Alternate Inspirational Artists

Oh noes, controversy. As we all know anime is uber popular these days, and theres alot of flash animators who have decided to try to immitate it. Usually these end up being horrible cliches, Xin being a prime example. Then you have those people who use that horrible imbrew east/west mix, that always has everyone looking like ass, but thats what seems to be popular today. ofcourse youve also got you people who blatently copy Jhonen Vasquez (Hot Diggity Demon as talented as he is, is a prime example of style theft.) and Jamie Hewett who apparently wasnt cool enough to immitate until after the success of Gorillaz. These are 2 artists who obviously insainly popular and are holding some ground for all cartoonists in the west, but there is also a large number of artists both past and present, who were incredibly talented, yet nobody seems to want to imitate or borrow ideas from, why beats the hell out of me. But next time you decide you want to make a flash toon that looks a little more individual keep these artists in mind.

Maurice Sendak

Everybody who reads this blog should know who she is, tho probably none will know her by name. Shes most famous for her 1963 childrens book "Where the wild things are". Its beautifully illustrated with fantastic monster designs, its been over 40 years since this book came out, why hasnt anyone followed her design ideas or borrowed some of her artistic direction?







Brian Froud

Another name every self respecting illustrator should know but for some reason most people i talk to dont know who he is until i mentioned what he worked on. You folks may recognise him as the designer of all the creatures in the 2 Jim Henson movies The Dark Crystal and Labrynth. Froud had an absolutely amazing sense of design, with the ability to create bizarre creatures that where somehow both cartoony, yet followed the laws of anatomy and life enough to be completely real. he had an insain amount of talent, yet he is another one of those artists that nobody seems to want to mimick the style of.











Murray Ball

Heres a name that most people outside Australia and New Zealand wouldnt recognize, tho apparently Lucky didnt know who he was, shame on him. Ball was the comic artist behind a series called Footrot Flats, set in the New Zealand countryside. His sense of design was absolutely brilliant. He could be best described as a charicaturist i suppose, but his characters were all his own, charicaturs of the stereotypes you find in the country.















I swear theres more personality in this guys face then there is in all of Pixars movies put together. Tho that has nothing to do with 3D, thats a blog for another time.