Supernatural Creator 2 - Mareike

Is there a better way to spend Sunday here on we take control other than to celebrate the worlds creation via an 8-bit animation? Sit back and marvel at Mareikes interpretation of the power of a Gods creation..

SPZero76

Well travelled, well experienced, "well wicked".. Here is spzero76. A freelance illustrator from the UK. Combining street art stylings with digital art techniques, SPZero76 creates a striking visual with a fresh contemporary edge. Heavy comicbook influences can be seen in his work, which often portrays a fun moment in time captured for our amusement. Outside of the digital realm SPZero76 is creating some fly looking canvasses [which i want on my wall] hosting tight lines and bright colours. After getting in contact with SPZero76 I realised that he had lots to say ;)




Where are you from?
I originally moved to Bristol from the land of the North. Doncaster to be specific! I moved to Bristol to study Illustration at UWE, which I chose after seeing Normski ride a skateboard across the Suspension Bridge, on the 90s programme 'Board Stupid'. I left Bristol to live in Manchester for two and a half years, where I worked as a Games Designer for a company based in Leeds, then travelled To South Korea and around Australia where I spent most of my time in Melbourne and Fremantle! Two awesome cities! When I came back to England I had to go where my heart was and I headed back to Bristol!


How would you describe your style of art??
As a kid I discovered comics when a pack of three GI Joe comics literally fell from the sky infront of me in Toys R'Us. It was wierd. I searched the whole shop to find more and spent ages looking up to discover where the booty fell from but there wasnt another comic in the store. Comics were my number one influence but as time went on others came in, such as Jamie Hewlett (comics again... 'Swiftys Return'), Nickelodeon cartoons and eventually Street Art. Street Art became an influence through a lot of friends I knew and their links. Ive known China Mike since our first year at Uni and I got to know a lot of the Bristol scene through Tonic exhibitions, in the late 90s down at the Cube Cinema, and when I got back to Bristol and organised the art side of the first Glostunbury Festival at the Golden Lion in 2007! When you are surrounded by so many great artists and their work its hard not to be influenced.





Have you got anything exciting that you are working on currently?
There is loads in the pipeline that Im just waiting to see what happens with, but I work freelance for a Canadian Games company and have recently put up a new exhibition and been commissioned to create five massive canvases featuring Stokes Croft for a new bar in Bristol. I have also designed an image for the upcoming OutSmart project, which is organised by Gemma Randall, illustrated User Interfaces for an upcoming iphone game, created an EP cover for up and coming band 'We Start Partys' and designed posters for a Hollywood Movie Studio called Red House Films. So I've been mad busy but Im always looking to get involved in anything. Give me a shout!


What would be your one important tip for people?
Don't stop trying! So many people who used to be artists on my course have settled for shitty jobs!! Dont do it!


What other artist is doing it for you right now??
There are so many awesome artists out there. I recently bought art by Bristol artists China Mike, Duncan Jago, Will Barras, Cheba, Dicy, Andy Council and Third Eye Green Bastard but I also love the work of Kid Acne, Mudwig, Kozyndan and Mode2 amongst many more.


If you would like to commission SPZero76, then please contact him here and be sure to check out his work at flickr

Moonlily Design and Illustration

I met this artist while i was at art college and was instantly drawn towards her beautiful illustrations. I have always been very interested in anime/manga artwork and wished that I had the ability to create my own version of that asian style. Well, Moonlily can and does. Her style varies from super-cute characters to beautiful girls. From bright, energetic and vibrant to subtle, serene and natural. It is clear where Moonlily has pulled her inspiration from, but she creates hers with such finesse.


I caught up with Moonlily
to ask some questions..










Hello Moonlily, where are you from?
I come from Camborne, in Cornwall [UK]. I'm a Cornish girl, through and through; I can't think of a more interesting place to live.


How would you describe your style of art?
I'd say that my normal style is very obviously influenced by japanese art and manga, which is something I've been hooked on since I was around 8. Sometimes, I tend to tell myself off for the imperfections in my style, but I've come to realise that it's the imperfections that make my work my own. I do like to experiment with different styles now and then, but usually when I draw, it comes out manga-style, whether I intend it to or not. =3


Have you got anything exciting that your currently working on?
There are a number of different projects in the running that I'd love to be working on right now; I've been planning and sketching ideas for a manga series for a while now, and I'm looking forwards to getting some of my designs ready to sell. Unfortunately, life seems to be getting in the way at the moment. =P


What would be your one important tip for people?
I think, after the year I've had studying for my BA top up, the most important thing I've learnt is that the things you work hard for are the things that are the most gratifying. The best things in life, to me, are the things that I worked really hard for.


Which artist is really doing it for you right now?
Right now, i'm totally hooked on all CLAMP manga - CLAMP is a famous group of manga creators in Japan. My other favourites would be Yun Kouga, Yoshitaka Amano, Aya Kato and more traditional artists like Hokusai. I also draw a lot of influence from Music - I'm obsessed with Imogen Heap recently.


Moonlily is taking on commission work. For more information please contact: Rhi@moonlil.com or become a fan on facebook

Monstrous Wildlife - Tremors [Frank Robnik]

I found this infomercial the other day and I'm happy that I did! This could genuinely be a life saver to anybody planning on traveling to particular area's of our beautiful [but sometimes dangerous] planet. Please don't be put off by this films 50's/60's visual stylings, as the production is TIGHT! Monstrous Wildlife has a wonderfully muted colour palette and slight shake to the visuals, which gives the work a very appropriate aged feel. Its also packed to the brim with tasty, crisp vectors and subtle typography. The animation is silky smooth and the whole piece is supported by a fabulously stern and very British narrative.  The content is superb and VERY informative. Prepare to be edu'macated..

Tom Mac

Here we have digital artist Tom Mac who's work instantly caught my attention. He has adopted a very contemporary, colourful, vibrant illustrative style and seems to mainly focus on portrait imagery. There is a lot of vector style imagery floating around the internet these days, but Tom Mac injects a real sense of individuality and intricacy into his work. Also, while looking through his work I noticed that Tom Mac is also playing around with some motion graphics. Being a huge fan of the scene I'm interested to see what he'll come up with over the coming months. With plenty of commission work under his belt and having recently completed a cover for 'SQ magazine' Tom Mac took some time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions for me.




Hey Tom Mac, Where are you from?
South coast [UK] born and bred. A little seaside town called Bexhill is where I spend most of my time, and the rest is spent dotting between Eastbourne and Brighton.


How would you describe your style of art?
My work is heavily vector based. I spend a lot of time experimenting with different styles but I mainly find myself drawn into portraits in a non-literal style, as I have an obsession with faces.


Have you got anything exciting that your currently working on?
I find myself always working on something. Even as a student I am constantly looking for jobs such as magazine illustrations but it varies. An example of the variation includes a typographical piece im working on at the moment for a music blog called 'the smoothest gooch' this involves me creating the letters out of pube ridden wax strips!


What would be your one important tip for people?
My tip for people would be look at others work. Constantly. Your never going to keep up to date with design trends and styles if you dont do this, and although individuality is the key - you need to know your competition.


Which artist is really doing it for you right now?
Gabz. His work is so inspirational to me. After stumbling across his site I was quite jealous at first as the way in which i enjoy creating portraiture is similar to his...although his is to an entirely different level!


If your interested in commissioning Tom Mac, then you can contact him via his facebook page here

"The Ultimate Break" - Akama Studio

Sorry I have been a little slow lately. My laptop has been at the doctors and the past two and a half weeks have felt like two and a half months. In this time I have been hunting high and low for great work to show you all and have found some treats.


First up we have an offering from Akama Studio. This is a Paris based animation studio, which specializes in 3D. They have a super polished style and are right up there with the heavy weight studios. Their work includes the insane and cute raving rabbids animations that you may have seen for ubisoft. 'The Ultimate Break' was a viral for Nestle to launch their new Kit-Kat bar and was tied to a competition in which two VERY lucky winners would win a trip into outer space! I love the deformed and stereo-typical characters in this production. Every character is brilliantly designed and our lead guy is perfectly expressive showing bucket loads of emotion. The environment is picture perfect and looks fairly real, although with a talented studio like this you would expect nothing less. The animation also uses very heavy depth of field effects with great results. I was particularly impressed with the sicky feeling moment when the lead character gets up from his desk [46 seconds].  Overall, this is a film quality production with a great deal of content in a very brief animation. enjoy.. 

Danger

Today's post is going to be a little different as I'm going to showcase some audio and visual, but with the emphasis on the audio. I still very much consider today's offering digital arts. I'm mainly writing about this because its close to my heart.


Recently I have been listening to more and more French electro [electro house/breaks]. Most people will know of Daft Punk, Justice and perhaps Mr Oizo, so im not really going to mention them. But, a lesser-known artist that I'm really hot on right now is Danger. Ever since I was a kid I have had a real passion for electronic music, just not the usual chart stuff. I had a Commodore Amiga [computer] with a pile of copied games [I was young and didn't understand the concept of piracy, the Amiga came with all these disks].
In my opinion the Amiga had the best sounding computer sound-chip ever. Most games heavily used it, but my favorite thing about it was the game crack intros and demo's [I will be covering Demoscene soon, your gonna love it]. Basically they were a very short piece of computer generated audio and visual that preceded a game. They had the most amazing synth-heavy music. Sampled hits, sampled vox, HUGE synthesized basslines, intricate sequencing, dark chords and plenty of pitch-shifting. I used to record the tunes onto tapes and lay in bed listening to them at night. My favorites were the epic, sci-fi, breaky structures and compositions. That was MY type of music. Ever since then I have been a keen follower of electronic music. Styles and genres constantly come and go with the current trends already beginning to stagnate. All the time I have dreamed of one day re-visiting the early-mid 90's Amiga style audio. Well, it seems I'm now just a little late to the party and some French producers have been all over it!?


Danger has been on my player non-stop for a few weeks now. I dont know for fact, but this guy must be about my age and must have had the same passion for this style of music. He is creating this exact style of electro, using a lot of the same sounding synths, pitch-shifts, structures and epic, sci-fi builds. But, it has the power of modern production with heavy side-chain beats and massive dance-floor compression. His visual representation is 16bit for fucks sake!? With massive mixes of Sebastian Tellier - Devine, Black Eyed Peas - Imma Be & Estelle - American Boy to name just a few, it would seem that everything he touches turns in to electronic gold. I can't get enough of this music and had to share it in the hope that somebody other than me is interested :D


*yeah, this video has footage of 'Commando' but i thought it would be more interesting than a blank screen. Just enjoy the music!



Estelle ft Kanye West- American Boy [danger remix]