Nastplas

"Nastplas" (comprising of Fran R. Learte, who is an illustrator, and Natalia Molinos, who is the creative director) are a skilled creative collaborative duo. Together, they form what they both refer to, as the "Nastplas team".

http://www.nastplas.com/index.html < image reference at this link.

Fran Learte was born in Spain, in the year of 1979, he graduated from the academy of fine arts in Salamanca, during 1998.

Some of their clients include Coca-Cola, ICON, IDN, Airtran Airways, Foneclay and Urbankaos.

As a collaborative effort, the team's work has been published in a large list of magazines, such as the following for example.

• Advanced Photoshop Mag
• Lexus Magazine
• Bak Magazine
• TDA Magazine
• ICON Magazine

http://www.nastplas.com/index.html < A link to their great online gallery.

Mike Harrison

http://www.destill.net/profile.html

Mike Harrison is a multi disciplinary illustrator and designer, who is based in the city of London, UK.
His portfolio features a wide variety of different mediums. He is known worldwide as an illustrator, and during the time that he practised as a freelance illustrator, he worked for big companies such as Nike, Atlantic Records, ESPN, Sports magazine, Fotolia and Newpage. He has had some of his work, published in a variety of published books.

http://www.destill.net/fotolia_ten.html < An example of his digital art, Image reference here at this link to the left.

He states that he is personally inspired by the changing environment of design. He is a member of the International Modern Art Collective Depthcore, and also a member of Keystone Design Union.



Thomas.

Ahmed Mounir

Ahmed Mounir, is a typographist and digital artist from Egypt, who makes patterns in his spare time.

You can see within his artwork, that he loves to create pixel art. He claims that his style comes from old vintage games, and that his work features a combination of arabic text, and pixel artwork.

He was a freelance artist between the years of 2008-2012. As of now he has his own studio, called the Nayzak studio.

http://www.africandigitalart.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ahmedmounir9.png < <Image reference at this link.

Links to some of his various sites below, this is also where I got most of my reference from:
http://www.behance.net/AhmedMounir

• http://ivan89.tumblr.com/

• http://eg.linkedin.com/in/ahmedmounir

• https://twitter.com/ivanizm

• http://www.africandigitalart.com/2013/09/pixel-art-and-design-by-egyptian-designer-ahmed-mounir/

Jason Seiler

http://www.jasonseilerillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

http://jasonseiler.com/about/

http://jasonseiler.com/portfolio/character-design/warriorgnome/#main < Image reference.

Jason Seiler is an illustrator who lives in Toronto. He specialises in creating caricatures, portraits, and comedic illustration.
He also teaches in caricatures. He started out in an unusual way for an illustrator to be noticed, getting into trouble drawing his history teacher, as a caricature in high school. He first became noticed by his principal at the time, who hired him to draw caricatures of various faculty members. He went on to study fine art illustration at the American Academy of art in Chicago, after this.

http://jasonseiler.com/portfolio/caricatures/golfdigest_monroe_dimaggio_hemingway-2/#main < Image reference.

He has published two books on his artwork, featuring many humorous images from his illustrations. he has also published an instructional DVD, called sketching with Jason Seiler.

Some of his many clients, include TIME magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and MAD Magazine, New Line Cinema. He uses a lot of digital manipulation in his varied artwork, especially with his caricature work. (See images)

He is a member of the society of illustrators in New York City. He also has been an art instructor for a few years.

Interestingly, his digital artwork resembles that of caricature art. I have enjoyed researching this artist, but I do not wish to take influence from him, as I don't want to go down the route of this style. I will say though, that he is an incredibly talented artist, nonetheless. 

Thomas.

Ellie York Brooks

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/user/t3kmorris

Ellie York Brooks is a fantastic digital manipulation artist, who creates traditional work, as well as some digital work, made in the style of traditional based materials, such as if she used pastels, and paints. I have noticed in some of her work, that she uses a lot of 'sketchy' lines, to create rough shapes. She also allows the background in her pieces to show through this. I love this art style, and I think I might take some inspiration from Ellie, and bring this into one of my final pieces.

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/17857/discover < (image reference)

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/17881/rock_bottom < image reference at this link.

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/image/17869/looking_glass (image reference)

The three photos above, are digital manipulation pieces. The lower one being a manipulation of a photograph. I love the techniques that she uses. I like how the third image, has the illusion of the colours blending, and bleeding into each other.

I created this digital tester piece above, mimicking the rough, colourful style of Ellie York Brooks. It has very similar themes to the first image of Ellie's work, in terms of line use, background, and colour.






Thomas.

Final Pieces Theme

For my four digital final pieces, I have decided to base them under a natural theme, that I mentioned earlier in draft form, at the start of the unit in blog number #1. The theme will be consisting of animals and plants. I have laid out a more refined plan here, of what to do with each.


-My first piece will be of a Gecko. (Sketchbook)

I aim to create something along the lines of this illustration, a digital leopard gecko. This is a perfect example by an artist I came across after browsing several images.

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/022/6/9/leopard_gecko_tf_7__commission__by_narubi2-d5scc1g.jpg < image reference at this link.

This image is a piece, by an artist called Narubi. Here is a link to his website > http://narubi2.deviantart.com/

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-My second piece will be of a Dog, that I developed through testers 2,6,8,9. (Photoshop)

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Westie-101620647 < image reference at this link.

http://www.deviantart.com/?q=westie+dog+digital+art < image reference at this link.

I will like to take inspiration from such artists as griffsnuff (Tina Alfredsan) and Julia Kay.

-My third will be of a tree, that I drew during the reportage project. I will use a print in this piece. (Photoshop)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3MyuObR0xpc/UA2zhuVOhTI/AAAAAAAAA2o/KYx_S4Jb_yg/s1600/progress2.jpg

-My Fourth will be of flowers, that I also sketched out during the reportage unit. (Photoshop)*

http://ih2.redbubble.net/image.8620887.4445/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg

*Update: My 4th idea has been changed, to that of a human figure, that I sketched during the people and characters unit. I changed this, because I did not feel it would have turned out to be a strong illustration.

To replace my 4th idea of using flowers, I will find an existing example of a similar piece, that I have in mind.


I will be using 2 programs, one will be Sketchbook, and the other Photoshop CC. I figured this would be good, experimenting with two different programs, with different features and brushes.

Zutto

http://zuttoworld.com

Zutto is a self taught, freelance digital illustrator, print designer and character designer from Moscow, Russia, with a diploma in interior design. She creates very colourful, and vivid pieces of such things as fantasy characters.
She uses adobe photoshop, and Illustrator, as well as a wacom intuos to produce her interesting work.

http://zuttoworld.com < Image reference link here.

I personally love her style of working, something which I will try to take some inspiration from. (For example with the use of bright colours).

http://www.behance.net/orange_zutto < Reference also from this link, to her Behance webpage.

http://vector.tutsplus.com/articles/interviews/interview-with-zutto/ < This site includes a great interview with Zutto.