Favourite Artist(s)
<div class="IPBDescription">It's poll time babyyyyyyy</div> A very simple thread. List your Favourite ARTIST/GROUP OF ARTISTS (Not limited by genre either) and the reason why you enjoy his/her works
In no particular order
<b>FAVOURITE PIXEL ARTIST</b> - Zoggles
I just recently found Zoggles, but his isometric work is superb. His animated isometrics are of such a high quality and it's really hard to describe them to someone who hasn't seen them. Do yourself a favour and even if pixel-art isn't your thing it's worth a 30 second look
Check out:
<a href='http://www.zoggles.co.uk/asp/index.asp' target='_blank'>Zoogles.co.uk</a>
<a href='http://zoggles.deviantart.com/thumbnails' target='_blank'>Zoogles deviantART Gallery</a>
<b>FAVOURITE COMPOSER</b> - Yoko Kanno
Yoko Kanno is a female composer who writes musical scores for anime series and movies. She is best known for her work on such series as Cowboy Bebop and The Vision of Escaflowne, and recently for Wolf's Rain. She has worked closely with Studio Bones and Studio Sunshine to create some of the most awe inspiring music ever composed. Appart from my great appreciation for the high level of music she produces I am equally amazed by how easily she crosses musical genres. While Escaflowne had full orcheastra on most of it's tracks Cowboy Bebop is endless Jazz tracks and it's amazing how effortlessly she pulls such a massive genre change off.
Check out her works on the anime series:
Brain Powerd (sic)
Ghost in the Shell (This OST, Original Sound Track, is godlike and ranks far far above her other works)
Cowboy Bebop
The Vision of Escaflowne
Wolf's Rain
<b>FAVOURITE MANGAKA</b> - Yoshitoshi ABe (sic), Eiichiro Oda and Kishimoto Masashi
NOTE: A managka is someone who draws japanese manga/graphic novels (It is not a comic book, these are 200 page novels in graphic form)
This was a tough one as there are at least a bakers dozen of other artists that I could have so easily listed here, but I've narrowed it down to 3.
So here they are in no particular order
Eiichiro Oda for his work on One Piece
One Piece is a story about pirates. It follows a very basic formula of a lot of manga series, there is a hero. The hero collects some friends. These friends go on a journey and have some adventures along the way. This particular novel is one of the most popular in japan to date, and it is easy to see why. Monkey D Luffy is a pirate with the ability to stretch his body like rubber. He got this ability from consuming the Gumu Gumu Plant (Rubber plant) when he was a small boy, his goal in the world is to become the King of Pirates. To become the King of Pirates you must own every piece of treasure in the world. However (and I have no reason why this is) there is no apparently no real treasure worth collecting other than the One Piece, a legendary stockpile of treasure collected from the now deceased Pirate King Gold Roger. So off he goes finding friends along that way such as Nami the thief, Zoro the Swordsman, Usopp the Liar, and Sanji the Cook (Who also happens to be a master of Capoiera. Capoiera is a fighting style developed by black slaves who had their hands bound so they fought with their feet [/HISTORY LESSON]) off they go to the Grand Line to collect the One Piece. I am addicted to the One Piece manga mainly because of Oda's writing and drawing style and for the fact that it isn't a 'thinking mans' manga. Just straight up action baby.
Kishimoto Masashi for his work on Naruto
Naruto is a manga about a small ninja named Naruto. A long time ago, the ninjas of Leaf Village fought and sealed a giant nine-tailed demon fox into the navel (Hey it's manga) of Naruto as a baby. The older generation of the village are sworn to secrecy never to reveal to Naruto that the demon fox is inside of him, however even though Naruto is just the holder of the Demon Fox all the adults (Generally) dislike him because of all the people the Demon Fox killed. In turn this causes Naruto to be a bit of an outcast, but to make up for it he acts like a complete idiot and shrugs it all off. While Naruto is aimed at younger teen readers, Kishimoto injects a lot of character development inbetween the fights and the training. The art in Naruto is top notch, and some of the location/spell/character designs are amazing to read.
Yoshitoshi ABe for his work on 'Lain: The Nightmare of Fabrication' and 'Haibane Renmei' (Charcoal Feather Federation)
Now ABe's art is just amazing to behold. Both in his superb plot executions and character designs. Firstly Lain:TNOF is a One-shot manga (A one-off story.) and like the Serial Experiments: Lain anime, just one giant freak out. Spanning only 18 pages it tells of how a young Lain accidently 'kills' her plush puppy dog. She tries to make it better, but ends up exploding the poor thing all over her room. As she mourns for her lost dog, 'god' turns up giving her a brand new dog. He then tells her they will dispose of the other dog so noone will ever know it was destroyed and thus their little secret, then we enter flip out mode where Lain then questions her existence and such and it is all masterfully executed. It's just such a well constructed short piece and I'll link to it down the bottom.
Finally, Haibane Renmei is a series of art pieces depicting the lives of numerous Haibane's, these haibanes have dull halos around their heads as well as a pair of very short wings, however they cannot fly. There is no plot, just a number of art pieces that are simply gorgeous to behold. This is not a pro-christian style witht he halo and wings, rather something along the lines of 'racsim' where the special characters (Such as Lain, the _7 [Pronounced Under 7's] and the Haibane) are generally outcasts of society and is a prolonged theme throughout all his works. I wish more mangakas drew like this...
Link to Lain: The Nightmare of Fabrication
<a href='http://home.att.net/%7Eanimeotaku-manga3/TheNightmareofFabrication.ace' target='_blank'>Click for freak out</a>
So yeah, just share some thoughts on your favourite artists and whatnot. TRY to limit it to one fav artist per genre, but if you have a hard time choosing add a few more like I did. Don't put done crap like "I like Linkin park, and Limp Bizkit. The End" ellaborate and show you can type sentences out...
In no particular order
<b>FAVOURITE PIXEL ARTIST</b> - Zoggles
I just recently found Zoggles, but his isometric work is superb. His animated isometrics are of such a high quality and it's really hard to describe them to someone who hasn't seen them. Do yourself a favour and even if pixel-art isn't your thing it's worth a 30 second look
Check out:
<a href='http://www.zoggles.co.uk/asp/index.asp' target='_blank'>Zoogles.co.uk</a>
<a href='http://zoggles.deviantart.com/thumbnails' target='_blank'>Zoogles deviantART Gallery</a>
<b>FAVOURITE COMPOSER</b> - Yoko Kanno
Yoko Kanno is a female composer who writes musical scores for anime series and movies. She is best known for her work on such series as Cowboy Bebop and The Vision of Escaflowne, and recently for Wolf's Rain. She has worked closely with Studio Bones and Studio Sunshine to create some of the most awe inspiring music ever composed. Appart from my great appreciation for the high level of music she produces I am equally amazed by how easily she crosses musical genres. While Escaflowne had full orcheastra on most of it's tracks Cowboy Bebop is endless Jazz tracks and it's amazing how effortlessly she pulls such a massive genre change off.
Check out her works on the anime series:
Brain Powerd (sic)
Ghost in the Shell (This OST, Original Sound Track, is godlike and ranks far far above her other works)
Cowboy Bebop
The Vision of Escaflowne
Wolf's Rain
<b>FAVOURITE MANGAKA</b> - Yoshitoshi ABe (sic), Eiichiro Oda and Kishimoto Masashi
NOTE: A managka is someone who draws japanese manga/graphic novels (It is not a comic book, these are 200 page novels in graphic form)
This was a tough one as there are at least a bakers dozen of other artists that I could have so easily listed here, but I've narrowed it down to 3.
So here they are in no particular order
Eiichiro Oda for his work on One Piece
One Piece is a story about pirates. It follows a very basic formula of a lot of manga series, there is a hero. The hero collects some friends. These friends go on a journey and have some adventures along the way. This particular novel is one of the most popular in japan to date, and it is easy to see why. Monkey D Luffy is a pirate with the ability to stretch his body like rubber. He got this ability from consuming the Gumu Gumu Plant (Rubber plant) when he was a small boy, his goal in the world is to become the King of Pirates. To become the King of Pirates you must own every piece of treasure in the world. However (and I have no reason why this is) there is no apparently no real treasure worth collecting other than the One Piece, a legendary stockpile of treasure collected from the now deceased Pirate King Gold Roger. So off he goes finding friends along that way such as Nami the thief, Zoro the Swordsman, Usopp the Liar, and Sanji the Cook (Who also happens to be a master of Capoiera. Capoiera is a fighting style developed by black slaves who had their hands bound so they fought with their feet [/HISTORY LESSON]) off they go to the Grand Line to collect the One Piece. I am addicted to the One Piece manga mainly because of Oda's writing and drawing style and for the fact that it isn't a 'thinking mans' manga. Just straight up action baby.
Kishimoto Masashi for his work on Naruto
Naruto is a manga about a small ninja named Naruto. A long time ago, the ninjas of Leaf Village fought and sealed a giant nine-tailed demon fox into the navel (Hey it's manga) of Naruto as a baby. The older generation of the village are sworn to secrecy never to reveal to Naruto that the demon fox is inside of him, however even though Naruto is just the holder of the Demon Fox all the adults (Generally) dislike him because of all the people the Demon Fox killed. In turn this causes Naruto to be a bit of an outcast, but to make up for it he acts like a complete idiot and shrugs it all off. While Naruto is aimed at younger teen readers, Kishimoto injects a lot of character development inbetween the fights and the training. The art in Naruto is top notch, and some of the location/spell/character designs are amazing to read.
Yoshitoshi ABe for his work on 'Lain: The Nightmare of Fabrication' and 'Haibane Renmei' (Charcoal Feather Federation)
Now ABe's art is just amazing to behold. Both in his superb plot executions and character designs. Firstly Lain:TNOF is a One-shot manga (A one-off story.) and like the Serial Experiments: Lain anime, just one giant freak out. Spanning only 18 pages it tells of how a young Lain accidently 'kills' her plush puppy dog. She tries to make it better, but ends up exploding the poor thing all over her room. As she mourns for her lost dog, 'god' turns up giving her a brand new dog. He then tells her they will dispose of the other dog so noone will ever know it was destroyed and thus their little secret, then we enter flip out mode where Lain then questions her existence and such and it is all masterfully executed. It's just such a well constructed short piece and I'll link to it down the bottom.
Finally, Haibane Renmei is a series of art pieces depicting the lives of numerous Haibane's, these haibanes have dull halos around their heads as well as a pair of very short wings, however they cannot fly. There is no plot, just a number of art pieces that are simply gorgeous to behold. This is not a pro-christian style witht he halo and wings, rather something along the lines of 'racsim' where the special characters (Such as Lain, the _7 [Pronounced Under 7's] and the Haibane) are generally outcasts of society and is a prolonged theme throughout all his works. I wish more mangakas drew like this...
Link to Lain: The Nightmare of Fabrication
<a href='http://home.att.net/%7Eanimeotaku-manga3/TheNightmareofFabrication.ace' target='_blank'>Click for freak out</a>
So yeah, just share some thoughts on your favourite artists and whatnot. TRY to limit it to one fav artist per genre, but if you have a hard time choosing add a few more like I did. Don't put done crap like "I like Linkin park, and Limp Bizkit. The End" ellaborate and show you can type sentences out...
Comments
Favourite pixel artist: Tsugumo (http://tsugumo.cjb.net)
I was gonna say my fav. artist was sirkowski, but that would be a bad joke.
As for all the other kinds of artists, since I've internet, I've seen so many of them, I can't really judge who I like most.
I'm very impressed by the work of John Howard (Concept Artist for LoTR-Movie) but there are dozens of other artists I really like also. When I see good art, I totally loose my sense for criticism. I'm just stunned then...
The problem with composers is that I just don't know their names. I can hear a great soundtrack, but how should I know who wrote it? In that moment, it doesn't really matter for me, so i don't look... Sad, I know.