Artist Inspiration Showcase - Animation background artists 2

Previously on this blog I created a post outlining my love for environment artists who create innovative and unique artwork which I am keen to experiment with and apply to animation backgrounds in future productions. During my last post I did not cover all the artists that inspire me as a content creator and since that post I have also come across other artists which I am drawn to breathing new forms of immersion and inspiration into my future goals, visions, and creative expression.

Animation is not just a passion of mine but is also an obsession, and one aspect that I resonate with consistently is the animation backgrounds, the scenes setting, the way in which an area creates immersion regarding narrative. The style, content, and impression are all accountable for an ideal and vision when creating animation. It is the stage on which the point of it all is made, it is the single biggest contributor to engagement aside from the story itself. It enhances the concept, it stages the concept and it can be the reason for success in the concept.

The following artists are other artists which I find great appeal in, they are artists whose style captivates me and I wish to utilise and respond to in an animated project, and some new artists which have rapidly become sources of influence and study based of their resonance with my intentions when creating content as an animator and illustrator.

Chris Turnham

Chris is an illustrator and printmaker based in Los Angeles. He's worked as an artist in both feature and television animation and has contributed illustrations to publications and children's books. My interpretation of style as a concept is the ratio between ‘simple vs complex’, applying this concept to the stylisation that Chris brings to his illustrations highlights the formula that draws and engages me with his environment designs. Chris’s style reminds me of old magazine comic strips hand with an impression that’s origin is in traditional painting in early 20^th century advertising. I find this style to appear clean cut and appealing whilst incorporating subtle textures to add interest and flavour into the imagery shown.

The reason that I feel I resonate with Chris’s illustrations is due to the unique impression that is conveyed through afore mentioned stylisation regarding simple vs complex. The simplicity in the design gives something solid for the concept to be held by the eyes and brain of the viewer whilst complexity in aspects of the form and subtilty in the texture allows the brain to be instigated invoking the resulting harmonious interest that I personally find so compelling. As always I am very keen to experiment and practice the style and approach that Chris uses when creating his digital paintings that are reminiscent of traditional painting. 

Editorial piece for an article about Los Angeles theatres

‘EAMES HOUSE’ Limited edition screen print created for personal expression.

Visual development contribution for ‘Yuki 7’ Adventure story ‘Looks could kill’

Nancy Liang
Nancy is a artist and illustrator with a focus on tales of urban landscapes, city streets and as she states ‘the often forgotten places of suburbia’. She prefers to make use of craft and paper cut-outs arranged in the visual form of a diorama as her approach to environment creation. This practice often extents off the page becoming digitally animated with the end outcome usually been a looping GIF. I am personally drawn to her environment animations and illustrations due to the unique spin she adds to her creative process which translates through to the design outcome into a visual experience which is breathlessly immersive.

Although clearly stylised and abstract in shape form and concept, Nancy utilises her cut-outs and craft to spin a visual tale that is clearly reminiscent of natural and immersive expression due to the organic textures that are translated into her work due to her chosen artform. Weather a side effect of this preferred style and approach or the intention, one can not argue the impact that this has when viewed by the audience. This essence and organic expression is something that I am more than interested in learning to master and experiment. Moving forward into my future projects and current I will create animation in reference to this studied environment conceptualisation. 

Extract from one of Nancy’s ongoing personal projects ‘Over the moon’.

Illustration created for ‘Junko’s Story’. Completed with the SBS Interactive team.

Extract from one of Nancy’s ongoing personal projects ‘Old Spaces’.

CRUSCHIFORM

CRUSCHIFORM is a French creative studio founded by Marie-Laure Cruschi, stated by themselves the team work on a variety of projects from illustrative forms to full art direction and graphic design solutions. Arguably the team’s collective effort or the creative direction developed over the years of production has created a common and impactful style that is associated with the studios design outcomes. I find this style inspirational to the environments I intend to incorporate both professionally and in my personal work due to vector reminiscent geometric style that combines a graphical impression with a painterly approach.

Similar to the reasons I previously outlined been engaged with James Gilleard’s work I find the core element of a simpler shape been incorporated within the design to give an impression that feel sophisticated in nature to the way in which it has been applied within the illustrations creative process. In contrast to James’s work on the other hand this style of illustrative process follows a looser and less strict reference of geometry creating shapes of that style but with a deepened unique form that conveys concept to a new level of impact when generating the resulting stylistic choice. I find this to be an engaging and professional style that can be appealing to both aspirational artist, professional, and novice due to its intuitive expression as demonstrated in the pictures below. I am keen to take my time in studying and experimenting such a style within my own creative works.

Illustration depicting a modern house in the countryside.

Cover illustration for the French cultural review "Focus" n°80.

Mural illustration for the first restaurant of celebrated Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania).

Conclusion

Creating environments and animation backgrounds is something that will never fail to inspire, engage, and captivate me. I will also be blissfully haunted by a need to design a scene setting that creates the tone and stage for my potential animations with a sense of accuracy and implication that enhancement is only the first stage of the desired intention that I venture with the backgrounds I create. The outlined artists above as mentioned previously are artists that since last post have took centre stage as core sources of inspiration to me regarding this topic. I take the time to reference, become inspired, and learn from these artists and their work but I intend to create responses to each artist in the following months to take my understanding of such artwork deeper to stimulate artist growth.


Thank you for reading! and I shall keep you all updated moving forward.