Christopher Denise is a visual development artist who has worked with companies like Fox/Blue Sky Studios and Treanor Brothers Animation. He is also a children’s book illustrator whose clients include Candlewick Press, Penguin, Harcourt Brace McMillan and McGraw Hill.

His website portfolio includes sections for character design, props design, environments and more. The work on display here owes much to his children’s book illustration style, which has a classic fairy tale and animal character feel, with delicate linework, a subdued color palette and nice attention to texture.

He also maintains a blog in which he discusses ongoing projects both in visual development and book illustration. You will also find occasional posts about plein air painting and other topics.

Denise works in both traditional and digital media, though he doesn’t always indicate which pieces are created in a particular medium.

The books section of his website portfolio doesn’t include information about the books themselves, you can find links to many of them in the right hand column of his blog.

Moonshine is the name of a group show that opens this Saturday, August 24, 2010, at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra California. It features the personal work of 45 concept artists, production designers, art directors and character designers from DreamWorks Studio.

The list of participating artists includes a number of artists that I have featured here on Lines and Colors: Chris Appelhans, Goro Fujita, Marcos Mateu-Mastre, Samuel Michlap, Simon Rodgers, and Nate Wragg, among others (links are to my posts).

There is a list of artists, with links to their websites or blogs, on the Gallery Nucleus page for the exhibition. There will also be an online gallery of pieces, but as of this writing it’s not yet posted.

There is an opening reception Saturday from 7-11pm (with a $2 admission that serves as a raffle ticket), and a closing reception and book signing on Friday September 3rd from 7-10pm. There is a flyer for the show here.

The book signing refers to a book, also titled Moonshine (more here), that will accompany the exhibition. It will be the first to feature the personal art of DreamWorks creators. Additional volumes are planned.

The group has established a blog, Moonshine: DreamWorks Artists… After Dark, that features artwork and artist interviews, as well as links to the websites and blogs of the members.

(Images above: Goro Fujita, Chin Ko, Lindsay Olivares, Samuel Michlap)

[Via Cartoon Brew]

Iain McCaig is one of the film industry’s foremost concept designers. He is widely known for his beautiful concept art for the Star Wars and Harry Potter films, among others.

When I last wrote about McCaig in 2006 I pointed out how impressed I was with his beautiful concept drawings in the Art of Star Wars books: The Art of Star Wars, Episode I – The Phantom Menace, The Art of Star Wars, Episode II – Attack of the Clones and The Art of Star Wars, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.

In the time since my post, the Gnomon Workshop has released 4 volumes of instructional DVD’s: Visual Storytelling with Iain McCaig; and in 2008 a new book was released Shadowline: The Art of Iain McCaig (image above, second down).

Still, I’ve been hoping for more of an online presence for McCaig. Unfortunately, the “Coming Soon” sign on iainmccaig.com has remained in place for the last several years.

The good news is that McCaig now has a blog, the bad news is that it is not frequently updated and does not contain a great deal of material.

The good news is that one of his recent posts points out that McCaig will be giving a rare free workshop next Saturday, August 14th, 2010, at the Art Institute of California in San Bernadino (image above, bottom).

The workshop, called “Showtime” begins at noon. The event is free, but seating is limited and admission requires that you RSVP to (909) 915-2100.

There is also a Facebook page for the event (may require login).

Concept and visual design artist Mark Selander studied industrial design in college, and took that experience to work for Will Vinton Studios (now known as Laika) creating models, sets and concept art, and then to Microsoft Games, where he worked as a concept artist for six years.

He now works as a freelance concept artist, designer and illustrator for the entertainment industry, gaming, toy design and illustration. His website, titled Machines and Humans has galleries of his work divided between environments, machines, characters, illustrations, sketches and graphics.

He also maintains a blog titled Rockets and Rabbits.

Recently, Selander launched a site called Commutapult (image above, top), a take off on the utopian transportation fantasies that have sparked the pages of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics for years.

In it he gives us genuine looking illustrations and infographics of a proposed urban commuting system for his hometown of Seattle, in which commuters are hurled in ballistically launched pods, their cups of “hyper caffinated Commutacinno™” rotating in gimbaled holders, until caught in great funnel and lowered into the transportation hub; allowing the highways to be replaced with idyllic green pedestrian pathways.

Spot on.

[Via Metafilter]

Sketch Theatre collects step-through demonstration videos of artists from comics, film and game design, animation and related fields.

Created by Alex Alvarez, founder and director of the Gnomon School of Visual Effects and the Gnomon Workshop, and produced by Lily Feliciano, Sketch Theater allows artists in these fields to give quick instructional demonstrations that pass on some of their techniques and working methods to other interested artists.

Some are longer and more elaborate, others are short, but usually still informative. Many are extracted from longer instructional DVD’s offered commercially by Gnomon Workshop, but usually stand on their own as a demonstration piece.

The videos are all shown within the amusing conceit of a mock theater interface.

There is a list of artists, apparently arranged alphabetically by first name, many of whom have more than one video clip.

There are also video interviews with a number of the artists, news, a forum and a store.

(Images above: Travis Louie [top 2], Christian Lorenz Scheurer, Jordu Schell, David Krentz and Syd Mead; see my posts on Christian Lorenz Scheurer, Jordu Schell, David Krentz and Syd Mead.)

Since I last wrote about illustrator and concept artist Marc Gabbana back in 2005, his website has been revised and expanded with many more of his wonderful concept illustrations for films like Matrix Reloaded, Martix Revolutions, Star Wars Episode I and II, Monsterhouse, War of the Worlds, Beowulf, and the recent Disney production of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.

Gabbana has a versatile style, ranging from atmospheric realism to highly rendered but delightfully cartoony flights of sci-fi whimsey. He also works in a variety of media, preferring digital for his recent concept illos, but working in acrylic, pencil, ink and marker for older pieces.

One of the things I enjoy most about his acrylic paintings and some of his more playful digital paintings (images above, middle), in addition to his terrifically fun use of brilliant colors and dynamic value relationships, is his approach to texture. Look for the detail crops of some of his robots and machines in which he delights in the pitted surfaces of worn metal.

His portfolio also includes illustrations for advertising, various publications, comic book covers, model kits and other products, as well as personal images in which he lets his imagination run wild.

Gabbana now has a blog, called Black Hammer, and has just released two instructional DVD’s through Gnomon Workshop, Visual Development with Marc Gabbana Volume One and Volume Two. You can see a couple of excerpts from them on Sketch Theatre.

He also did the recent cover for Airbrush Action magazine’s 25th Anniversary issue (May-June, 2010, digital version orders here), that includes a ten page article on Gabbana. In addition he created the illustration for the Spectrum 15 Call for Entries (images above, top, see my posts on Spectrum 14 and Spectrum 13).

As you explore his site and look back through the film concepts, be sure not to miss Gabbana’s beautiful pen and marker concepts for the Star Wars movies (above, bottom).

Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure game with a unique look; the product of hand drawn environments and characters by artists from Amanita Design.

The game, as far as I understand it, involves moving a small robot through a series of environments in search of something. The images have a wonderful quality of texture, imaginative design and a sense of atmosphere and age.

There is a trailer on the website for the game, and, despite the disclaimer that has been there for months, there is also a playable online demo as well as a downloadable demo available from the Amanita Design Blog.

There are also large wallpaper size images available on the Machinarium site. (I can’t give you direct links because the site is in Flash.)

Last fall, before the game’s release, Boing Boing featured an article with preliminary concept sketches by Jakub Dvorský and Adolf Lachman, as well as finished screen captures from the game.

I believe Adolf Lachman is the lead artist. You can find more of his work here.

Quite often, the best part of an animated short or feature is the backgrounds.

Since background images are onscreen for extended periods, and don’t need to change rapidly as do the characters, they are frequently the subject of intense design work and beautiful rendering.

For a demonstration of how wonderful animation backgrounds can be when isolated from the movie and empty of characters, visit the Animation Backgrounds blog.

Maintained by Rob Richards, this is a treasure trove of stills from animated shorts and full length features that showcase the background artist’s work.

There are lots of terrific scenes from animated gems, like the great Warner Brothers classic Hare-Raising Hare (top two images), the beautifully subtle lighting of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence from Disney’s Fantasia (above, third down) and the enchanted forest from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (4th down, designed by Eyvind Earle).

There are also backgrounds from more recent films, like Disney’s Atlantis, The Lost Empire (5th down) and Dreamworks’ The Prince of Egypt (bottom).

You can browse through the pages using the “Older Posts” link at the bottom of each page, or jump to individual topics using the links in the right side bar.

Either way, there is enough here to classify as a delightful time sink, and Richards seems to be adding posts on a regular basis.

[Via Cartoon Brew]

François Baranger is a French concept artist, illustrator and comics artist. He has done concept design for both gaming and film, and his film credits include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, parts I and II, and Prince of Persia, though you won’t yet find art from those films in his online portfolio, as they are still under a non-disclosure agreement.

You will find art for Arthur and the Invisibles, a new film by Luc Besson, director of The Fifth Element, and Ek-Tor an interesting but cancelled project, also by Besson.

There are also galleries of Baranger’s work for other film and game projects, as well as fantasy and junior books illustration, and comics.

Baranger uses both digital and traditional media, along with some 3-D rendering. His concept work appears largely like digital painting, in which he maintains a nice feeling of a painterly surface and often utilizes limited, almost monochromatic palettes to great effect.

The pieces of his that I enjoy most are concept illustrations for environments, both interior and exterior, in which he can be very evocative of place.

[Via io9]

Before graduating from the Art Center College of Design, Dominick Domingo interned at Disney Feature Animation, training in numerous roles in the animation process. After graduating, he worked with them as a concept artist and background artist, in both Los Angeles and Paris.

His credits with Disney include Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Tarzan, and Fantasia 2000. He also maintained a roster of independent clients, including ORION Pictures, Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley, the Pacific Design Center, Comedy Central, Wizards of the Coast and several book publishers.

Domingo helped to found the animation program at Laguna Art Institute, was an instructor at L.A. Academy of Figurative Art and is currently an instructor at Art Center.

In 2001 he attended the New York Film Academy and shifted his attention to directing live action film, and has directed several independent short films. He currently divides his time between illustration, concept art and directing.

Domingo’s lively, wonderfully stylized concept art has a feeling of enthusiasm and energy. The energetic nature of the drawing is sometimes restrained with carefully controlled color palettes, or enlivened by the dramatically theatrical use of light and shadow and judicious application of texture.

He uses a blog page as a portfolio, and you can view a variety of images from his professional projects including character design, as well as personal work, figure drawing, portraits and landscape paintings.

[VIa John Nevarez]