I'm gonna do a couple posts, but I try not to post too often and getting new art of my own to share every day means I've fallen behind on my backlog of cool art to share, so I'll try and do a few of these. As the userbase continues to scatter, it's possible that I will simply stop doing these, and if that happens I will probably do a series of posts about some of my favourite artists to follow and where you can find all those people, now.
Mother of Pearl by Io
Such good value grouping, here. Love how murky they've made this kelp forest, and yet it still feels lush.
"some linework ??" by Seven Deven
Once again, murky waters, a kelp forest, and great value grouping. That lighter cloud of bubbles pointing directly through the line of action of the main character and right to the high contrast light area of the conch shell. I really like the decision to make the individual bubbles this super bright saturated green. It works so well with the rest of the palette.
"And have a good week" by Gregory Fromenteau
Sometimes I am simply charmed by a very well executed version of a simply concept and this is one of those cases. Really love all the detail crammed into that airship and there's a great blend of like, sailing ship, steam boat and steam train all mixed in there.
untitled by Marina Lunina
I think this is maybe FF6 fan art, but that's not why it's in here. It's in here for it's colour palette and it's incredible sense of movement. This whole thing is like streaming and swirling around.
Matoya by Josh Corpuz
Josh Corpuz is an artist with a really good handle on the sort of Akihiko Yoshida ink drawing look and has a ton of great fantasy character design in the Final Fantasy sort of vein. This character was a response to the prompt: "I want FF17's protagonist to be a lady in her 70s named Matoya." Josh has just a really solid grasp on costume design through his work. I particularly love this lady's jacket. Incredible collar.
天 華 亂 墜 by Guling Guo
Okay, so here's more fan art and an emphatic request that you read Land of the Lustrous, but even without that context this piece is eerie and really well composed. Really incredible colour use. I love how the more neutral teals of the flowers and leaves make the blue hair on Phos pop super well, and another perfect example of value grouping, using the shadows on the hands to establish focus on the figure even though the figure and hands have the same local colour.
I'm fairly sure I need 3 of these catch up, but I'm gonna leave it out of ?, for now, in case I underestimated.
raised from veiled layers / eggs etchable with bytes from / the swan delegate by SAJAN
First off, Sajan uses alt text and titles their work, which makes doing these much easier for me and I must thank him for that. I love how this kind of splits a difference between 70s psychedelic sci-fi and traditional woodblock printing. Beautiful and subtle colour work in the darkest value areas, particularly around the textiles/embroidery, and a lot of excellent textures that help this feel like aging inks on weathered paper.
Dragon, Monster Design by ju
Love a good dragon. I initially read this thing as not having eyes, and I can't tell if I like it more with or without. The star of the show to me is the neck scales which resemble the way hummingbird neck plumage looks. The texture of the scales on the base of the neck and deltoid of the forearm where the white skin starts seems to suggest that the white skin is stretched over those scales like a thin, rubbery membrane, which is creepy in a good way, to me. In terms of colour and tonal construction, there's such stark lighting here, that makes this so sculptural, and the use of a grayscale palette with those hyper saturated vermillions in there is so cool.
Busy Street by Alariko
Alariko is one of those cases of an incredibly skilled very young artist who I have had to begin just looking at with admiration instead of jealously. Excellent buildings, using this sort of warped perspective that feels right and gives the whole place this kind of jumbled together look that fits the atmosphere and lends a certain style to it. So much attention paid to where weathering happens, little details in the flourishes of buildings (I'm a particular fan of the blue and white tiles at the top of the one building). I also really love that this image could just be a stylized version of reality were it not for the two witches flying above, in a way that immediately situates us into a more fantastical setting.
Arambou Blues by Rudolf Hima
I have so much respect for the paleo artists working today who are able to take the absolutely silly proportions of the various kinds of pterosaur and make them look majestic in any way. This is a truly excellent evocation of sunsets during an period we usually don't see represented, after the sun is hidden by the horizon, but where we still get those last dregs of crimson visible where it set. Rudolf's colour use here is perfect and feels like some of the best kind of wildlife photography.
Lancer development sketches by Peyton Gee
Peyton's work on Lancer is always great, but I wanted to highlight this as a great sample of in depth design process for a single illustration, iterating on the big jacket school of character design with a bunch of unique and and interesting variants. The front view is also great at immediately delivering a level of sass and character to tell you who this pilot is at a glance. As a side note, I would wear any of these jackets. As another side note, Lancer should let me work on it.
