-calendars, I guess I would be more okay with it, but as we have already discussed, a character does not get better if you want to fuck it.

Alvene:  Nah, not really. Fuckable characters can certainly appear, but it should not be their main asset.

AMEN!

Alvene made the Comics “Loveletter”, “Ich tanze nicht” and the cover for Schattenspiele 2012, among others. Her deviantart-account is http://alvene.deviantart.com.

Nekromantenhase is responsible for “Artischocke”, “Visage” and “Kopflos”, among others. Her deviantart-account is http://nekromantenhase.deviantart.com

A few notes:
·         This used to be a private, casual conversation between the two of us. It´s not a representation of our generalized opinion on everything concerning art. It´s also not an attempt to solve the matter, it´s just an exchange of thoughts.
·         Just a quick reminder: We are not talking about aesthetics of real people, we are talking about art and media, that is something else entirely.
·         We would also like to add that we love and respect each other and each other´s opinion <3

Monday, 21 January 2013

]trash[pool



Heute lenken wir mal unseren Blick weg von unserem eigenen Magazin hin zu einem anderen:

]trash[pool ist ein Sammelsurium aus Werken aller Art, literarisch und optisch, aber vor allem künstlerisch und experimentell. Als eine Plattform für (junge und) neue Künstler, die so noch nichts veröffentlicht haben, aber nach einer Möglichkeit suchen, stehen sie Abseits der einschränkenden Mechanismen und wollen den tatsächlichen Stand neuer Kunst darstellen.

„Trash“, im Sinne der englischen, umgangssprachlichen Konnotation als „angesagt“ und „ungewöhnlich“, ein „Pool“, weil eine Ansammlung davon und die nach außen gerichteten Klammern, weil sie inkorporieren und nicht ausschließen wollen: So sind diese Eigenschaften bereits im Titel vorhanden.

Und wie es der Zufall so will, suchen sie derzeit wieder nach Einsendungen :D!

Willkommen sind Künstler aus ganz Deutschland und wie oben bereits erwähnt, wird vornehmlich nach „Amateuren“ gesucht. Die Form des geistigen Ergusses ist dabei egal.

Wenn ihr also ein Werk in der Schublade habt, das ihr eigentlich schon immer einmal an die Öffentlichkeit bringen wollt, aber euch bisher noch nicht getraut habt, könnte ]trash[pool eventuell genau das Richtige für euch sein!

Mehr Informationen gibt es auf ihrer Homepage: www.trash-pool.de/
Oder direkt hier: Informationen für Autoren

Sunday, 6 January 2013

Artist spotlight

Hello guys,

today's post will be dedicated to a most wonderful creepy artist we deeply adore -  Abigail Larson, who also used to be known under the nickname Mirrorcradle. At just 24 she has already partaken at many exhibitions, had her work featured in various publications and illustrated a children's book, "Sarah Faire and the House at the End of the World". She's also a very beautiful lady!


Ms. Larson has an extremely unique style, her greatest artistic influences being "Arthur Rackham, John William Waterhouse, and Edward Gorey", she mixes digital and traditional techniques in her work. Her subjects are very diverse and include monsters under the bed, ghosts, fairy-tale characters and even famous writers! See for yourself:
 



You can see more of her beautiful creations on her website and Deviantart profile, as well as buy them here.

The photo is from Ms. Larson's official website,  all the pictures are from her Deviantart gallery.

Monday, 24 December 2012

Return of the Vlad




Tja, auch Vlad kann mal einen guten Tag haben.

Yaaay für 500 blutrote Pageviews

Und was noch viel wichtiger ist:

Fröhliche Weihnachten :) !

Sunday, 23 December 2012

Hey guys,

first of all I'd like to apologis for not updating the art post  - life has gotten in the way and there were presents to draw and people to meet...

Buuut today I'd like to share a little song to put you in a festive mood! Enjoy:


Sunday, 9 December 2012

Art Post: White Queen WIP

Hello guys, long time no see!
Since this is actually supposed to be an art blog,  I (Maria/Alvene) have decided to post a little work-in-progress so you can get a glimpse at the drawing process "from the inside".

Today's drawing is going to be a small portrait of the White Queen from "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There" by Lewis Carroll. I've already drawn a lot of Alice art when I was pretty bad at drawing and am now working on re-vamping the whole concept.

So let us start at the beginning: I have done a rough pencil sketch and am now filling in the details with black ink(the excessive pencil lines will be erased later):
Looks pretty sketchy, doesn't it? Let's work on getting the lineart done:


Much better. As one can see, her proportions are a bit distorted (for example, the neck is waaay too long) - this is Wonderland after all, and changing the normal proportions is a good way to give a character more definition. I did not go for a clean-cut comic lineart cause I like rough ragged aesthetics. It is very important that you scan the picture in at least at 300 dpi so that you can work with the details.

Now that we have the lineart, the really exciting part begins! I've recently gotten a graphic tablet and really want to get confident at digital colouring, so it will be a little  Sunday morning experiment for me. I use GIMP Paint Studio cause I'm too poor for Photoshop. Let's see what we can do...

First, I shall get rid of this pesky white background to get clean lineart. To do so, you need to click on Image-Mode-RGB, then Colors-Color to Alpha. I am in no way a GIMP expert and there probably are other ways to do so, there are tons of tutorials on the web. Now that we have the lineart on a transparent bckground, I add a new layer in a neutral gray colour to serve as our background. Then I add another transparent layer and draw a white oval  behind the actual picture frame on it - this will be one of the layers for me to actually paint on. See how it looks this far - I've painted the roses, blood drops which you can't see and her pretty red lips!


Now I am going to continue painting, maybe add a few more layers. Here, have another progress shot:

You have NO idea how much I struggled with this :D But it has taught me a lot about digital coloring and how first painting the roses and then the hair is a bad, bad, bad idea... Oh, and I have finally decided on the colour scheme - I love cold blue with red!
Here is another progress picture - as you can see, not much has changed, but I've been refining the colours(struggled a lot with that), trying to make the image deeper and "realer":


I will post the final image tomorrow during the week, it's a lot of fun but for now I just need some rest from digital painting, it's simply addicting!