Task 4: Practitioner Example

My Chosen Practitioner

For task 4 we had to chose a Practitioner from our chosen specialism. I wanted to chose a illustrator who's work I really liked, and who I had taken inspiration from. I researched into different artist, but I already knew of a artist who's work I enjoyed and found I could relate to, and this Artist was called Nathan Aardvark. 

Nathan Aardvark

Nathan Aardvark is a unique professional illustrator and concept artist with a variety of styles ranging from dark and murky painting to fresh and energetic drawing. He has working for huge companies like Range Rover, Nike and Audi. Link to his page on Illustration web can be found at the bottom of the post. I chose Nathan because I found his work to be exciting, inspirational and really interesting. He is not stuck to one form of illustration, so he doesn't label him self as a digital artist, but a well rounded over all illustrator with skills ranging from painting to drawing to digital artwork. That is one of the reasons I chose him. He doesn't mainly focus on one medium of work, instead work in all mediums to a very high professional standard.   I found all his work from his finished pieces to his sketchbook work to be very interesting, with no certain style sticking out. Nathan doesn't have a set in style. But looking at his work, they mostly all contain some form of anatomy, so a figure or character. Alot of his work as well is very sinister, with a dark setting, with some sort of creature of monster. The uses lighting very well, in some pieces he will use lighting to show different features, or just a certain character. Also because he is a concept artist as well as a illustrator, his work often includes a landscape or backdrop of some kind. When looking though he work, you can see many different inspirations and artists, and has been incorporated into his work.Nathan uses many different techniques when working. His range of skills as a artist ranges from painter all the way though to a digital illustrator. So his used a range of techniques. for some of his work after researching I found that he uses his sketchbook alot. He will do small sketches when going about his daily life, then if he comes up with a idea or concept for a piece of work, he will then use that idea, and develop it into something greater. 

Analysis of some of Nathan Aardvarks work. I wanted to analysis Nathan Aardvarks work, so I looked at use of  lighting, Composition, character design,  Below is the work and my analysis. 

Use of Lighting

Nathan uses light in this scene really well. The light source is coming from the sun, but looking at the picture, alot of the light is coming from the left section of the image. I would say this image is at dusk but because of the sky it cant be, so I am going for the image is set in mid day with a cloudy overcast. So the use of lighting in this scene is to set the tone of the art. Lets the viewer know what he wants to you to know. The light on the characters are the front is used so he could not worry as much with the legs and apparel and to let him focus on the faces. It also allows the viewer to see alot of detail on not just the characters but the background and foreground too.

Use of Colour

The use of colour in this image is used very well. The quality of the light from the sun hitting the characters, and also spreading across the landscape is captured so well. The skin has a warm glow from the light of the sun, also he uses light so he doesn't have to worry alot about the lower half of the characters body. As I think seeing that the men are topless with spears if to help portray the emotion and the setting of the image.

Composition

Nathan uses the rules of 3 in this picture, the characters are the front of the image are centred so the rest of the features, like the mountains and the flowers and plants in the foreground are visible and are able to see. The Mountain to the left is there so you can understand the climate more, that is is baron, and empty.

Character design
The character in this image is typical Nathan, very detailed. I think these men are cavemen, or hunters of some kind, but by the way they are dressed, it is not set in this era. Maybe a few hundead years ago, when natives roamed deserts hunting for food and shelter. The main character, in the middle is pointing at something, showing the viewer that on the other side of the image, there is something of importance

Reason I chose this image

I chose this image because I thought it was a really interesting image. Just the mix of both the character design, and the concept art really spoke to me.With all the aspects of the landscape I thought this image would be really interesting to analysis. Over all I really like this image, and the use of all techniques is used very well. 

Conclusion
After looking at all different aspects of the picture and how the artist has used it. Over all the aspect of this image is used really well , with the lighting, concept art and the character creation, but there are some features I dont like about it. The main feature I think he could of spent more time on is the sky. To me it just looks like he had a final rush to get the picture finished and got a image of a bright blue sky and imported it in. Just the way the rock/ mountain on the left, the top part. it doesn't have any fade of any light merging into the background. It stands out too much. I think he should of kept with the lighting theme and made the sky a light orange like dust morning. Then it would of fitted into the image. But apart from that, I really like the image the use of depth and the rule of thirds.