Soon there will be a comic that I will be posting on here that is drawn by other artists, but written by me. In the meantime, I leave you with this quote and some samples:

Drawing gives me the opportunity to truly see. As an artist, I do not casually observe my surroundings nor take them for granted, but rather view the world as a creator and architect of my own artistic vision. I have never been interested in simplification-on the contrary it’s the complexities and how we see them that drives me to spend countless hours on a drawing. This act of drawing enables me to gain insight and understanding of intricate structure, whether it is a human figure, face, an isolated eye or a tempest of trees. Drawing pushes me to examine every aspect of what I see – every pore and hair follicle, every leaf and branch. I become immersed in my observational skills and depict my vision in a way that a casual observer could not.

Once a drawing is complete, it is no longer related merely to the artist, but becomes a starting point for the viewer’s feelings and imagination. This alignment hopefully transcends the ordinary and the overlooked to something approaching the metaphysical and sublime. Photo-realism itself does not interest me in the least; realism does, details and textures do, ultimately seeing what others fail to see, until they see it in my work. When this is achieved, the collaborative relationship between the artist and viewer reaches its climax. Ultimately, and interestingly, the climax is a humble interpretation of the greatness of nature.

“A good “rendering” represents what a person sees, but “a work of art” illuminates what others do not.”

–Armin Mersmann

Artwork included in the back of The Sin Of Greed.
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Poetry included in The Sin of Greed.
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Poetry and Prose included in The Sin of Greed.
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So, on KGS about a month ago, me and kneh had a talk about my post on intellect and the factor of art came into play.  Some things have distracted me from making the blog post on that including laziness.  I just recently was reminded of it by a friend on Facebook who posted this video that basically answers all those questions that kneh posed:

This is the story of how my taste in art developed as told via this thread.  This is the starting post.

I was wondering if anyone was every really inspired by concept art, whatever the concepts may be.

I have an example. When I was in elementary school, I remember my first visit to the school library (we have a library?!). We (me and my fellow students) were just there to browse. While there, I remember picking up a book — probably randomly — and finding out that it was entirely of pictures of drawings of futuristic designs.

One design was of an apartment complex several stories high that looked like cement cubes piled on top of each other on a cliff-side. Another design was probably of a mobile city, much like the castle in Howl’s Moving Castle, except far bigger. Yet another design was of a space ship of some sort. In any case, this book was one of those major moments of inspiration in my life.

I have seen plenty of interesting concept art since then, but the most recent that comes to mind are a few for Final Fantasy XIII that were posted on a fan site a few months ago. Here are some of those:

That second one from the top reminded me of some of the scenes shown during the end credits for the anime Outlaw Star. When I was growing up, I watched that series, and I liked seeing the artwork, even though it obviously had nothing to do with the series. Here is the video:

My reply:

I have been flirting with this thread for most of the day now.  Even when I was out.

Allow me to weave this story for you as a distraction from things bogging my mind at the moment.

When I was young, I had a natural gravitation towards emotional expression through visual art.  My mother promoted it to some degree since she was influenced by her mother who is quite talented.  I created story books and I had the most fun when I was able to make the artwork interact with the text in some innovative manner.  All that was hampered by the fact that I was also a perfectionist.

When I got older, I started to consciously see art as a form of emotional expression.  Comic books of any kind inspired me, but I did not have access to them in the New Jersey city that I was living in.  It wasn’t until the day that my mother dragged me to a small suburban town, called North Arlington, that I actually entered my very first American comic store.  I had previously bought a catalog randomly from Rite Aide.  I used to collect Wizard and PSM magazine issues there (sometimes Mad magazine), but one day I noticed the catalog so I picked it up.  The one thing that really caught my eye in the catalog was an ad for Kabuki: Dreams which was to be released in graphic novel format later that year.

I can’t seem to find the exact image online right now, but..

It was this without the border around it and it took up most of the page.  It was the first piece of artwork that truly captivated me in a sense that I don’t I ever experienced before.  Sure. Shirow Masamune, Noako Takeuchi, and Kōsuke Fujishima did inspire me, but not like Mack did.

Onto the comic book store.  Entered the place and while browsing his archives of comics, I noticed David Mack’s fifth volume in the series.  I had written down his name from catalog so I had it memorized by then.  From there, his work inspired a greater appreciation for traditional media and the modern genre of Mixed Media (later on I discovered other artworks from Noako Takeuchi that suggested her liking of Mixed Media as well).  It wasn’t only the art that inspirted at the time, but his countless references to classics and his prose in general.

Started to draw and express myself without the restrictions of sticking to one style or medium.  I discovered my liking towards distorting text and melding it into a design.  Somewhere in all of that, I picked up my first Final Fantasy game a few months after getting a Playstation One console.  Ended up buying the Concept artbook for Final Fantasy IX.

Which brought about my discovery of Yoshitaka Amano’s art.  I loved his art so much that I looked into him and discovered Vampire Hunter D that way.

Bought one of the novels after seeing his work related to D in an artbook of his.  The novels are rather good by the way.  Beat the pants off of the animated movies.

He also did a collab mini-comic with Neil Gaiman in the Sandman series.  It was a collection of short side-stories that Gaiman did with several artists, one of which being Yoshitaka Amano.  That’s what essentially made me want to give reading Gaiman’s Sandman a try as well looking into Terry Pratchett via his Discworld novels.

So!  Therein lies my affinity for the world of visual art.

Also, Hyperion posting the ending to Outlaw Star.  That ending song accompanied by the artwork was the one thing that actually got me into the series.

Luis Royo’s art has managed to slip my mind.  Found him since he did cover art for books that I read.  Mainly a great deal of fantasy series.  He also did work for the Heavy Metal Magazine.

Alex Ross’s art also inspired the liking towards a more traditional art form. He was known to me through his connection to Mack and his presence in the comic book world.

Me again:

Should be noted that Yoshitoshi Abe opened my eyes to a rougher more sketchy take on Japanese artwork.

My response and last post in the thread.

Yes.  She is the same woman I had as my avatar.  I just found the image that I could not find before.

This is the image that inspirted the avatar.  I just doctored it up a little in Neopaint.  Aside from being the cover to his Reflections issue 10, it was first seen as the first page to a two part piece in volume 6 Metamorphosis.  Can’t seem to be a ble to find the second page on the web right now, but this part of it was a collab with Alex Ross.

Your mention of archiving works reminds me that I used to do the same thing as well.  Deviant Art was one of my favorite more recent spots to get inspiration from.

I remember that I used to follow several artists.  One who drew in a style similar to Yoshitoshi Abe’s and several others who drew quite well in pencil.  Watched a few others who did digital and other media, but those were rare for me.  The digital style has far too many generic works coming out of it.

If I remember the names of the artists, I will post them for you.  Since you seem to enjoy this style of art, I will post about Hiroaki Samura.  He’s someone who blends somewhat more traditional art-styles with the traditional Japanese comic style.  I would like to note that I was only familiar with him from his Blade of the Immortal series.

Unlike most Japanese artists, who use screen-toning for shades to some degree, he does not use them at all.  Not even in his black and white comic strips.

Glad you enjoyed my long post, Hyperion.