Capturing the moment is the key to this American artist’s striking fantasy work, as Nick Carson discovers…
When asked what makes his style unique, Aaron B Miller takes his time formulating an answer. It’s not an easy one to pin down, but he believes it’s one of the most important things for an illustrator to consider.
“I’ve heard it’s my use of lighting. I think it’s the moments I choose to focus on,” he muses. “I aim for a realistic, but painterly style. I want my images to look painted, not like photos. It’s not about the details, but the marks and shapes that make us see more detail than is actually there.”
Figures, creatures and landscapes are Aaron’s subjects of choice, and he eschews complex, chaotic action scenes in favour of taking his time painting one fascinating character – under his trademark dramatic lighting scheme, naturally.
Although he concedes that digital art is faster and cheaper – and can achieve a similarly painterly feel – Aaron works in oils whenever he has the time, and brings his creatures to life with wonderfully tactile textures. “I tend to choose fur over scales,” he reveals. “And feathers, of course.”
His high school provided technical, illustration-focused art classes, and he went on to study at Chicago’s American Academy of Art. But he firmly believes in ongoing personal development, and still attends lifedrawing and sculpture classes to perfect his grasp of anatomy, as well as running his own Figurative Illustration workshops to help emerging illustrators hone their own technique by drawing costumed models.
TAPPING INTO ART HISTORY
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 2017-Ausgabe von ImagineFX.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 2017-Ausgabe von ImagineFX.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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Jan Wessbecher
Dominic Carter talks to the visual artist about creating his own comic and why sketchbooks are great for creative experiments
Kyounghwan Kim
The Korean character concept artist speaks to Dominic Carter about staying open to ideas and the value of drawing regularly
Slawek Fedorczuk
Dominic Carter talks to the concept artist about what keeps him motivated and the advantages of using physical sketchbooks.
Raquel M. Varela
Raquel is inspired by magic, fantasy and fairy tales. She loves designing female characters from distant worlds. \"My greatest reference is Loish's art, thanks to her I learned to draw the movement and fluidity I like to convey.\"
Estrela Lourenço
Estrela is a children's book author and illustrator. Her work is influenced by her background in character animation and storyboards for clients such as Cartoon Network, and she channels comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes.
Daria Widermanska
Daria, also known as Anako, has been drawing for as long as she can remember. Inspired by Disney and classic anime, she loves creating new characters and often finds that a single sketch can spark a unique story.
Allen Douglas
Allen has been painting professionally since 1994 for the publishing and gaming industries. Inspired by folklore, he distorts the size, relationships and environments of animals, and calls his paintings 'unusual wildlife'.
Thaddeus Robeck
Thaddeus has been drawing from the moment he could hold a pencil, but it was the 2020 lockdowns that gave him the time to focus on honing his skills.
DRAW FASCINATING SYMBOLIC ARTWORK
Learn how JULIÁN DE LA MOTA creates a composition from his imagination with a focus on crafting figures, volumetric modelling, and light and shadow
First Impressions
The artist talks about his journey into the mythological world