The Four Horsemen
I had to do a series of 3 pieces for my conceptual art class this semester. Being me (who sucks at making "real" art in every sense of the word and is obsessed with mythological creaturey things), I did the four horsemen.
From left to right/top to bottom, it's Famine, Pestilence, Death, and War.
When I started this class, I had to give a presentation of my past work to my classmates, so that they could understand where I was, and where I want to get to as an artist. I didn't have a lot of traditional stuff handy, so I showed mostly my digital art. They really liked my linework, but not my composition or coloring style. I'm not too fond of the latter two things, either, to be honest. So that's what I'm going to work on this semester, but I thought I'd do something for my first project that would showcase my linework.
So I started looking at Mucha and various illustrators for inspiration, and came up with this series. I drew from art noveau with the draped cloth, the flowers, and the style of the linework (especially in the hair).
Each one got a little something to show which horseman it is. War got some sex appeal, as well as some bloody hands; a little heavy-handed, but she was just so damn pretty I needed to gore her up a little bit. Famine got a rotting orange, and a sort of "black hole" over her head, to suggest devouring. Pestilence got placed in the same piece as Famine because I felt like those two went together. Pestilence is actually an apocryphal interpretation of the first horseman, who might be Jesus, or might represent a false prophet, or internal strife/civil war. It's an interesting subject to read up on, but I decided to keep my interpretation of him in line with the others: ie, he's a bad thing that can cause the downfall of a society. So he can be read as either Pestilence, or Strife, with the "poisonous" black tongue.
Death is totally my favorite, because I angsted for days about how I was going to make death into a picture without using something extremely obvious. He's a beak doctor because of the plague associations. Also I've been playing too much Assassin's Creed 2, which only leads me to conclude that playing video games = extremely good for school.
I present these tomorrow, so I'm hoping for good results. I'll probably get a few things tweaked, but I'm totally getting these printed, and maybe even expanding on this idea for my installation at the end of the semester. I'm just really pleased with how they all turned out. :D
From left to right/top to bottom, it's Famine, Pestilence, Death, and War.
When I started this class, I had to give a presentation of my past work to my classmates, so that they could understand where I was, and where I want to get to as an artist. I didn't have a lot of traditional stuff handy, so I showed mostly my digital art. They really liked my linework, but not my composition or coloring style. I'm not too fond of the latter two things, either, to be honest. So that's what I'm going to work on this semester, but I thought I'd do something for my first project that would showcase my linework.
So I started looking at Mucha and various illustrators for inspiration, and came up with this series. I drew from art noveau with the draped cloth, the flowers, and the style of the linework (especially in the hair).
Each one got a little something to show which horseman it is. War got some sex appeal, as well as some bloody hands; a little heavy-handed, but she was just so damn pretty I needed to gore her up a little bit. Famine got a rotting orange, and a sort of "black hole" over her head, to suggest devouring. Pestilence got placed in the same piece as Famine because I felt like those two went together. Pestilence is actually an apocryphal interpretation of the first horseman, who might be Jesus, or might represent a false prophet, or internal strife/civil war. It's an interesting subject to read up on, but I decided to keep my interpretation of him in line with the others: ie, he's a bad thing that can cause the downfall of a society. So he can be read as either Pestilence, or Strife, with the "poisonous" black tongue.
Death is totally my favorite, because I angsted for days about how I was going to make death into a picture without using something extremely obvious. He's a beak doctor because of the plague associations. Also I've been playing too much Assassin's Creed 2, which only leads me to conclude that playing video games = extremely good for school.
I present these tomorrow, so I'm hoping for good results. I'll probably get a few things tweaked, but I'm totally getting these printed, and maybe even expanding on this idea for my installation at the end of the semester. I'm just really pleased with how they all turned out. :D