Don't Get It, But Love It!

01
Do You Remember When This World Was Ours?
Living & Dying in the Afterword
by Justin Mezzell

Image gallery below

Us 'artistes' sometimes produce things that make people scratch their heads.  We get these strange, abstract ideas in our brains, then express them in a way that doesn't make much sense to anybody.  Many people are perturbed by these weird ramblings, almost as if the artist was trying to demonstrate superior insight, or even worse, communicate in some sort of code.  Perhaps that's indeed what's going on some of the time, but it's usually not what I see when I look at art.  Usually, I just like to take it on it's esthetic merits alone.

I admit that I don't really 'get' what Justin Mezzell is trying to say with 'Do You Remember When This World Was Ours?', but man does he ever say it well.  This is the sort of combo photo/illustration work that gives me goosebumps, creating nearly photo-realistic worlds that feature elements tantalizingly beyond reality.  More than any other technique I've seen, this kind of stuff transports you to another world; one that could just almost be real, and looks so dramatically cool that you wish it was.  

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Tagged Abstract Art Artist Digital Painting Illustration Justin Mezzell Photography Photoshop

Wood Nymph

Woodnymph

Ah, the pressure's off.  After three weeks of busy, busy, busy, the schedule has slowed down to a pace that's at least sane.  After wrapping a few major projects I've decided to take only the work I already had booked between now and Christmas, so that I can use the rest of the time for myself and family.

After all, there's shopping to do.

But after days and nights of doing creative stuff for other people, I also had a hankering for doing some of my own imagining.  So I sat down at Photoshop over the weekend and started drawing pictures of crazy fantasy-creatures, indulging in the sort of nerd-fare that still floats my boat.

That's what you see here.  I call it 'Wood Nymph', and it's based on one of the many strange images that come into my head from time to time.  It's a combination of a photo I shot on Vancouver Island this summer and the hand drawn character I added in.  I had imagined some sort of giant, gentle woodland being still hiding from human civilization - basking in the morning sun after a long night of avoiding the encroachment of man upon his realm.

My wife says he doesn't look gentle, but I disagree.  The wood nymph is a ten foot tall teddy bear, I assure you.  I mean I know.... he's from my dang head after all.

Click on the image to see larger.
Tagged Art Digital Painting Fantasy Photography Photoshop

Pay Me and I'll Kill You

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It's true.  For a small price, I'll make you dead.  Or at least I thought I would until I thought about it some more.  Sorry, not dead, but undead.  For fifty bucks.  No, twenty.  Wait, let's say seventy-five.

Confused?  Me too.

I had this great idea today.  When I woke up I realized that we're only one week away from the most important day on the calendar, and the Halloween spirit just overwhelmed me.  I just had to get my spook on somehow, so I took a cheesy press-style photo of me and turned it into a zombie portrait.  A little skull fragment here, some blood there, and a tad of rotting flesh was all it took to turn my otherwise mundane face into a freakish nightmare.  Well, at least more of freakish nightmare than usual.

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Tagged Halloween Narcissism Photoshop Zombie

Eyjafjallajökull is My Overlord - The Second Coming

Thanks again to Stephen Blacker for sending these my way... every good blog needs a researcher, so now after sending me two batches of these pics, I guess he's it!

I have this weird thing, ever since I saw the movie 'The Player', that I want to go to Iceland.  It looks like it would be naturally beautiful without the volcano, if maybe a little slow on Saturday night.

Tagged Ash Awesome Disaster Eyjafjallajökull Iceland Lightning Magma Natural Nature Photoshop Science Volcano

Dragons

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via goodspeedproductions.com

A hand drawn image (done in Illustrator and Photoshop) done at a huge scale. I started this months ago and forgot to finish until just now. The final image is massive. The blown up images at bottom are there for reference and are actually scaled DOWN to 35%.

Tagged Adobe Art Artist Battle Digital Digital Painting Dragons Drawing Illustrator Image Painting Photoshop
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