I enjoyed your travelogue - some lovely images and imaginings in there - I especially liked that quirky little detail about the strings of beads, and how they fall to the ground as offerings; very visual. I liked too the inclusion of the circus, as this spectacle of showmanship seems very appropriate given your artist!
That said, I'm disappointed by your thumbnails, because they lack the clean lines, elegance and grace that you've so correctly observed as being part of Erte's style. There is a crisp, graphical quality about his illustrations - symmetry and flat colour - and I don't think your actual drawing style is helping you achieve that. Have you considered using a different set of tools/techniques in response to Erte's work? If not, I think you should; for example, taking Erte's drawings in Photoshop and turning his elements into silhouettes, which you might layer up and combine to create structures? Similarly, you might consider 'not drawing', but actually using the Lasso tool, or using the 'shape' tool to start off with, so you're beginning with clean, crisp forms. I think you need to fold more of Erte's methods into your own thumbnailing to better inhabit his style. In short, I suggest you think more as if you're 'collaging' together your thumbnails.
The other bit of practical advice is this: much of your travelogue concerns statues and animals etc, but it's likely that your experience with Maya means that modelling statues etc. is right now beyond your skill set (but won't always be). Don't therefore, get too preoccupied in design terms, with the statuary - unless you're thinking of making these elements part of your matte painting (and even then, if they're part of the matte-painting, they'll need to be technically very polished or look a bit naff). I'd like to see a bit more emphasis on the buildings in design terms. The other bit of advice to help you in this aspect is to now step outside of Erte; you need look at Art Deco more broadly in terms of architectural motifs and proportions; this research will help your thumbnailing too:
So - I suggest you change you method of making thumbnails when it comes to 'essentialising' the forms, shapes and expressions of Erte - use simple forms and repeated patterns to build up more complex ideas - but for you and for this artist, I don't think a wobbly line and a lack of symmetry/proportion is helping you 'find' the shapes of your metropolis.
OGR 07/11/2014
ReplyDeleteHi Julia,
I enjoyed your travelogue - some lovely images and imaginings in there - I especially liked that quirky little detail about the strings of beads, and how they fall to the ground as offerings; very visual. I liked too the inclusion of the circus, as this spectacle of showmanship seems very appropriate given your artist!
That said, I'm disappointed by your thumbnails, because they lack the clean lines, elegance and grace that you've so correctly observed as being part of Erte's style. There is a crisp, graphical quality about his illustrations - symmetry and flat colour - and I don't think your actual drawing style is helping you achieve that. Have you considered using a different set of tools/techniques in response to Erte's work? If not, I think you should; for example, taking Erte's drawings in Photoshop and turning his elements into silhouettes, which you might layer up and combine to create structures? Similarly, you might consider 'not drawing', but actually using the Lasso tool, or using the 'shape' tool to start off with, so you're beginning with clean, crisp forms. I think you need to fold more of Erte's methods into your own thumbnailing to better inhabit his style. In short, I suggest you think more as if you're 'collaging' together your thumbnails.
The other bit of practical advice is this: much of your travelogue concerns statues and animals etc, but it's likely that your experience with Maya means that modelling statues etc. is right now beyond your skill set (but won't always be). Don't therefore, get too preoccupied in design terms, with the statuary - unless you're thinking of making these elements part of your matte painting (and even then, if they're part of the matte-painting, they'll need to be technically very polished or look a bit naff). I'd like to see a bit more emphasis on the buildings in design terms. The other bit of advice to help you in this aspect is to now step outside of Erte; you need look at Art Deco more broadly in terms of architectural motifs and proportions; this research will help your thumbnailing too:
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/ARCH/40WALL.jpg
3.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m68un89KVs1qzpkato1_500.jpg
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/8c/5c/a0/8c5ca04649a125dfc3957e082f4a3bb4.jpg
So - I suggest you change you method of making thumbnails when it comes to 'essentialising' the forms, shapes and expressions of Erte - use simple forms and repeated patterns to build up more complex ideas - but for you and for this artist, I don't think a wobbly line and a lack of symmetry/proportion is helping you 'find' the shapes of your metropolis.