A Source Of Inspiration

Scifi.com takes us down the yellow brick road on a hotsite to promote their series “Tin Man” that premieres December 2.

Produced by B-Reel/Fallon, the interactive experience has beautifully crafted sound design and art direction, with each painting supported by detailed animations. Feels like we’re falling down on a dreamy rabbit hole but enjoying every second of it.

And unlike the Sony Play-Dooh controversy, they rightfully credited their inspiration on the collaborative art project Zoomquilt (below).

Source: Motionographer

Fashion & clothing companies are using the web to escape from the limitations of beauty magazines and their fatigued classic glamour ads. Great sites such as Diesel or Issey Myake are amongst the finest examples of web design in this category, but usually we are bound to US or global brands, so it was interesting to find Apartment.com.com, developed by CuartoPiso from Colombia.

Each new collection has a brand new hotsite, with illustrations that spawn somewhere from Peter Gabriel to the world of TV series “Carnivale“. Even the corporate website has a wicked brit punk feeling !

This work awarded Cuarto Piso with Lapis de Acero, giving more visibility to the company that brought to life the website of renowned illustrator Catalina Estrada.

Re-searcher.com is the child project of Paula Balreira, Carlos Quitério and Graça Santos, that showcases some fine illustration from Portuguese and foreign artists.

It served initially as a representation for the affiliated artists but later extended their mission, developing several cultural activities in Portugal.

Besides the Gallery with all the portfolios, on the front page you’ll have a rich cultural agenda and great links from the illustration world. There’s also a online store, that will surely have more titles available as soon as the site gets some visibility. Go feast your eyes then, on some quality illustration.

I’m beginning to find some new uses for comics. Besides being an essential tool for storyboarding, they can be used to communicate effectively a complex message or user scenario.

If you’re interested, one of the essential tools to translate your message into comics are Wally Wood’s panels, that you can find at Joel Johnson or Peter Veneables‘ blog.

As i’m picking up my old drawing passion, i’ve found some brilliant people out there, sharing their love for illustration and drawing. The amount of dedication and work you see on some sites is amazing, and i’m not mentioning the major community sites like CGsociety or deviantart, but some smaller stars like Dani.

An illustrator working in the children’s market, besides her portfolio site, she has a blog with several inspiring videos on the art of drawing and illustration, available on YouTube, where we get to see a in-depth look into the magical world of an skilled artist.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/3pzKK6310N0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

YouTube link for RSS readers

If you’re into illustration, after watching some of Dani’s knowledge, you might want to check these ones also:

• Illustration Class
• The works of Bobby Chiu or his YouTube channel.
• Riven Phoenix videos (learning how to draw the human figure)
• Itchy animation tutorials
• More tutorials by GFxartist
• Digital drawing at The Photoshop Experiment
• a Comics Workshop
• and if you think you’ve got the touch you can become an illustrator

Enough of information. Start drawing !

Wait, just one more: The Little Chimp Society.

Alberto Cerriteño has some great illustrations. And designs. And a short movie. And lots of talent.

Enough before i’ll die of envy.

In one more episode of shameless promotion i’m featuring the work of Carlos Quitério, a portuguese artist that just launched Fitacola.com (translated as tape glue), a site/blog with collages from him and his wife Graça.

His personal website is Kodap.com with great drawings, illustrations and other mixed media.

Being itself a former student from ESTGAD University, at Caldas da Rainha, he does regular collaborations with other portuguese artists (such as Adriana de Barros or MusaCollective), altough his work has a worlwide reach.

In the last 5 years most of the illustrations i needed were made directly on the computer. So I gradually abandoned one of my favourit hobbies: drawing.

But in today’s networked culture, it’s easy to get in touch with the latest works and brush your drawing skills. Following one of the latest blogosphere memes, here’s my Z-list of drawing and illustration on the web:

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  Amateur Illustrator great galleries from tons of artists, and with lots of activities in the forums

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  Art Backwash Lots of doodles, illustrations and paintings.

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  Bearskinrug From the author of the illustrations at alistapart.com

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  Jana’s Journal and Sketchbook Sketches and more

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  Heidi Schmidt - The inked lineWork, tips, links and interesting posts

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  Illustration Friday “a weekly creative outlet/participatory art exhibit for illustrators of all skill levels”.

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  James William Walsh Sketches and illustrations directly from Halifax

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  IllustrationMundo A place where ILLUSTRATION gets all the Love !

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  Drawn! Collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw.

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  The Drawing Club Artists and drawing enthusiasts around the world

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  Illustration Class Tutorials, exercises and lessons to download

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  Wulff Morgenthaler Daily comic strips of premium quality

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  DrawSpace The essential resource for those learning how to draw