Once again, John Nevarez gives us a list of fantastic artists. Go check out the whole list, here as usual the style that I like:
GMGallery
The Woeful Tales of a Domesticated Man
Ross Dearsley blog1 and blog 2
Kataplonk
Polcochon
Ahmed Guerrouache
Bibouse
storybreathing - aaron becker
Stargaser
Head over to cookedart and check out the three Gobelin shorts, Crash Test, The Omen and my favorite: Blind Spot (great little dark story).
I don't know why I love that type of art so much but whenever I see work like that I get so inspired to stick characters into those environments and animate the hell out of it (not that you can ever do that - I wish you could pick and choose your favorite environments, then load them up in Maya and start your shot).
This time it's the art of concept artist Daniel Dociu. Please visit bldgblog's post called "Game/Space: An Interview with Daniel Dociu" and check out the fantastic artwork, there are many more!
One thing you should not forget and which doesn't get enough attention from people I think, me included (just like shoulders) are hands and fingers. Make sure to check out these drawings and what Angus McLane has to say about it.
Another source I like to check for reference and inspiration (which is more of a hit & miss than checking out animation masters and their work, but still) are statues and maquettes.
I check out bigbadtoystore, cornerstorecomics and other sites, because I can't help myself, I'm a nerd. But every now and then you find a really cool statue. In this case, it's the Premium Format Figure of Star Wars' Asajj Ventress. I actually don't like the figure that much, but the photos of her hands were really cool.
It's expressive, strong, has a nice silhoutte (in this picture only though), it just ads to the figure (although the body pose could have been stronger).
The other picture shows her holding the lightsaber and it's a good example of how you should really push the poses of your hands and fingers as they hold something. Often I see the hammer pose, or worse, the broken wrist pose.
Try to to really think about how the wrist and fingers are working together in order to wrap around and hold on to an object, like this next photo:
It's tedius work, but pays off in a big way.
- pic source of hammer and Star Wars figure (c) 2008 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM.
Go to "The Animals save the Planet" and watch those cute stop-motion clips produced by Aardman Animations studio for Animal Planet.
(thanks for the tip Erik!)
