Fine Art Blog

Category: Fictional Characters

  • Lord Of The Rings – What’s Gandalf upto nowadays? – artist Paul Horton

    I recently saw some great pieces of artwork and they made me think of Gandalf from Lord Of The Rings!…
    ‘The Secret Path’ by artist Paul Horton:

    ‘The Secret Path' by artist Paul Horton

    Well take a look at these pictures and tell me what you think the story is behind each? What’s Gandalf up to nowadays?

    Well ‘The Secret Path’ is obvious…it’s late at night and Gandalf was indoors watching X-factor on TV and realized he was all out of Coca Cola and Pringles and he decided to nip to the 24 hour garage for some supplies.

    He lives in a nice part of town but it’s very cold and they get a lot of snow….oh yes and his torch (flash light) ran out of batteries so he had to take a lantern!

    ‘When Magic Calls’ by artist Paul Horton:

    ‘When Magic Calls’ by artist Paul Horton

    Oh my god this is so obvious….the family at No.10 are throwing a birthday party for there 7 year old and they have hired a children’s entertainer…little did they know that they hired someone who does real magic!…That’s Gandalf there, he’s just arrived but unfortunately even he is not powerful enough to know which house is No.10, there’s no door numbers!

    ‘Shadowlands – Resin Sculpture’ by artist Paul Horton:

    ‘Shadowlands – Resin Sculpture’ by artist Paul Horton

    Ok well again I know straight away what happened. Gandalf arrived at the 24 hour garage but decided to rush the attendant too much to get his Pringles…little he did he know that the guy was the evil lord Sauron in disguise or was he a Nazgul? I can’t quite remember…anyway basically Gandalf was rude to him and he got turned into stone…only the lantern remained.

    I wonder if the artist Paul Horton, who created these pictures and sculptures, knows the story behind them as well as me? lol

    This is my favourite, I think it’s taken from Gandalf’s driving license!
    ‘The Wizard’ by artist Paul Horton:

    ‘The Wizard' by artist Paul Horton

    thank you

    Russell

  • Spongebob Squarepants – I could do better than that!

    SpongeBob SquarePants & Patirck Star

    I’ve always been a big fan of modern cartoons and animated series. I just love the artwork of the shows. But the question I have for you is, do you think you could draw better cartoon characters?

    Most people I speak to say to me “I could do better than that!, it’s easy to draw cartoons” but thinking about it, I really don’t buy into this. I think people answer like that for 2 reasons:

    (1) ‘The cartoon’s jokes are often very childish and unsophisticated’ – rocks falling on heads, eyes bulging out when a character is surprised lol, so a person thinks…this is childish and so the Artwork itself is childish and I could easily do better…Not so!

    Southpark characters: Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman & Kenny McCormick

    (2) ‘Most of it is done with computer animation, the computer does all the work!’ Yes there is case for this, that lots of cartoons are done with computers, such as Southpark or the Simpson’s movie used computers at certain points etc…But…

    Mr. Garrison & friend from Southpark

    …you are forgetting that the hard part is the initial design of the characters and how each setting or character complements the next one. (So simplistic a task you may think?) It is the intricacy and the nuances of the drawings where the genius lies…A whole lot of thought went into getting Homer Simpson looking right with his 2 strings of hair or the grey parts of his face to show him unshaven or getting Cartman to look like he’s typical outraged self; Colours & colour combinations, shapes, tones…I suspect the creators spent months if not years slowly building up each character and each setting: Mo’s Tavern, South Park Elementary…

    Who’d have thought a family of yellow coloured people would ever be a hit?…on paper that doesn’t work does it? then u haven’t seen The Simpsons!

    The Simpsons: Marge, Maggie, Homer, Bart & Lisa

    Who’d have thought a bunch of really simplistic drawings of characters with basic backgrounds…badly animated by computer would work? Then you don’t watch Southpark!

    Of course the shows are brilliantly written and are laugh out loud funny, but the thing that makes it work is the design, the original drawings that all subsequent shows are based on, which give the shows their unique ‘Feel,’ there own little cartoon universe.

    I can tell you something for free, id love to live in Springfield! :0)

    thank you

    Russell