Lately I’ve found myself settling into a particular style. Strong, bold line art, hard light, and a lot of washed out reds, pinks, blues and yellows. I’m not great with colour, but for some reason I find it easier to match them then they’re washed out. I guess they don’t clash as much, so you don’t have to worry about how complementary they are.
Before I trail off any further, I would like to take the chance to explore a couple of artists that I think are having a very heavy influence on my work at the moment, the first of which isn’t so much an artist as a studio. That studio being the Line.
The Line is a rather successful and quite hip animation studio based in London. They’ve worked for a number of giants, including the Jamie Hewlett’s Gorillaz and Gucci, always showing of a wide range of stylistic ability.
However, it seems that, whenever possible, they’ll come back to they’re own very strong and recognizable style. As seen, particularly accentuated in their very charming Amaro and Walden shorts.
As well as the Buzz Chickson online persona that has emerged recently, and seems to bare some non-official affiliation to the studio.
Upon further inspection I have discovered that Amaro and Walden, along with a number of other The Line pieces, were directed by a Timothy McCourt, one of the studio’s founders. Buzz Chickson is an unrelated Character that McCourt has apparently created for fun.
So essentially I find myself mimicking McCourt’s style to a degree, rather than that of the studio.
Following a similar style in terms of anatomy and construction, I’ve been paying close attention to an artist I who goes by Koteri Ink. He does some exceptional animal human hybrids for a comic book called kings of nowhere.
His work is particularly useful for me now, as I am playing with a human-chimpanzee based concept for a short animated piece.