As I’ve been a little lax in my maintentance of this blog in the last few months I thought I’d create a post with a few sites to provide you with some inspiration for the coming year.

Natalie Shau

One of my favourite Artists from DeviantArt She is originally from Lithiuania, but currently living and studying in London. You can find her dark, but often whimsical work at Natalie Shau and blueblack.

Robert Chang

Another awesome artist whose work has graced the pages of many Ballistic Publishing books and whose work sets a high standard for others to work towards. You can find his personal portal at Ethereality.

Ally Fell

Darkrising.

Jaime Jones

Artpad, his personal portal.

Henning Ludvigsen and Natascha Roeoesli

henningludvigsen.com and tascha.ch.

Rafi Adrian Zulkarnain

RAZ artWorks! for more examples.

Anyone who is a fan of the work of contemporary concept artists are likely to have come across the cool work of an artist who calls himself “BARONTiERi” and whos real name is Thierry Doizon. If you head on over to his online portfolio barontieri.com you like myself will most likely spend a while perusing the 30 or so images in his gallery. You should also should take a good look at his process and goodies page, where there are some informative tutorials. His links page is also cool, with links to many artists whose works I enjoy. His work has appeared in a number of magazines, books and the Devil May Cry comic, it has also appeared in 3 of Ballistic Publishings, Expose books. If you want to read more also visit his Windows Live Spaces Blog.

I’ve been finding a lot of free art, design and photography emags lately. Some of which you can download and some which are browser based. The beauty of these emagazines is that they use no paper and that they are really easy to use. I’ve been able to use mags in chinese without too much difficulty. Only frustration is that you need a computer to view them … roll on umpc (Ultra Mobile PC).

Some of these mags, even emulate the whole page turning experience. I think however, that as cute as this is, it’s only going to be a shortlived feature … I soon grew tired of “turning” pages. I much prefer clicking in the corner or on a button. Check out 08SHOW, it’s in chinese but should be fairly easy to follow.

Once I started exploring the site, I also came across a link to a photoshop weblog in German where there were some really cool articles. It’s well worth exploring so here’s the link.

For fans of Good Girl Art and nostalgic images Dave Stevens is undoubtedly one of the finest examples, and one of my favourite artists. His work has inspired a great many modern comic artists and illustrators. His work includes Rocketeer, Tarzan and Bettie Page. His images are evocative of the pulp comics of the 30’s and 40’s. His work speaks for itself, visit his website to see more of his work.

Ballistic Publishing have announced the release of EXOTIQUE 2. This annual publication of the world’s most beautiful digital characters features 269 artworks by 168 artists from 38 countries. If EXOTIQUE 2 is anything like its predecessors, then it is a must have for your digital art library. EXOTIQUE 2 is published in 2 editions; a soft cover edition retailing for US$39 and a leather-bound Special Edition retailing for US$99. The first purchasers of either edition will receive 4 posters of Art from this excellent publication. For more information visit Ballistic Publishing.

For the commercial artist, the search for resources and reference material is an unending process. Character Designs is a site I came across in one of my regular searches for resources. Hong Ly, who created the site, describes Character Designs as a “nexus for aspiring artists and professionals in the industry of design for movies, gaming, and animation.” The site features interviews of professionals, galleries and plenty of reference material including; figures, textures for 3D models, and tutorials. I do like the fantasy and oriental focus of some of the character reference and photos. Drop by Character Designs today and take a look.

Like Michael Kaluta and Jeffrey Jones, Barry Windsor Smith is an artist who I was introduced to through an artbook called “The Studio.” His art is very distinctive and is heavily influenced by celtic and PreRaphaelite art. His treatments of wolverine as Weapon X and Conan have remained some of the most admired works in the field of comics. For examples of his work please visit barrywindsor-smith.com.

Rick Berry and Darrel Anderson are digital artists whose work I have enjoyed for a long time. They both work in a style which features a strong technorganic quality. Rick Berry is an award winning artist whose illustrations have featured on the covers of many comics and fantasy and science fiction novels. His work can be found at his personal portal Rick Berry Studio and has been featured in books by Stephen King, William Gibson and Steve Perry.

Darrel Anderson is an artist whose digital work was introduced to me via the Atari where his digitally painted screen resolution images came to life. His work has always been innovative and pushed both artistic and technological boundaries. Both artists have contributed to many Movies, Role Playing Games and have even collaborated on some very interesting 3D Software called Groboto. Give yourself a treat and head on over to Braid Media Arts.

As an artist, working on the computer can be an especially frustrating and non-intuitive process. I know many of you have wished for a more natural interface and until you can afford to buy a Wacom Cintiq or they improve the responsiveness of Tablet PCs, I highly recommend looking at a graphics tablet like the Intuos3 A5 Wide from Wacom. I’ve just finished a review of this excellent unit and I found it quite impressive. If you wish to find out more, read my full review at Kickstartnews.

If you’ve had an interest in learning the art of Digital Painting, then this volume in the excellent d’artiste series from ballistic publishing is the book for you. I received earlier volumes in the d’artiste series for review and thoroughly enjoyed the information they imparted.
Like all books in this series, Digital Painting follows a similar format and features some of the works and also tutorials from several talented artists in this field. It also features selected works at the end of each guest artists section in which the artist comments on the piece being shown. This volume features digital artists Linda Bergkvist, Phillip Straub, John Wallin and Robert Chang, all of whom are Masters of this medium. The tutorials are well worth the investment as are the guest galleries … visit Ballistic Publishing for more information. d’artiste: Digital Painting is presented in Slipcased and Limited Edition versions.