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Do some artists get worse, or am I an old reactionary?

Started by Dudley, 25 March, 2004, 08:18:34 PM

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+rufus+

Alright Noisypants..... His last Dredd was 'Voices Off' in...1308, I think. Really good, check it out. I'll scan some of his sketches tonight!
: ) R

Dunk!

So Mr McMahon is leading his considerable talents to a games company - what games company?
What games can i expect to have that McMahon touch? and what role does such a well respected artist have?

The company I work for has had a host of applicants from minor 2000ad artists, but i can't imagine an artist of McMahon's caliber or any other old school artist applying.
"Trust we"

W. R. Logan

Mike is working full time as a concept/3d/texture artist at a game developer in brighton.

I asked Mike when we would see a game he had worked on recently:
?give us a chance, only started last september - my first environment, for a
racing game, will be published in november?

La Placa Rifa,
http://www.2000ad.nu/classof79/>W. R. Logan.

http://www.2000ad.nu/classof79/images/Co79_logo.gif>

+rufus+

Mick's done modelling work on Aa HotWheels game, and is now designing whole levels.
R

Noisybast

OK, yeah. Went back and re-read "Voices Off", and it's not as bad as "Future Crimes".

It's not half as good as (picking an example off the top of my head) any of the stories from Titan's old "The Streets Of Mega-City" collection though, is it?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing for the sake of it. I like McMahon's work overall. I voted for him over O'Neill in the Droid Worl Cup thread. I just don't think his later work is as polished or as detailed as the stuff he was doing twenty years ago.
Dan Dare will return for a new adventure soon, Earthlets!

Steven Sterlacchini

Personally I like Mike McMahon's new style, I especially liked The Last American (even though that was quite a few styles ago) but...

When I look at the stuff he drew for The Judge Child quest, I just think wow, it doesn't get much better than this.

So his new stuff just reminds me that there won't be anymore.

Noisybast

Dan Dare will return for a new adventure soon, Earthlets!

Steven Sterlacchini

Got to admit I didn't look when the last meassage was submitted, I picked up the thread from Google.

ThryllSeekyr

I noticed Mike McMahon's new picture of Slaine on the Tom Frame Memorial poster last year. It's the only picture I have seen of what must be
his matured approach to drawing the Celtic barbarian. While the work itself has a better, much neater appearance( On closer inspection, it does look really good, details. More comparable with Glen Fabry.) than his old stuff.

So while I notice that his work these days is a full circle improvement. I still do have a setimental attachment to his older way of drawing. Slaine in aparticular.

On Clint Lanely. I found that I stiull prderf his old work rather than his photoshopped style he took to Slaine: Books of Invasions with.
Incidently this is the work that attracted my attention to back to the comic/Magazine and the character Slaine who I had for amount of time neglected. I see Clint Lanely hitech artwork as
a lure. It's very flashy, but as with Mike McM
ahon's work, I appreciate his earlier method
more. I have noticed that some of his Slaine Invasion work can be alittle tastless at times. Though this may be more of a fault in the art direction.

Seeing too much of this is like drinking to much straight Burbourn. I like the stuff, but I also know and have learnt that too much is not good
for me.

As for Kevin walker. I like some of his work. I am actualley thinking of cover he did late last year. It had a picture of Tharg and some of the more regular characters underneath him. Great picture and great work. I don't think his art has changed much since then or I haven't really taken much notice of his earlier style. Unless somebody wants to enlighten me about changes in his method also.

TordelBack

Great thread, completely missed that it was a necro-post.  Artists who have either greatly improved, or morphed into an equally good 'second' style:

Adlard (terrific new B&W style)
Elson (much better sense of movement and space)
Langley (pushing the boundaries)
Critchlow (almost unrecognisable from Thrud but still brilliant)
M. Harrison (again, a huge leap forward from The Travellers to his later colour stuff)
Ezquerra (quality fluctuates, but watching the transition from idiosyncratic B&W to the demands of computer colouring has been fascinating).

The artist that has most amazed me is Simon Coleby - I hated his Friday work, and struggle to see a connection between it and his current stuff, which can be truly brilliant (the recent Dirty Frank tale with the babies, for example).

I'm torn on the questions of Walker and McMahon.  I love their earlier work, and their new work, but I'm not sure it's an improvement per se.  Walker used to do some horrid things in his painted work (the Anderson on Mars sequence is particualrly uneven), but drew some great robots and aliens too, but while his new work is achingly spare I think it suits Dredd really, reeally well.  McMahon is just a genius, and while I stand in awe of everything he's ever done, I do prefer the Judge Child chapters to anything before or since.


LARF

Quite interestingly I had this conversation with Carl Critchlow at Bristol as I can remember meeting him years ago when he first painted the Flesh story Legend of Shamara (sp?) and what he said was that at the time with Simon Bisley et al producing painted artwork it was requested if he could provide painted artwork as that ws the fashion at the time. His recent Lobster random stuff is really more true to his style than the painted stuff. What he found was that he'd then been pidgeon holed into being a painted artist, so when that 'trend' dried up he had to then re-invent himself and re-educate editors that he could provide much more and a very different and in my eyes a much more commercial style. fascinating really how much an editor can dictate an artists career?

SIP

I don't think any of the artists mentioned in this thread or the previous thread along the same lines have deteriorated in quality.

People need to make a living first and foremost and so I can quite understand simplifying your methods (those painted pages must have left some of the artists on the bread line - they are labour intensive).

As for Kev Walker - his new stuff is brilliant (a favourite of mine) - and I prefer it to his painted work.
Same goes for Carl Critchlow.

As for McMahon - his old stuff is fantastic - but then I think his new stuff is fantastic as well.
I'm quite happy to see artists try out new stuff rather than endlessly regurgitating a style they used 30 years ago. I imagine it could get a little boring for the artist.

If I want to look at his old work (which I do frequently) - I just get it off my shelf!

Jim_Campbell

"Kev Walker used to be much better than he is now IMO. I know noone agrees with me but I really feel he was."

What, apart from the whole "not actually being able to draw very well" part of his old style, presumably?

Cheers!

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Steven Sterlacchini

This stuff from Mike McMahon's online folio is brilliant!

...I still wanted more of the 'Judge Child Quest' style though. Perhaps that's the idea, 'always leave them wanting more'.

Link: http://mickmcmahon.onlinefolio.biz/index.asp" target="_blank">Mike McMahon's online folio

http://mickmcmahon.onlinefolio.biz/IMG-90700309/dredd_2007_title.gif">

ThryllSeekyr

Looking at Mike McMahon's work on that website. I notice that Judge Dredd. The colourised art has taken a turn for the better.

Though the other stuff, the in game art ( I'm not sure what that is all about?)
 doesn't look quite as good. Some of looks like it;'s meant for Warhammer 40,000. Which I know is better than this stuff. Looking at it makes me pine for his much older work.