The First Color Index

271 Years Before Pantone, an Artist Mixed and Described Every Color Imaginable in an 800-Page Book.

It actually reminds me more of the Color Index and similar color selectors.

I'm always telling my students you can't have enough books full of color swatches. They often chafe during early projects when I limit them to a color or two but by the time I let them work in full color they have discovered what we all discover. Color is hard. It can visually support a message, or detract from it. Guide the eye or muddy the water. Pop or dissolve an entire piece into cacophony.

Cool Links Wednesday

Just a few links this week:

How Disney simulated the snow for Frozen

How Huge Door-stopper Fantasy Novels get made. This is super cool. I love print shops and bindery machines are like magic.

Noah Fecks Photography

Artist Paints the Human Body in Ways You Cannot Imagine (The headline is overwrought, but the work of painter Alexa Meade is super cool….)

Children's Art Re-imagined

Dave Devries

Dave Devries, author of The Monster Engine, starts with a children's drawing and then paints them as realistically as he can. I'm sure I have seen this done in 3D as well, but I can't find the link. In looking for it I discovered this is kind of a thing though. You can turn children's drawings into 3D-printed sculptures via the Crayon Creatures service, and a whole bunch of plush toys that have been made based on children's work.

Zoomquilt

Whoa….
Don't ask my how they did this, because I have no idea….well, that's not entirely true. It is using the html5 canvas, and javascript, and they are taking the idea of a quilt painting, i.e., one where multiple artist paint their own section of a painting to create an larger piece onto the Z axis, but how they actually planned and executed this…I would really like to see the storyboards.

The Empire invades fine art

From the Creative Contest site Worth1000, Star Wars mashed with fine art:

Worth1000

And Artist Jeff Bennett has invaded the world of Thomas Kincaid with the full force of Imperial might.

A great series on digital painting on Chris Oatley's web site. Oatley is a Disney character designer and concept artist who teaches digital painting and he has a lot of outstanding information to share. Especially check out the Animal Farm color comp demo. Too many illustrators, especially student illustrators, dive right into the finished illustration without really exploring all the possibilities and he talks a lot about the power of working things out in a comp, usually multiple comps, first. Plus, just watching him paint was a huge education in painting in photoshop.