Who are your art influences and why?

JordanN

For me I got tons. Such as:

Maxwell Atoms's Billy and Mandy
Oh man, even though I always drew, it was this show that pushed me over to edge to seriously consider drawing.

Lawren S. Harris
I recently visited the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) and was blown away when I saw this guy's work. The artstyle is super vivid and has just the right amount of soft lighting to it.


Alot of Pixar/Disney Animation stuff

I definitely like Pixar's work. They were the originals who combined CG graphics and cartoons and ended up with something that looks good in harmony. The nomination for Disney Animation is because of Paperman! Yeah, I even made a thread about emulating the technique behind it because that's just how much it impacted me.

Looney Tunes

A good reminder of how important having animated expressions are.

Ruz

calrloz ezquerra because he was the first person to draw judge dredd
and brian bolland because, well he is just awesome:)

konstruct

Phil Hale is my favorite. I just love the mood, use of color, and the approach to anatomy.


Geoff Darrow: The details man, the details!




Tomer Hanuka of Tropical Toxic Contemporary illustration at its finest.



Jamie Hewlett (Gorillaz, Tank Girl). The guy just oozes style.



And then theres Ashley Wood. (Popbot, MGS, WWR) The dude has made a living off of painting robots and sexy ladies.

Stinger88

Far too many to mention, here's a taste

David Levy and all the other steambot studio guys
Torvenius
Mr Jack
Karanak
Scott Robertson
Fightpunch
Feng Zhu
John Park
Syd mead
Frank Fazetta
2000 AD

Why? Coz they do mind blowing fantasy and Scifi concept sketching and artwork.

Bigjohn

For me, I really can't get into the stuff that's done today. I feel like the older stuff was much more spot on. Frazetta was mentioned and is an obvious one. I like the guys from that generation and before. Hal Foster being another one.
Hal Foster
Jeff Jones
NC Wyeth
Howard Pyle
Leyendecker
Berni Wrightson (a bit more modern, but still)






Edit:
As to the why, I feel like those guys have figured out a lot of the stuff that we still use today. And I also feel like a lot of that stuff was forgotten. They've solved problems that we are now trying to re-solve for some reason. It seems to me like there's a lot we can learn from those guys. I just wish they were better documented.

Mrskullface

Katsuya Terada, because he's a savage.

Goeddy

andy braze yo

leilei

Bengus because,


bengus




Also Paul Steed.

benji

Some of my favourite concept artists:

• Polycount badasses fightpunch and Nick Carver of course!
• Craig Mullins. I love his incredibly organic and artful style.
• Daniel Dociu. I like the fragmented patchwork nature I see in his stuff.
• Artyom Vlaskin. Even on a design basis alone, I love his work.
• Jaime Jones, for the pure imagination, realised with such subtlety, in pieces like this one!
  
  And the most badass of all in my mind:
• Thom Tenery. His use of shape to craft powerful composition, hand-in-hand with intriguing design, is pure awesome.

I realise most of my inspiration comes from game-specific concept art; and it's probably not good to be so limited. Note to self, I will check out all the artists posted in this thread!

Hazardous

Don't really get into old artist stuff aside from michaelangelo's sculptures.

Range Murata: Master of refinement.





Shunya Yamashita: For me, the biggest influence on my work in terms of female face / body shape & lines.




Makoto Shinkai: He made it possible for me to see beauty in the most mundane things. His use of color, and lighting / shadows is phenominal.