Inspiration - Nychos

Nychos is a street/graffiti artist who focuses on anatomical designs, often dissecting creatures within his illustrations and using bright, detailed colouring for a lurid, even gory effect.

I love the attention to detail paid to the skeletons and other innards. It contrasts quite nicely with the often cartoonish faces of the animals and the fact that many of them are typically quite cute creatures. I'd love to incorporate more of these detailed and gruesome elements into my own illustrations, since I also like working with vibrant colours and slightly darker themes.

Inspiration.

Music video for 'She is the New Thing' by The Horrors. I immediately loved the grungy mixed media style, which is part film in areas but overlaid with what looks like ink splatters and other bold, dark shadows. The stark black and white colour scheme works excellently with the contrasting flashes of bright red, and is definitely something I'll consider when experimenting with colour and tone in my own work.

As far as the animation itself is concerned, I love how the characters and creatures seem to be constantly dripping and leaving trails of jet black. This is definitely an aesthetic I'd like to recreate in the model sheets for my ominous bird-like character.

General Inspiration - Max Gärtner

Painter, illustrator and character designer. He has a very bold and detailed style, often based on nature but with a very modern and surreal edge.

His illustrations are very busy and often look as though they're made up of one long piece of string, giving a very loose visual effect. He uses white space as a stark contrast to the masses of heavy black lines; this along with the direction of the strokes cleverly gives a sense of depth and movement to the work. I think the way he made the birds head out of many bird's heads is very cleverly done, and I like how sections of solid black are added for the eyes. My favourite piece I saw was actually the gorilla one (middle), because I found the watercolour wash worked very nicely with the black lines. I also like how the shape of the snout on this one was quite messily sketched in as it differs to the crispness of the fur.

General Inspiration - Sue Doeksen

An Amsterdam-based designer who works in various mediums but retains a very colourful, simplistic but busy style.

These pieces all have a very similar look to them, and yet all were created differently- one digitally, one using cut paper and the other as what appears to be a painted mural. This shows her style is very versatile and is applicable to various functions. I like how cute the designs are, and how there are many hidden characters within a single piece. The colours work nicely without outlines and give the work a flowing look.

These designs blend cute and creepy quite nicely while having some humour about them. Again the style remains fairly constant but these posters show that the designs work well individually as well as part of a larger piece.

General Inspiration - Will Sweeney

London-based illustrator and graphic artist who specialises in clothing graphics, comics/webcomics, animated videos and music packaging.

I like the detailed linework in these character designs, especially how it is brought to life by the vibrant use of block colours. The faint screentoning gives a very retro/comic feel while the lurid colour palette is reminiscent of vintage horror movie posters. This style compliments the gruesome design of the creatures very well. I also like how the fruit/vegetable elements of the monsters are quite subtle so you have to look closer to spot certain details, and how it contrasts with the aesthetic of metal/machine parts. The same goes for dressing the monsters/food creatures in typical street fashion- I particularly like how the mushroom monster has nothing but a pair of Converse on. The broccoli biker is also a favourite.

These illustrations show even greater detail as far as the linework is concerned. Again, the lurid but flat colours gives a very surreal edge to the drawing, especially since they clash a lot with the lineart itself. The pencil drawing beneath it is no less surreal, and shows even greater detail with the more subtle shading and the sheer busyness of the piece.

I would definitely consider using vibrant colour with future drawings since my own style is often heavy on the outlines and drawn detail.

An example of Sweeney's work in another media. I think this design translates well to a figure, which is always a factor to consider when creating my own designs. Will it work well as figurines and translate well to 3D programs?