surreal

Beyond the Realm of Brooke Shaden Photography

AoiroStudio — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:13:45 +0000

Brooke Shaden is a fine art photographer living in the famous city of Los Angeles. Her passion lies in creating new worlds through her photography and her vision extends beyond the realm of the camera, creating images that resemble paintings and speak of an era that is not our own. Each image is a story.

For more information about Brooke, check out her website at BrookeShaden.com. Have a look also at her account on Flickr or follow her on Twitter @brookeshaden.

She began creating self-portraits for ease and to have full control over the images, and has since grown into a self-portrait artist. Self portraiture for her is not autobiographical in nature. Instead, she attempts to place herself within worlds she wishes we could live in, where secrets float out in the open, where the impossible becomes possible. - Brooke Shaden

About the author

My name's François Hoang and my alias's Aoiro Studio. I am a self-taught freelance graphic designer from Montreal, Canada. I've been designing for the last 4 years and really have a huge passion for creative work that makes a difference in our world. If you wanna requests some posts; I can be found on Twitter or feel free to contact me.

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Illustrative and Surreal Work of Takeshi

abduzeedo — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:27:43 +0000

Emeric Trahand also known as Takeshi is a New York based art director and artist from Saint Etienne, France. Emeric's illustrative work is renowned for its surreal feel, the quality of its photomontages as well as the light treatments and colourful compositions. We also have already feature one of his works for our Wallpaper of the Week.

Although Emeric has had a rather short career, beginning as a freelance illustrator in 2006 in France, he has already been commissioned by a diverse array of major international clients: Ubi Soft, Emi Music, TBWA Helsinki, Adidas, Cacharel, Grimbergen, Toyota, Swatch, Chase Bank, Bank of America, ASICS, Subway, Aquafresh, Lays, Radio Shack, Spike TV, VH1, Asher Roth, the Cool Kids, Cuervo, GrandPrix de Montreal, English National Opera, Société Générale, Maaf Insurance, Groupama Insurance, Ventury Paris, Cacharel, and Sony BMG.

Decembre

Cream

Pigeon

Promotion material for the band

G-SHOCK vs Takeshi

Blind - Depthcore

Cita

NOIR

For more information about Emeric, visit his Web site at http://cargocollective.com/stillontherun

About the author

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. You can get in follow us via Twitter at @abduzeedo

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Impressive Portrait Photography by Luca Pierro

marcos333 — Mon, 16 May 2011 16:50:11 +0000

The first time I saw Luca Pierro's photos I found they were at least 70% photoshoped, but they were not. This photographer try to reach the effects, textures and lights with the less manipulation as possible, so he uses a lot of materials like fluor, milk, water and other. The results are pretty magnific, I must admit they speak by themselves.

If you want to see more photographies from Luca, please access his Website or Flickr.

Taking inspiration from painting and the surrealism in particular, Luca tries to recreate in his portraits ethereal surrealistic atmospheres. Digital processing is minimized. The lightning and the use of various natural materials (water, flour, talcum powder, sugar, etc.) become predominant (Luca's Flickr).

About the author

My name is Marcos Torres, I'm Graphic Artist from Porto Alegre, Brasil. You can get to know more about me by acessing my Personal Website or by following me on Twitter: @marcos333. You can also see some of my last projects at my Flickr.

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The Colorful and Expressive Art of Gianluca Mattia

GisMullr — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:30:43 +0000

I know we already said this many times, but it's important to repeat that is really nice to receive emails from readers and artists suggesting things for us to write about. When I opened the link to Gianluca's website I got instantly impressed by the colors and style I saw. He sent us an email suggesting a couple images to our Daily Inspiration series, but his characters are so stunning that we decided to write a complete article about his work.

Gianluca Mattia has a really cool style, full of colors, beauty and personality. His characters are vivid, erotic, surreal and sometimes innocent, they seem to tell us a whole history in their parallel universe, simply great. I recommend you check out Gianluca's website for further artworks, it is really worth it. ;)

Gianluca is an Italian graphic Artist and illustrator who was born in Bari, Italy. Qualified in the Institute of Art with qualifications of Art’s Master and architect’s designer and interior decoration. After his arts studies, Mattia focused in digital illustration. His illustrations are vivid, erotic, subversive, part-emo, part-punk, between realistic and surreal. They operate in some of the same realms of beauty, utilizing details like tattoos, blood, tears, piercings, band-aids, open wounds, skulls, odd creatures, hot rods and scars.

"My style is a mix of various things, I call it a shake of genres. I always loved erotic contemporary illustrators like Luis Royo and Milo Manara, etc... they way they express themselves trough provocative female figures. I also like manga, american comics, low brow art, pop surrealism, etc. All this is poured on my trait, in my style, that is a natural consequence of the things that I appreciate. Also I try to give
my vision of things, of colors, shapes and contents. I like to use metaphors, the irony and put them to surreal themes, vivid, erotic, social, sad and sometimes happy"

Take your time to browse around the shop section of his website... there are some sweet stuff to buy. =)

About the author

Someone with a bachelor degree in Foreign Trade that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. A person ‘digging’ a new way as a ‘geek apprentice’, blogger 'wanna be' and a communication lover! Current location: Porto Alegre, RS – Brazil
Twitter user: gismullr

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Interview with Manipulator Alexander Lataille

Drew — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:48:39 +0000

I featured Alex a while ago here on Abduzeedo; since then, he has improved quite impressively. He’s got a couple of new artworks that are surreal and intriguing. I sat down with him for a quick chat about everything he’s been up to.

Alex, tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to get involved with graphic manipulations.

I am 21 years old and attending Bryant, a business school, in New England on the East Coast of the United States. I started becoming interested with digital art on a text-gaming site in the spring of 2005. Creating simple avatars was my focus; some members would make their own in Adobe Photoshop. I started borrowing some off the internet at first, and then started making my own… That lead to signatures for a year or so, and after that I started some manipulations in which I would knowingly use some copyrighted images, though was not familiar with the repercussions. I was motivated by competition of friends and other artists, striving to be one of the best, even though I was far from it. I began with manipulations because it was the only artwork I was capable of. I started applying to slashTHREE since its second pack, and would apply every few months but continued to get rejected. In June of 2008, I was accepted into IntrinsicNature. After creating a few works at IN, I continued to improve. I finally passed the application process for slashTHREE after eight applications; I created two works for their following pack, and have continued submitting.

Moving onto your artwork, what sort of time and creativity goes into the designing process and how do you go about creating your artwork?

I'm not sure how I get the ideas and concepts contained in my work. Sometimes I'm about to fall asleep and some idea pops into my head; it just depends if I have enough motivation to write it down. Like other artists, the ideas don’t end up as planned; I never sketch my ideas, I can picture them clearly. I strive to create original and surreal concepts in order to differentiate myself from other manipulators. I never create trendy manipulations, such as a woman in a pretty dress, in a pretty background, or scenes with castles, waterfalls, many abstract effects with a dancer; there are plenty of other common manipulations as well. I always try to use stocks of the highest quality, and freshness. Freshness: meaning they haven't been seen or used before. There are plenty of manipulations that are instantly dismissed by most viewers because they contain stocks which have been used countless times.

My advice is to learn how to handle critique, accept it, and make the necessary changes and know why you make those changes. Because next time you may encounter the same problem and you will know how to deal with it. If you could take one advice from this interview, it’s that exchanging critique and being able to accept negative comments will start to improve your works or improve them faster.

My “Recreating Love” piece is a good example of my concept/ideas, as well as the creation process. The entire process of this piece probably took about 60-70 hours of total work time, excluding the time looking for stocks.

You obviously enjoy what you do, are you looking for manipulation to be a hobby or a profession?

For now it's just a hobby, and it will probably stay that way, I do them for fun. I’m going into finance, but I have thought of creating some type of business which incorporates digital art. I am graduating in May this year, and I am looking to do financial analysis or project management for any advertising agency. During slow working weeks, I’m sure I could talk to the artists at some agency, show them my work, and have their artists amazed by what some finance guy can create.

I’m sure they’ll be quite impressed! How has college helped you to excel in the art industry?

Well college hasn’t helped me much, considering there is not one art class here except for one class. But college gives me more free time than over the summer when I’m working, and certainly freer time than what I had in high school.

Very interesting, I see that you work in a bunch of collectives, how's that going for you?

The art collectives have helped me to stay motivated, and become a much better artist. The critique I receive accelerates an “ordinary” artist’s improvement. I also have many contacts on MSN which allows for a better understanding of the critique provided, because you can always ask questions if you’re unsure about what the other artist is talking about. I highly recommend anyone who practices manipulation, matte, painting, drawing, 3D, illustration, photography, music, or video to join one of these groups or collectives. I think it’s more that many artists aren’t aware of these groups and the benefits they provide, such as exposure and improvement.

I produce work for IN and slashTHREE which I’ve mentioned earlier. These art collectives have standards for joining; if they let everyone who applies join the group, the art works produced would have a high variance in quality. Viewers wouldn’t get the same euphoria or inspiration after looking at an art pack; they would feel inspired by one art piece and the next could totally ruin that effect.

Within the groups, there are standards for the work produced for these packs and exhibitions. This is determined by a consensus vote of the artists’ work in a particular group. These standards continue to push my art further every time, because both of these group’s standards have been going up as well. For the most part, if you look at each pack it progressively gets better and better, and shows how a team of artists can learn and grow with one another.

A team is always important, great to have people who know where you’re coming from. Are there any artists in those collectives that motivate or inspire you?

I wouldn’t say any inspire me; I don’t really get inspired by art anymore, although I guess some movies give me inspiration.

Here’s a prompting question, what's in store for you in the future?

My future work dream is to get out of college and start making $50-60k a year. After 3-5 years get a boost up to $150-200, if possible, then, if I like the particular job a lot I will stick with it, but if not, then drop to a state or local job, and start a business as an entrepreneur. That way I’m still earning some money from the easier job, and by then I will have built up some assets, credit, and savings to the point where I’d know how to invest it and earn higher returns on what I’ve earned. But who knows if I will still hold the same interest in art ten years from now.

What advice do you have for any aspiring artists or readers?

Like I said earlier, make use of critique. Don’t annoy other artists, but get what you can. Don’t follow the trends if you want to stand out from the crowd, and yes sometimes that is difficult, but obviously don’t do it to the extent that you don’t enjoy producing art anymore.

Another word of advice which pertains to manipulations; don’t let other people tell you manipulations are stupid, easy, or just art that everyone does starting out. Manipulation is becoming ever so popular because of the growing commercialization of that type of work. I’ve been told many times to paint my entire work, and that it isn’t good enough unless it’s painted; or doesn’t have a unique style. Don’t allow opinions like that to get through to you and impact your motivation to keep producing work. If you can, use them to stay motivated and prove those people wrong. Everyone wants others to appreciate their work; don’t deny it, we all do. Manipulated works are unique when you execute ideas in a way that haven’t been done before, such as my “Adrenaline Rush” and “Sleep Deprivation” pieces.

This last piece of advice is mostly for artists who have recently started digital art; the most important attribute for an art piece is the creativity. You can always learn technical skills, but some artists just never have enough, or don’t develop enough of an imagination or creativity to produce some unique art on their own. Your imagination is a powerful tool, express it! There are many artists that create works just because they want to be popular, and love the satisfaction from the popularity, even if that means doing what everyone else does.

Any last words for our readers?

Try your best to never give up on a unique idea or concept, even if that means putting it off to a later date.

Thanks Alex!

About the author

I'm Andrew, a 19 year-old student currently residing in Minnesota, but attending school on the East Coast of the United States. I've been interested in graphic design, web development, and networking since I was young, and I'm now pursuing a double major in digital arts and business. Here at Abduzeedo, I'll be interviewing and featuring artists and their work, so if there are any questions you'd like to see answered, post a comment. Enjoy! Be sure to follow me on Twitter @awashuta.

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Surreal Inspiration by Eugene Soloviev

abduzeedo — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:23:29 +0000

Eugene Soloviev is an 21 year old Russian Photo Manipulator from Nizhniy Novgorod, he started off in the design world in 2006 processing photos in Photoshop and Corel Painter. I was very impressed with Eugene's work since the very first time I saw some of his pieces, very surrealistic. What was even more impressive was that we haven't featured him here on Abduzeedo, so let's fix this little misunderstanding.

At first I began with processing of photos with Photoshop and CorelPainter, then for a joke I cut out objects and placed them in non-standard landscapes. As I grew more serious, I started designing much more seriously. It is necessary to note that I the self-educated myself completely!

For more information about Eugene visit his Web site at http://apachennov.daportfolio.com/

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Stunning Airbrush Surrealism

paul0v2 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:36:25 +0000

Anton Semenov aka Gloom82 is a designer from Bratsk, Russia and a master of surrealism on his free time. The quality of his works is simply amazing, the attention to detail and the overall look of some of his pieces will freak you out. Enjoy!

For more from Anton Semenov visit gloom82.deviantart.com

Arlecchino

Auschwitz

Black Dream

Evil

Jump

King of the Hill

Lola

Mirror of Destiny

Morning

Mouth

Polar Bear

Society

Surrogate

Talisman

Thistle

Weiss's Secret

Winter

About the author

Hi there! I'm Paulo Canabarro, 26 year old web designer - paulocanabarro.com I'm from Brazil currently living and working out of Providence RI, USA. I'm truly passionate about design of all kinds, finding and sharing inspiration here has become part of my life. If you like to know more about me or get in touch visit my website paulocanabarro.com Stock me at Twitter and Dribbble

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Fantastic Digital Arts by David Fuhrer

abduzeedo — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 02:56:54 +0000

David Fuhrer is a self taught freelance artist born in 1985 in Bern, Switzerland. The 90's has a clear influence on this work especially because we grew up in that decade and started experiment with computer creating visual art.

With focus on Illustration his work is full of details with some sort of surrealism influence sometimes as we can se see in the Red Apple piece. David is also member of the DEPTHCORE.

For more information about David Fuhrer visit his Web site at http://www.microbot.ch/. It's definitely worth checking it out.

Red Apple, the forbidden fruit, 150x80cm

Most images are fully painted in Photoshop by hand. I use 3D software for a grid outline to paint over. Some images have some 3D renderings and reference stosk mixed in them too..

Blue Moon, 2008 - Made for Desktopography Wallpaper

MiddlePrint Size: 150x100cm | Big Print Size: 200x150cm - Get the Wallpaper here: http://www.microbot.ch

Misc

...I think the best way to learn is by yourself in this industry. There is a global network bigger then any school on Google! You can learn anything by yourself these days....

You can follow David on Twitter at http://twitter.com/microbot23

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Surreal Photo Manipulations by Eugene Soloviev

paul0v2 — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:15:42 +0000

Eugene Soloviev is a 20 year-old Russian Photo Manipulator from Nizhniy Novgorod. He started off in the “Design World” in spring of 2006. At first he began with processing of photos with Photoshop and CorelPainter, then for a joke he cut out objects and placed them in non-standard landscapes. As he grew more serious, he started designing much more seriously. It is necessary to note that he is completely self-educated!

For more from Eugene Soloviev visit apachennov.daportfolio.com

About the author

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Surreal Photo Manipulation by Voogee

abduzeedo — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:36:30 +0000

Wojciech Grzanka is a photographer and web designer from a small town called Jelcz-Laskowice in Poland. He works alongside with two other friends in a web design studio called Helldesign. However his real passion is photography. As he says, it's through photos that he can unleash his artistic imagination, and that's exactly what we want to share with you in this post.

Among really cool and professional photos, Wojciech has a set of works, or to be more accurate, surreal work, called "It's all in my Head" with some incredible photomanipualtions.

For more information visit Voogee's web site at http://www.grzanka.pl/ or his blog and DeviantArt page.

In photography I am interested in almost everything: people, animals, macro, architecture, nature, still life ... and I feel the best photo-montages, comes when I'm trying to combine all these categories into one, using different techniques to create something unreal, surreal, unprecedented

I'm a typical self-taught - making a lot of mistakes.. there's still a lot to learn... This is precisely what attracted me to photography - endless variety of ways to consolidate moments ...

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Surreal Digital Paintings by Alex Andreyev

abduzeedo — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:03:05 +0000

Alex Andreyev is a very experienced graphic designer and artist with more than 20 years of experience. What is incredible in Alex work is the clear surrealism influence with fantastic compositions ranging from trains with scorpion tales, endless stairs to heaven, flying cities and many more fabulous ideas.

Hello, my name is Alex Andreyev. I'm an artist living in Saint - Petersburg. I've been drawing, painting and doing graphic design over last 20 years. Now I'm creating the concept art to the Kin-Dza-Dza animation movie. You can buy all my picters in a high resolution for print - just mail me.

We highly recommend that you visit Alex' website to see the entire portfolio, it's definitely worth checking it out: http://alexandreev.com/

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Inspiration: Surreal Art

paul0v2 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:42:54 +0000

Well I love surreal art and I decided to look around for some really cool pieces and share with you guys, here is a very nice selection that will get you thinking how did they come up with that, that's the thing about surreal, you never know what to expect.