The Perfect Organism

Hey, been slagging a bit on my updating duties, finals due left and right and such. Anyway, without further adieu, I present my humble homage to the greatest movie ever made. Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece, Alien.

Now, you can't just go and claim that a movie is the best ever without some kind of evidence to support your opinion. And no, "I just like it" doesn't count. As my readers may know by now, I'm currently enrolled at The College for Creative Studies, in the field of illustration. Now whether you're a fan of Alien or not, the film was highly instrumental in creating the field of illustration we now know as "Concept Art". In fact, I personally think that Alien single handedly created it. Now, of course, concept artwork was, or should've been, part of the process of every movie made. But never before, or after, in my opinion, has a film been so driven by the concept artists.

The first artist on board Alien was the incredible Ron Cobb, whose work really just speaks for itself. Cobb was a good friend of writer and creator of Alien, Dan O'Bannon, previously working with him on space stoner comedy Darkstar. Cobb was actually the one to conceive the Alien's now famous acid blood, in addition to all of his designs for the interior of the nostromo ship.

Next off, you have Moebius/Jean Giraud. Another amazingly imaginative artist, whose body of work is staggeringly immense. The amazing frenchman passed away earlier this year. Moebius also previously collaborated with O'Bannon on a comic called "The Long Tomorrow", which actually has the credit of being a major force in starting the whole genre of Cyberpunk. Blade Runner heavily borrowed from the comic.

And lastly, you have the demented swiss surrealist, H.R. Giger. Without his vision, Alien wouldn't have been the same film, and without Alien, the sci-fi movie genre, as it stands today, would cease to exist.

Alien is a movie completely driven by artists. Alien shows what happens when artists take control of a film. You get one of the most culturally significant films ever made, you get a amazingly cohesive design aesthetic, a film that's so modern that it doesn't fit in with any particular decade, and you get to see a movie whose impact has never been paralleled.

Can any other movie in history brag about movie goers fleeing the theater in terror in droves?

So, as it stands, without Alien, the career field I'm getting into may not have been the same, or exist at all. So, thank you Scott, Cobb, Giraud, and Giger, for one amazing film, for demonstrating to the masses who important concept artists are to the final product of a movie, and for countless amounts of inspiration.

Alien is © FOX
Artwork © their respective owners/artists.

Portrait Drawing Tutorial

Hey all, wanted to post up a little tutorial I whipped up. Hopefully it'll help some of you struggling with the problem that has befallen me for so many years and one I continue to work on. Drawing faces, and in particular, female faces. As a dude, drawing girls came rather late into my artistic endeavors. Females don't often fit in with casts of eye-bulging zombies, pointy-headed werewolves, and grotesque space aliens. In recent years, I figured out that it was an important asset to further my artistic career.

So without further adieu, the tutorial.
For a high-res version check out the dA link:
http://phobos-romulus.deviantart.com/art/Female-Face-Portrait-Drawing-Tutorial-338715217

As you can see, hopefully, I've become quite comfortable with drawing girls, and I enjoy drawing them. There's something relaxing about it.

Anyways, hope this helps, and hope it makes sense!

The Unman + Tutorial

Hey, I'm on a roll! We'll see how long this lasts.

This would still technically constitute as a fanart, but not totally. It's another artwork I did based off of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, this time the disturbing satan allegory Un-man from Perelandra.

"So you mean to try strength," it said in English, speaking thick.
 "Put down that bird," said Ransom
"But this is very foolish," said the Un-man. "Do you not know who I am?"
"I know what you are," said Ransom. "Which of them doesn't matter."
"And you think, little one," it answered, "that you can fight with me? You think He will help you, perhaps? Many thought that. I've known Him longer than you, little one. They all think He's going to help them - till they come to their senses screaming recantations too late in the middle of the fire, mouldering in concentrations camps, writhing under saws, jibbering in mad-houses, or nailed on crosses. Could He help Himself?" - and the creature suddenly threw back its head and cried in a voice so loud that it seemed the golden sky-roof must break, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani." And the moment it had done so, Ransom felt certain that the sounds it had made were perfect Aramaic of the First Century. The Un-man was not quoting; it was remembering.

The Un-Man's quote, for those of you who don't know, were some of Christ's last words before his death on the cross, translated to "Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?"

Okay, now for some insider secrets, ha. I prefer to work tradigitally, usally meaning a traditional linework or underdrawing, with digital coloring layed on. For those wanting to work in a style like this, here's a quick tutorial on how this particular image was created.

First step: Drawing. This drawing was done with black copic marker and other assorted inking pens. Scan this drawing in at least 300 dpi.

2nd step- Remove the black. One thing many artists forget to remember is the deadening power of black. The color black can makes things appear very heavy, without subtlety, and most importantly, can suck the life out of any colors you put over it. Black and white are a good combo, but when color is involved, try to stray away from pure black.
Here, I used Hue/saturation on colorize to make the linework a purpleish color. Purple goes well with just about anything.

3rd step- More color harmony in lines. For this particular piece, I wanted all of the rich colors of the background to seep into the color of the lines as well. I did this by creating an adjustment layer over the linework set to screen. This means that only the lines are affected by this screen layer, none of the others.

4th step- Background colors. Add various layers of varying hues, opacities, and brush styles to create a cloudy, colorful background. Nothing too garish or saturated.

5th step- Lastly, color in the subject and once again play with opacity. Letting some of the background colors show through doesn't hurt any.

And that's it for me today. Blogger's giving me problems, and my modem's being a total dingus. Good night.

Space Trilogy © C.S. Lewis or current copyright holder.
Artwork © Neal Anderson

Couple o' fanarts

I used to be obsessed with video games, or the thought of playing them, since my first foray into the world of games was a bit late to the party. My very first game system of any kind was a gameboy advance when I was ten. Soon after came a used playstation 1 from a friend. Not long after that, a dreamcast(pretty much for one game). Finally, I got my first up to date system , the Xbox 360 which, while I love, has gotten the red ring of death twice now, because...well, microsoft sucks.

Nowadays, I can't be bothered to be too excited for any kind of game, since I find their designs to be way too derivative, the gameplay to be too easy, or a combination of the two. I couldn't care less about the next installment of Assassin's Duty of Modern Skyrim, or whatever it's called.

Retro games are where it's at. Check out these two fanarts I did for Nintendo's best series, by far: Metroid, before it went all FPS and crap, and before that Other Monstrosity. Super Metroid, while I came way too late for the party again, is my favorite game of all time. I've played through it about 9-10 times, most recently being the other day. The level design is purely fantastic, with a perfect flow from room to room. The atmosphere is superb, the graphics brilliant, the music moody, character/creature design is awesome, and just a damn-near flawless game all in all.

Don't get too used to seeing fanarts on here, I want to start shying away from it. But here are a couple I did recently of this once-great, now-ruined franchise.

First off, an artwork based off Metroid 2 for the Gameboy, in all of its yellowy off-white and greenish black glory.

Next up is one of my favorite boss battle from the aforementioned Super Metroid. Guardian Draygon is about to get its green scaly carapace handed to it.

So yeah, in conclusion, video games mostly suck now, and I don't care who knows it. There are a few good ones, but they're too few and far between.

Artwork © Neal Anderson
Metroid and all related characters © Nintendo

Misc. Commercial Work

In between creating my own work and work for school, I occasionally do illustration work, when the situation calls for it, for my mom's graphic design business, Andtwo. A year or so ago, we were approached to design the mascot for an up and coming cloud computing deduplication service. Didn't know what that meant, but I ran with it. The service is called Cloudingo, which you can check out here: http://www.cloudingo.com/

These next two pieces are pieces I created for my parents' account at iStockphoto.

All of these were created by only using Adobe Illustrator.

Next time I'll post up some personal stuff an/or school work.

Just to be be sure again:
All illustrations © Andtwo
 Cloudingo © Symphonic Source

Space Trilogy Covers

Alright, onto the art!

These are cover designs I did for audiobook versions of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, just for fun. For those of you who don't know about C.S. Lewis or his Space Trilogy, you're really missing out. Lewis, quite possibly the best writer of recent history in my humble opinion, is probably most famous for his acclaimed Narnia series. But, his Space Trilogy is easily my favorite of his work that I've read so far.The trilogy, without giving anything away, is basically a theological take on the science fiction genre.

*Spoilers may start here*

The trilogy begins with Out of the Silent Planet, which begins on Earth but eventually the setting is changed to Mars.

Next in the series is Perelandra, where main character Ransom is transported to yet another planet, Venus. What unfolds parallels the events of Genesis with a Venusian version of Eve, and Ransom fights desperately with an evil force to prevent another fall of man from happening like that on Earth.

Last is That Hideous Strength, which takes a sharp turn from the previous two books, as it takes place on Earth. In Britain, a bent organization is slowly emerging to take over, under the control of supernatural forces. Those trying to oppose the takeover employ the help of their own supernatural forces along with magical figures from the past to combat it.

This was rather outside my norm, as I'm more of a drawer than a graphic designer, but I had a lot of fun with these. Any thoughts or crits are more than welcome!

To go along with That Hideous Strength, I have drawn some portraits of some of the members of the organization of N.I.C.E.

'Til next time!

-N

Introductions

Thought it was about time I create a blog solely intent on showcasing my own work. I've been slowly recoiling away from my deviantART account, which I will still update from time to time, but in recent years, I've really come to detest the site for various and fairly obvious reasons. But anyways...

For those wanting an introduction, my name is Neal Anderson, and I'm currently enrolled at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI in the department of illustration. I'm thrilled that I'm able to attend, and I am continuously impressed by the faculty.

I was born October 27th, 1992, and coming home from the hospital the following Halloween night probably has nothing to do with my lifelong fascination on science fiction, horror and all genres fantastical. I've been drawing from a very early age, easily influenced by countless hours of playing with knight and pirate toys, watching scooby-doo, and finding universal studios' monsters. But none of those inspirations come close to the influence of my parents. My parents first met at Wayne State University while in the art program, and met again while working at the art department of the yellow pages. Then they combined forces to form Andtwo, a home freelance business. My mother is a graphic designer working on projects all around the metro area, as well as other parts of the country. My father was a illustrator, working in too many genres and styles to count.

My father passed away in October 2010, but his influence and inspiration still lives strong in me, and I hope to continue his legacy for generations to come. The art, of course doesn't stop at my parents, as I have a twin brother also currently enrolled at CCS, and an older sister who, while not pursuing art as a career, is very artistic. Beside my family, I gather all sorts of inspiration from a vast plethora of other artists, many of whom were introduced by my Dad. From the good ol' US of A, Frank Frazetta, Richard Corben, Geoff Darrow, Bernie Wrightson, and Syd Mead. From Europe, comic greats like Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Gaetano Tanino Liberatore, and Sergio Toppi. Then you have British brilliance exhibited in Simon Bisley, Paul Bonner, Phil Hale, and Barry Windsor-Smith. Then, I can top it off with Asian auteurs along the likes of Katsuhiro Otomo, Katsuya Terada, and the team of Yasushi Nirasawa and Takayuki Takeya.

With healthy doses of video games like Street Fighter and Metroid, my inspiration has taken me many places. By biggest hobby however, would be film. Whenever I have downtime of any sort, you can usually find me plopped in front of the television set watching yet another movie. My favorite directors would have to be the Coen Brothers( The Big Lebowski, Fargo, No Country for Old Men) for their near-flawless track record, Ridley Scott for his sci-fi masterpieces, Alien, Blade Runner and the very opinion-divided Prometheus, and lastly, one of the original true artistes of film, Stanley Kubrick(2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining).

As for my work, I really aspire to break into the comic industry, and by comics, I mean graphic novels, since weekly comics are soon to be dead, as far as I can tell. In addition, I'd love to work in concept artwork for movies, video games, television, or whoever needs some. I find myself designing characters, creatures, and settings all the time. I feel I'd be a good asset to any client, as I feel my sense of character/creature design carries a more unique approach than that of most films today. I'm currently working my butt off at CCS, whether it be projects in design, perspective, figure, or even the mostly useless liberal arts. I always have more than one personal project going on at any given time, the biggest being my graphic novel project, "Final Round", whose kickstarter campaign I plan to reboot once I get more material going.

Sorry for the long intro, I tend to rant. But anyways, I plan to update this blog fairly regularly on my happenings at CCS, my personal projects, or what have you.

So, 'til next time...

For those of you interested, I can put up links to all my other various websites/blogs.
My deviantArt.
My tumblr of various stuff.
My other blog of various stuff.
My Geoff Darrow Fan Tumblr.


Neal Anderson