(This section is tied to Side Hustle instructions 1)

To be frank, I have just learned the difference between “primary” and “secondary” research. And if you ask me, I still can differentiate between two that well. The line that separates them is still not that clear to me. I am still going to try and categorize the inspirations and overall research I have in here according to how I understood the concept.

First of all, I wanted to start by taking a look at the artists that were listed on the brief to see if any of them could relate to the idea I have. I found a few.

ARTISTS

HELEN EUNHWA OH

Website: https://www.helenoh.work/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helen_illust/

Taken from her own website:

“Helen Eunhwa Oh is New York-based illustrator, painter and designer. She creates diverse, rich, and vividly colored images based on her everyday life, and sense of humor. Especially she loves to draw bizarre and unique portraits with various kinds of medium and colors. Also, she designs fashion accessories, stationary products and ceramics with her own patterns and works.”

She mostly makes portraits of individuals or groups in a very cute and childish-looking style. It is far from realistic drawing but it has elements of observation of the outside world. The work is very simple yet very pleasing to look at. Her color palette is extremely vivid and rich, which in my opinion is the most appealing aspect of her work to me. It also helped me get inspired on how to draw portraits in an interesting way which I really think will help me with my idea.

ATELIER BINGO

Website: https://atelier-bingo.fr/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atelier_bingo/

Taken from the website:

“Atelier Bingo are Maxime Prou & Adèle Favreau, two illustrators, surface patternists & graphic designers from France. They love to experiment with screen printing and other graphic techniques to create colorful and abstract works.”

Their use of abstract and simplistic shapes with vibrant blocks of color is the thing that really pulled me into their work. Their designs are just really fun to look at because of the way the composition is put together.

JEAN JULLIEN

Website: https://www.jeanjullien.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jean_jullien/

Taken from the website:

“Jean Jullien is a French graphic artist living and working in London. Originally from Nantes, Jean completed a graphic design degree in Quimper before moving to London. He has since graduated from Central Saint Martins (2008) and from the Royal College of Art (2010). His practice ranges from illustration to photography, video, costume, installations, books, posters and clothing to create a coherent yet eclectic body of work.”

What I really liked about his work is that he mostly focuses on humans and everyday life in a very clean style of illustration and simple color palettes. The figures and the overall environment in his illustrations is very simple and not detail-driven. It’s just pleasing to look at because the subject is right in front of you and you don’t have to look for it in unnecessary details. And that is exactly what I want to do with this project of mine.

ALEXANDRIA ELLIS

Website: https://linktr.ee/alexandriaellisart

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexandriaellisart/?hl=tr

I wanted to give place to one of the artists I follow in Instagram. They are a huge inspiration to my idea of making portraits of characters. Their work is mostly character illustrations, some background work and fanart. I love the way they draw human figures and also their bright and stylized way of illustrating.

This is the image that inspired me to make portraits because I just love the way they focus on the character and their features only. They just kept the details in the minimum and let the colors and the form do the work.

BOOKS

MOONSHINE: DREAMWORKS ARTISTS… AFTER DARK!

( Lautrette, C. (ed.) et al. (2010) Moonshine: Dreamworks Artists… After Dark! California: Design Studio Press)

It’s a collection of art from Dreamworks artists’ personal art when they are not working on a project, in a form of a book.

Dreamworks had always had amazing artwork when it comes to concept art, character design and backgrounds. They are and animation giant after all and they have the best illustrators and artists besides Disney. It roamed through the pages to see if I could find anything that is interesting or eye-catching and of course, I found some. I focused on the ones that were more character-focused. I noticed that most of the artists who sketch characters are using a very free hand while they are working. You can see from the wayward lines that they were trying to figure out the shapes of the figures as they go.

Nicolas Marlet

Christopher Lautrette

Patrick Mate

THE ART OF HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

This book is about another Dreamworks property, but this time it’s the art of a specific animation movie from them called “How To Train Your Dragon”. The movie has a very solid following because of it’s amazing story-telling apect, the character developement, breath-taking scenes and of course, it’s art. The book mostly shows how the designs of the characters and the dragons inside the movie were developed. And since I will be working with mythical creatures like dragons, I wanted to see how they did it and what points they were careful about. I photographed my favorite pieces.

 

PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS SERIES

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a famous young adult book series about a boy who is the demigod child of Poseidon. The whole series is about how Greek myths come to life in modern times New York. It is written by Rick Riordan.

I had been into everything fantasy- related since I was very little. I first read this series when I was 11 and it sparked my interest in Greek mythology and it’s creatures. The concept of having mythical creatures in an everyday setting, living the life we live is an ongoing theme in Rick Riordan’s different book series about different mythologies like Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Norse. And all those books series tie into each other as a bigger fictional universe.

The idea has been engraved in my mind since I grew up reading his books so it is fitting to list these series that started it all, as an inspiration. I am thinking of including Medusa in one the portraits just because of these books.

Examples of how the characters look in the book. Original concept art by Viria.

Website: http://viria.tumblr.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/viria94/

 Poseidon

 Loki

 Anubis

GAMES

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

The Legend of Zelda is a very famous series of video games from Nintendo. It has countless installations over 3 decades and it has been one of the games that made Nintendo the gaming legend that is today.

The concept art for the character and creature designs has been one of my inspirations. The fact that these designs are very well-thought and detailed makes the gaming experience unique in every game. because you feel like you are actually getting into a real universe that exists somewhere else with it’s own rules and aesthetic. The concept art for the recent games like Majora’s Mask, the Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword and the Breath of the Wild has some great examples of humanoid creature designs.