When I first wrote about Simon Rodgers about a year ago, I pointed out that I knew almost noting about him, except that he is a concept artist working in the film industry, who likes to work and sketch digitally.
His eerie and dramatic landscapes, imaginative environments, mysterious caverns and enigmatic structures are rendered with digital aplomb and a flair for dramatic lighting and dynamic composition. His oblong compositions, which have a distinctly widescreen cinematic feel to them, are often almost monochromatic, taking some of their power from intense highlights of complementary colors. He seems to have a special knack for dramatic rock formations, elaborate caverns and wildly improbably stone bridges and pathways.
Simon was kind enough to write recently and let me know about the Colors! application for Nintendo DS, which he found out about from Sparth’s blog; sparking one of the more popular topics in recent lines and colors posts.
It occurred to me in the process that I hadn’t checked in on Rodgers’ site or blog, which are under his industry nickname, “Sim-r”, in a while. I was delighted to find that, in addition to his new quick thumbnails and sketches, some of which are done on the DS in Colors!, he has added to the galleries of his more finished digital concept paintings, illustrations and landscape paintings, as well as including a gallery of pages from an as yet unfinished graphic novel project.
I was unsurprised to find that I still know next to nothing about Sim-r. He seems to have intentionally left out of both his blog and his gallery site any mention of career, background, clients or projects, apparently preferring to let the art speak for itself.
I’ll follow suit and let you just click over and enjoy.
Wow, what an inspirational website, I’m liking that gallery every bit as much as Craig Mullins gallery page, or any of the guys at Steambot. (all of whom are very good too.) Very nice art work.
Mr. Rodgers should put together a few tutorials on his process/style. ImagineFX magazine is now including such tutorials on it’s in-mag DVD. That would be a treasure if he did so.
Ahhh…, if only we could step into his world, walk among his trees, climb those vines, and cross his bridges. I never have to find an excuse to get lost in one of his paintings…the beckon you to come in and explore.
Yeah. And the mountains, they’re majestic an distant and many phased… sort of like, oh I don’t know… Cougar Peak, maybe…
Thanks for the comment, Jared.
Other readers should check out my previous post on Jared Shear, his excellent painting blog, Terra Peer and his fascinating experiment to paint the same subject, Cougar Peak, every day for a year, which is nearing its conclusion.
Hello Jared,
Your life drawings are really great, love the various medium too.
I agree, Rodgers images are very engrossing.
Hey fellas - Thanks for the kind words .
It’s weird stopping by here to get some inspiration only to see my own stuff staring me in the face .
Not too sure how I feel about it .
We all know that as soon as we finish something there’s a tendency not to like it anymore . The desire to go back and redo them or fix them a little can be quite strong .I suppose that’s why I started the blog and the website - post ‘em and they are done with . Then on to the next one .
Forwards hopefully .
Thanks for checking in on the site - I plan on updating on a regular basis more often than I have been . Hopefully someday I might get some sort of book together , who knows .
Cheers and best regards .
Simon’s work is GREAT!