Researching the topic

Due to unfortunate accident (the store was robbed) and National Championship in Machine Dance I did not have much time to do some thorough research.

Influence sources - Tolkien or Peake
This week I decided to do some research on things that influenced the FA artists and what influence have art directors. For the first one, I noticed that many people reference Frank Frazetta. Though artist that emerged later usually reference artist that already work at the same company they ended up in. Todd Lockwood whose first artistic influence was Frank Frazetta and later Michael Whelan once said. "I flipped when TSR started having really good art in their products... Jeff Easley's stuff particularly interested me: so moody and fluid, so deft. Then Brom came along and really blew my doors off."[1] When observing Lockwood's work I always think of Jeff Easly and Michael Whelan. But the way Lockwood draws characters...it reminds me of Brom. I never searched for information about Lockwood's influences before. Finding about his influences did not surprise me at all. Also I can see why Lockwood likes Brom. Well, I always loved Whelan's illustrations of Elric and they remind me of Brom's work. Color, composition and the expression. The feeling I get from these images. Seeing some of the Elric illustrations I think of Brom.

Why is that? Or why I actually talk about these illustrators (Whelan and Brom)?. Todd Lockwood's and Jeff Easly's work is all bright in a way. On the other hand Whelan's and Brom's work is dark and gothic. Why? Whelan was doing illustrations for Moorcock's Elric and that book (and other of his books) need a certain style paintings. I think that Whelan did a really great job on that. Moorcock is s supporter of Mervyn Peake (stsung's note: really scary and wierd books and poetry). The Gormenghast trilogy (by Peake) is something considered by many as a classic and is compared to J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. But Moorcock (being influenced by Peake) certainly does not really like Tolkien's LotR as Tolkien sees the fantasy world (well the Shire to be more precise) as Merry England (a utopian conception of English society and culture based on an idyllic pastoral way of life that was allegedly prevalent at some time between the Middle Ages and the onset of the Industrial Revolution [wikipedia]). Elric of Melniboné (by Moorcock) is an antithesis for LotR and this has to show on the illustrations. Brom's work is influenced by Moorcock a lot. We can clearly see that in his work. But there are people influenced by Brom and Whelan and both can be traced to Moorcock or Peake.

(This kind of division is much more visible in science fiction where the utopian and idyllic form one great part of science fiction and the rest forms (many subgenres) another great part of it. For example if you watch or read Star Trek you can clearly see the idyllic future.)

With this I covered one part of research.

Conventions
I've done some interviews this week. They were rather chaotic but there were things that came up from all the artists. Looking for an answer to a question about going to conventions came up from my twitter timeline. Artist tend to tweet about the next convention they will be at so people can come and see them. As you may know many fantasy artists go to conventions and at many conventions you can bring your portfolio and see if by a chance WotC (or other company) wouldn't be interested in you. (Actually I've requested the WotC Fantasy Artist application form several years ago and I was overwhelmed by the requirements.)

Why FA artists go to conventions? They go there to show their art, to see other artists work, to talk to the artists, to sell their art and so on. Many of the artists know each other and see each other at such places. They influence each other as well and motivate each other. I think that this is something relatively special not seen with other kind of art (science fiction is actually similar to FA) and that's why I think this is also something that should be researched more.

Fine Art
After talking to several artists (several years ago) and this week's interviews I noticed one thing. Many of the artists do card games illustrations, rule book illustrations and book covers but minority of them does fantasy art as 'fine art'. When I was talking to rk post he said 'Some cross over to fine art...and the fine art world seems to embrace them. Like Chet Zar, for instance. Brian Despain has done the cross over. [...] strictly gallery. No story telling.'
This finally defined my 'commercial' and 'non-commercial' fantasy art. The art meant for commercial use is illustration to a story, it has some kind of given background already (like setting). The non-commercial one does not though and we don't have so many artists that do 'Fantasy Fine Art'. But all these illustrations and such are considered Fantasy Art. Hm???



[1] Kenson, S. (April 1999) "ProFiles: Todd Lockwood" Dragon Magazine (Renton, Washington: Wizards of the Coast) (#258): 96.