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to continue with my series about composition in film I have collected hundreds of examples from feature films, documentaries and tv-commercials. together with good composition you will find interesting color and light choices.

here first, as a reminder, the basic ingredients for good composition in film –

PLACEMENT + READABILITY golden section/rule of 3/triangle
LIGHT IN FRONT OF DARK AND VV
FRAMING
YIN + YANG / BALANCE positive/negative…
ANGLES up + down/tilted
STAGE EFFECT
RHYTHM + FLOW / EDITING
DEPTH

there is way more information in my book – VISION, COLOR AND COMPOSITION FOR FILM,
details on the right side of this blog

happy ?

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you might have recognized one or the other artist in the past INSPIRING posts. there were only some files where I had noted the name of the artist, so I decided not to add names in the image compilations at all, it’s more about the art that inspires us, not the name. but – I understand that some of you are curious about some more work a particular artist might have created. below is a list of the, in my opinion, most important comic strip-, cartoon-, caricature and character-design artists, whose work is already represented in the past posts, or will be in the upcoming ones. I am still working on a second list of most important illustrators and concept designers.

after realizing I forgot some important artists I changed the list.

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art students are usually asked to create an INFLUENCE MAP, assembling artwork of artists that infuences them the most. classical paintings, contemporary illustrations, comic strips, character-/concept-designs from animated movies are among other things where we consciously or subconsciously borrow elements, techniques or looks from. as an artist we always need to be inspired, we get a lot of that from life around us. and the endless resources within the world of the internet provide us with all the information and reference we could dream of.
before the time of the internet most illustrators had a huge cut-out archives, reference images cut from magazines and books, and archived alphabetically. I still have cabinets full with those treasures. it took forever and was not cheap. today google is much cheaper and more important – faster.

probably about 15 years ago, when the internet speed in this part of asia where I live, improved, I started the same what I had done years ago, to collect all different reference images – but this time downloaded from the internet and nicely archived ( not always ) in folders for easier locating them. reference photography, classical art, children book-/magazine-/book-illustration, concept art and production design for live action and animation, comic strip. so far some million files.

during this pandemic, for longer than six months I am more or less stuck at my home, what gave me the opportunity to dig through my collections. you have seen already some of the results in my last posts, more to come.

today i wanna show you my version of influence maps, compilations of inspiring artwork that I put together randomly, from those thousands of reference folders.

houses in art 6

below I have collected some of my own artwork containing house-designs from all over the years…

© walt disney enterprises
© universal pictures/amblin entertainment

covid 19 – manila bay

this is how manila bay looked like a few days ago – over 20 cruise ships parked in the bay right in front where I live. a very unusual view, to see just one cruise liner here was an event so far. the reason, the ships were dropping their filipino crew, in total from all ships they came here and might arrive within the next weeks, about 40.000 seamen. the total number of the now jobles seamen is much higher, some of them flew already in from all over the world.

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in abstract art composition and color are much clearer without the distraction of figures and environment. I find a lot of ideas for new brushes and my own abstract studies in there as well.

below are some of the paintings I created with my new brushes, inspired by abstract art

we are here in manila, where I live, in month 3 of a total lockdown. I hope it helps and we can fight this pandemic. please be safe, wherever you are, we need to get through this – hopefully alive.
I wish you luck and good health
hans

a new decade

the ‘roaring twenties’ or ‘golden twenties’ of the last century following the devastating first world war were a time of economic prosperity in many industrial countries and ended with a crash on wall street and a world financial crisis. the social and political changes especially in europe were dramatic, and would finally lead to another world war. it was the decade of nightclubs, silent film and jazz, and with it the start of fashion. radio stations began broadcasting and the mass-produced automobile became popular. in the US it was the time of prohibition and the ku klux klan, the invention of the penicillin and the switch from coal to electricity. in art expressionism, art deco and cubism developed in europe, it was the time of the bauhaus in germany. in animation lotto reiniger created the first feature film, in the US felix the cat was popular and walt disney started his imperium in 1928.

what will happen in the next decade, our ‘twenties’? compared to the last century we are informed, the internet connects nearly everybody around the globe. and still with all our education, knowledge and information, we allow the growth of extremism, the systematic abuse of freedom by governments and the development of a new world order of the wealthy and powerful, while our planet is being destroyed by our ignorance and greed. well, let’s hope there is a tiny bit of hope…

alfred j kwak 1.0

all this original black/white artwork for ALFRED J KWAK was done in 1990 by harald siepermann and myself for merchandise publication, on t-shirts, bedsheets and so on. we had to create hundreds of illustrations within the shortest time. the producer of the tv-series, DENNIS LIVSON, had organised another team of illustrators to help us out. but it ended in a disaster. we didn’t want to drop the quality standard of the artwork below an acceptable level, so we just had to work day and night and do everything ourselves. and all that together with the unfinished third volume of the comic strip series. hectic days! to remind you, in those ancient times everything had to be drawn on paper and then colored with feltpen. photoshop would have made it much easier, but that was not invented yet.

© bilderfabrik
© van veen/siepermann/bacher

alfred j kwak calendar 1.2

© bilderfabrik
© AJK -van veen/siepermann/bacher

alfred j kwak calendar 1.1

these are designs for a calendar I did in 1991 for the merchandise program that came with the tv-series based on the comic strip series THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF ALFRED J KWAK, that harald siepermann, herman van veen and myself had created. the calendar was never finished, for some personal reasons I stopped working on the project and from then on hardly anything was ever published again. my whole work in germany stopped in 1991, I joined spielberg’s amblimation studio in london and started to work on CATS followed by BALTO, and concentrated from then on solely on animated feature films.

© bilderfabrik
© AJK van veen/siepermann/bacher