Geof Darrow and The Matrix

Sorry, long time, no post. Thought I'd post again about Geof Darrow. I saw him at  the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Exhibition(C2E2) and got my copy of Hard Boiled autographed. He was also a really nice guy and let me take one his sketchbooks for free.

Darrow seems to be most well known for his designs for The Matrix. So I thought I'd share some of his designs.

Geof designed much of the interior of the Nebuchadnezzar. The thing I really appreciate about Darrow, is the fact that while his work is insanely detailed, everything works and looks practical. Many artists try to be this detailed, but so much of it just seems tacked on and isn't aesthetically pleasing. Darrow mentioned in a Matrix Art Book(where these pictures come from) that Neo's room was designed with practicality in mind, like Neo's door being like a vault, so none of the sentinels could get through, and if they were able to, there was a little escape hatch on the floor, that led to the bowels of the ship. Also, shelves for storage had little nets on them to catch whatever they were holding, in case the ship made a harsh turn. Many little details like these didn't make it into the movie, but made for some incredible concept art.

The Main Deck

On the opposing side, Darrow also designed the machine city and all of it's inhabitants. His imagery and ideas in these sequences are truly disturbing and equally amazing.

Power Plant

Fetus Stalk

I like watching the "making of" features on these films, as it allows you to delve into the mind of these creators and gain  a little bit of their thought process. When Darrow designed the "Deus Ex Machina" or God Machine for Revolutions, he said it would be the hardest design to come up with. In his mind, he thought that audiences would expect a machine resembling the typical image of God with  a long white beard and such. Keeping on with his disturbing thought process for these movies, Geofrey instead decided to go the opposite way and make it resemble a human baby.

Deus Ex Machina

I will definitely be updating with more of Geof Darrow's incredible work in the future, and try to keep in touch more often with this blog.

All images © Geof Darrow and any other copyright holders.

Happy Belated Halloween!

Happy Halloween! As a simple post, I just wanted to show off one of my favorite interpretations of Frankenstein's monster. Most every other comic fan would post Bernie Wrightson's amazing portfolio, but I don't want to be redundant, so I'm going to post one of Barry Moser's wood block illustrations from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus.

Favorite Artists: Alfonso Azpiri and Vaughn Bode

Haven't updated in a while, so I thought I'd post a couple more of my favorite artist. The reason why I lumped Azpiri and Bode together is because they're not in my top favorites but I do like some of their art. 

Azpiri has a nice, loose style, and of the most unique I've seen in the comic field. I love his flamboyant gestures and soft colors. He is most well known for his character, Lorna.

Bode on the other hand, has a completely cartoony style, but I really like his use of thick outlines and vibrant colors. I also like the fact that although his work is cartoonish, it has a real technical style to it, especially apparent in machines or guns.

Review: Ranx Integral

I ordered Ranx: Integral from Amazon France a couple of weeks ago. It's a  hard cover collected volume of all of the Ranxerox stories, including the first ones drawn by the writer, Tamburini. The art in the original comics is okay, but the art of Liberatore(whom I will update on this blog sometime in the future) is where the series really shines. The book is well put together, printed on nice quality paper, and the colors look great. The book is divided into 5 chapters: The Origins, Ranx 1: Ranx in New York, Ranx 2: Happy Birthday Lubna, Ranx 3: Amen, and a bonus section of sketches by Liberatore(many of which I hadn't seen before).

Sorry about the bad photos, I didn't want to use my scanner and ruin the integrity of the book's spine. Too bad I can't read any French, but I have read all 3 volumes before. Out of the three Liberatore volumes, I still think that Ranx 1 is my favorite, both in terms of art and story. I find the style to be the most unique of the three, and in my opinion, Liberatore seemed to go overboard sometimes in his rendering of Ranx 2. Ranx 3 still has a great style, and Liberatore also manged to get a better grip on drawing female faces in this one, but the story, as other people have said, wasn't quite as good as the first two(most likely due to Tamburini's death before it was finished). As a bonus, I uploaded a couple of the sketches from the back of the book.

Shadowrun Sketches

Phobos here, wanted to show off a couple of sketches I did. These two characters are "runners" you can hire in the awesome game, "Shadowrun" for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System(or SNES).

Here they're pictured in their in-game portraits:


And here are the sketches I did.

Favorite Artists: Burne Hogarth

Along with Andrew Loomis, Burne Hogarth has to be one of the best anatomy instructors you can find. He practically defined the word, Dynamic with his drawing books. Besides his Dynamic Library, Hogarth is best known for his comic adaptations of Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan. The way his figures are built are just so simple to understand, and easy to follow. Every aspect of his style is just plain Dynamic (I hate to use the same word more than once, but you'll find that it's very appropriate). I don't have much else to say about the guy, but the addition of his books to my collection have vastly helped me to improve with my own artwork.

Here's some amazon links to his books, if anyone's interested.
Dynamic Figure Drawing

Drawing Dynamic Hands

Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery

Drawing the Human Head

Dynamic Light and Shade

Now you know why I used that word so much.

Favorite Artists: Paul Bonner

Paul Bonner is one of two artists that I enjoy(the other being Alex Horley) that I was introduced to through looking up artwork from the obscure RPG, Mutant Chronicles. I instantly loved his style, and soon bought his artbook, "Out of the Forests".

Earlier in this blog, I mentioned how Frank Frazetta can be best described with the word "dynamic". I think the word that best suits Paul Bonner is "fun". Paul is great at mixing two different genres. He perfectly melds together the menacing, dark subject matter with just the right amount of whimsy. His monsters, while intimidating, often have quite cartoony expressions and exaggerations, everybody's muscles are comically enormous, the weapons are absurdly giant...etc, but each component works so well with each other.

Another impressive tidbit about Bonner is the fact that he paints completely in watercolor. No computers whatsoever. In addition he's also quite modest. Quoting his artbook, he says "I don't find myself particularly good at drawing." Even though his book is littered with amazing sketches and prelims.