Illustrator Like and Dislike

Kimi Kimoki

Many styles in the “Illustration Now!” book appeal to me but one that stood out the most for me was Kimi Kimoki. Most of her works have a photographic realism about them yet it’s still quite easy to tell that they are in fact just illustrations. The approach that she takes to her work intrigues me. Take for example, the second example of her work the book shows called “Untitled” that appeared in Coming Up Magazine. While the woman’s figure is outlined, the mark is subtle and I found I didn’t really notice it until put the image right up to my eyes. I liked how it gave definition without being too overwhelming and bold. Maybe the most obvious reason I was drawn to her works, was the blending. She blends it to look realistic yet her lines still have a sort of sharpness to them that separates them from the other values. I have to say what appealed to me the most was her use of color. Her works seem to stick with a limited amount of colors, and those colors are only applied to the areas in which she wants the viewers to focus. The rest is just outlined, sometimes just lightly shaded in grayscale. This further emphasizes what she wants the viewer to focus on and that her illustrations are make look real but are in fact not.

Zeloot

While there are many illustrators’ works I don’t necessarily hate but don’t enjoy either, the prize goes to Zeloot. I admit he has interesting ideas but I find myself very confused by those ideas. The majority of his works leave me guessing what exactly the message his piece is trying to get across. While he uses a limited pallet similar to Kimoki, I find that the colors are just too much. Because he uses only one shade of a color, it leaves me feeling that there’s just too much of one color. Also I feel like the colors he puts together just don’t work for his pieces due to the almost neon quality of each color. It hurts my eyes to focus on one color for too long thus causing my eyes to constantly move to a different place. Also, he uses the same color so methodically in a piece sometimes, (such as the second example in the book) that it jumbles the composition up and makes me confused even more. His use of patterns, while I feel it does help to break up the use of one color, once again just furthers to make his compositions chaotic and makes my eyes strain to actually see what it is he’s illustrating. Overall I wouldn’t say I hate his work, for I haven’t seen much of it, but at first glance he is definitely not one of my favorites.