The Art of Simon Stålenhag

Fantastic paintings by Swedish (concept) artist Simon Stålenhag!

(check out his portfolio on www.simonstalenhag.se)

These paintings work on so many levels. For one, I dig the idea. Dinosaurs and Mechas in rural Sweden?! How cool would it be to live in that universe!

I also like how the artist chose seemingly mundane events for his pictures. Kids strolling around outside, people with their backs to the camera doing some boring tasks or manual labor. Nothing about the presence of dinosaurs seems to bother the inhabitants of Stalenhag’s fantasy world and those giant machines that are littering the landscape are as thrilling as rusty tractors. Are they the remnants of a war? Or “just” the result of energy shortage or an economic downturn?

Stalenhag’s paintings are also a great reference for cg compositing or matte paintings! Take a hint from his lighting, reflections and usage of fog and haze to create depth. Especially the painting of those sun-lit towers in the distance is a great reference if you want to get some inspiration on how specular highlights should be affected by atmospheric conditions.

(via pixelsham)

Tags: art

This entry was posted on Friday, October 18th, 2013 at 08:12 by Stefan and is filed under English, Points of Interest, VFX. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.