“Green eyed monster” – Adrian Smith

So we were asked to write a short piece (around 250 words) about an artists work that we really envied. I have chosen Adrian Smith, a prominent fantasy artist and a personal hero of mine who has done a lot of work for Games Workshop. I must say at this point that Adrian Smith’s work and a lot of other illustration that I love is nothing like mine in terms of style or technique, so some people may question the relevance of my choice of artists to talk about, however this is the work that inspires me and the task set was based on what makes us jealous, and this artwork does exactly that.

When deciding who to choose for this piece of writing, I considered many of my favourite artists, Frank Frazetta, John Howe, John Blanche, Karl Kopinski, Alex Boyd, Paul Dainton, Alan Lee, the list goes on, but I thought considering that I haven’t dedicated a post to Adrian Smith yet, I should do so now because he is a massive hero of mine.

So I can’t really express how much I love Adrian’s work. His paintings are simply awe-inspiring, his skill is sublime and his imagination is endless. Whether in colour or black and white his paintings are amazing, the drama and action and sense of movement and dynamism, makes me feel instantly that I am actually THERE. I can look at Adrian’s paintings and feel the heat of battle, the clashing of steel, the screams of the wounded and the cacophony of a firefight. What I really enjoy about fantasy art is the escapism, Adrian’s paintings transport me to another world, and most of the time I don’t want to come back…

You can check out Adrian's work here

www.adriansmith.co.uk

Current happenings...

Just a quick overview of whats going on at the moment, firstly the Negotiated Project that I was really looking forward to has taken a backseat, due to the ghosts of the past (in the form of the 7x7 project) coming back to haunt me.

So my 7x7 illustrations have changed some since last summer. I refined the silhouette in illustrator and then also re-did the pattern. After a talk with Ian the silhouette has been refined AGAIN to a much more simple one, to show off more of the pattern.
With regards to the spot, I made the shape of a pocket watch in illustrator then added hand drawn numbers and hands to its face. Then I drew another skull to represent the number 12, and I scanned in a chain to use as the chain on the pocket watch. The requirements of the printers i.e only having blue and black as colours haven't made all that much difference as my illustrations were almost black and white anyway, but the photoshop trickery involved in breaking up the layers has been a massive pain in the arse, so big thanks to Chris Howker for helping me with that.

The 7x7 animation is going well, currently I'm working with illustrator Ste Nuttall and MI students Tom Mathieson and Luke Haslam on the animation for 7x7. Things are going well with some really cool stuff being made by Tom and Luke, and Ste and myself making some elements for the MI guys to animate. They are both cool guys so working with them is a pleasure and I can't wait for the end result.

So, hopefully I'll be able to get 7x7 out of the way soon and really get into this Negotiated Project and get making some Collographs and Screens!

Start of the new academic year...

So first week of 3rd year is over and despite the horrific loss of space due to sharing a room with Graphics, I'm feeling good and looking forward to really getting my teeth into my Negotiated project; illustrating some quotes from the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton. All that remains now is to get my student loan in and I'll be really happy!

P.S Also looking forward to creating my little "item" for the P.D.P Entrepreneurship task!