Liked and Disliked

One artist that I found to be my favorite in Illustration Now! Was the Japanese Illustrator, Gez Fry. The first thing I noticed was his use of light and perspective (Which I like to fiddle around with in my own work) which really makes his illustrations something interesting to look at. The most prominent example of his great use of perspective is on page 102. On this page it is an illustration of a woman, but the perspective is so abstract that it took me a second to realize what the subject of the picture was. Gez Fry also uses the light source, and sometimes contrasting colors, as a tool to really portray a strong mood for the viewer. Upon looking further for his work, I stumbled upon some of his concept art and character designs. His designs were very fresh and unique- really cool stuff. Also, the illustration I found outside of the book had a roughness to them that I enjoyed a lot. Much more interesting than the smooth blending of colors seen in the Illustration Now! Book. His summary in the book stated that he was a digital painter, which intrigued me because his stuff had a sense of traditional media. Whether his art is a hybrid of both or just mocking the traditional look, I think his style of art and sense of perspective/lighting is really great. Definitely an artist I wish to look more into.

The artist that I disliked the most was French Illustrator, Laurent Cilluffo. His illustrations seemed incredibly boring and way to simplistic for my taste. His work also seemed to have too much going on at once to the point where I couldn’t focus on anything. It seemed to be just a bunch of visual noise with no clear focal point. Illustrations, at least from my knowledge, are supposed to represent some sort of idea or story. But I get neither when I look at Laurent Cilluffo’s stuff. Cilluffo didn’t appear to have a website so I had to research him on my own, and although I didn’t get many results, all of his art looked the same to me: A bunch of stick figures running around chaotically with some sort of lined architecture incorporated. Nothing to connect to, no emotions or moods portrayed. Just apathy. When I look at art I want to be able to connect with the characters, be projected into the world, and get a sense of the story behind it so my mind and fill in the blanks, and sadly I get none of these things with Cilluffo’s art.