Tom Lewis is an illustrator and artist born in Birmingham in 1979, now living in east London. He studied art at college and took a fine art degree in Middlesex university.
“His work can be described as an attempt to order that which he cannot, to create meaning where there is none and provide narrative to an otherwise story-less situation. Alternatively, for the moment, he likes the phrase ‘beautiful nonsensical meaning’.”
Subjects, themes and issues
There are two main subjects for Tom’s work; Characters and landscapes.
His landscapes are more impressionist inspired, with not as many hard lines and colours fading together. He usually has a big body of colour at the top of his paintings for the sky and puts the detail near the bottom, using most of his colour there.
The next subject is his characters which he got from loads of random doodles and his like of weird people. This like was fueled by the people around him whilst he worked in an arts and craft shop.
“The background accompanying each character forms part of the epic story that lives inside Tom’s head.”
He has named his characters too Piper is an old man and there is Alfie, Charlie, Terry, Molly, Ruby,Adrian, Stanley and Jacob.
And there is Megan…
“Yes, she’s the main character in my new show, a little pink heroine — part adventurer and part schoolgirl — who’s on a quest in the Garden of Edo, a magical land of enigmatic beings and curious animals. At one stage, she encounters a panda bear with a difference: he’s a jazz trumpeter who starts teaching Megan how to play his instrument.”
Grandpanda Flash and the Trumpet of Truth
2010
Especially with the characters, Tom has integrated the Asian – usually Chinese or Japanese- theme, using Asian symbols, characters wearing Kimonos and sumo wrestlers. There are even a series of paintings that revolve around Asian legends.
Tom’s paintings usually revolve around 1 main character and a little monster-like character which sometimes even become a part of the character, and tom seems to like to draw wings. Tom has also painted a lot of characters with media. Things like radios, TVs or headphones playing music (and if it counts, signs).
Movements and styles
Tom Lewis’ older work revolves more around the characters in the picture with a more simple background. Although he still paints pictures like this, a lot of his newer work has more detailed backgrounds, including buildings, clouds, trees and mountains. In 2009 he filled some of the backgrounds with a continuous pattern like a copy-pasted wallpaper, but didn’t bring this technique forwards to 2010.
Context of work
Tom Lewis started off painting for his own amusement, and that he simply needed to get ideas out of his head. When his work became more well known through his gallery and being featured as a part of a task on BBC’s ‘The Apprentice’ he started a website to show and sell his work. He also sells prints of his work as well as the originals.
Material and Processes
Tom works with many different materials and processes, from canvases to digital files. He usually starts all of his work in pencil but uses marker pens, biros, acrylic paint, aerosol cans, airbrushes, varnish, cardboard, digital camera, computer and his fingers.
He usually does most of his paintings with the acrylic using the airbrush and aerosol for the blowing effect and added details. He usually uses the marker pen to outline his characters and other objects in the painting. He uses the computer for putting in text, creating a wallpaper like background.
Events and Trends
Tom Lewis’ work has apparently been inspired by some kind of event that I can not find out about.
“Whilst at University Tom had a very strange experience on a train, which sparked the series of events that lead us here. The story is too long to be told now although, briefly, it led to the creation of a mythological 18th century French philosopher, the forging of a sword and the images that you see today.”
How I can use this artist
I love Tom Lewis’ work and feel very inspired by it to paint as well as draw and animate my own little weird and cute characters. I could use the same kind of soft but bright colours that he uses and use a lot of gradients while making my characters bold and stand out in the picture/animation. I usually animate traditionally which would suit these characters well but I think that I could also animate them as cut out characters.
You have two days Adrian. Two days.
Jacob ruptures his ego.
2007
Megan and the mystical memory blossom.
2008
The Legend of Kokucho Meadow
2009
Megan and the storm crown
2009
We would appreciate your cooperation
2010
I dont know what it means, but I dont think its very nice.
2008
Raphael Lacoste
Raphael Lacoste is known for his digital matte paintings and his concept art with his gallery of over 50 paintings.
Raph Lacoste was born in Paris on the 14th of august in 1974. He spent most of his life in Bordeaux but now lives in Montreal, Canada with his wife and son.
In 1993 he attended a fine arts school where he studied art, media, photography and video while he was a photographer and composer for a theatre company. In 1997 this same company gave him the opportunity to work on ‘the little prince’ where his first 3D pictures were projected on a big screen.
A year later he attended CNBDI school where he obtained his master of art in animation, with his animations being screened from 2000 onwards.
He is now the art director for video games such as ‘Assassin’s Creed’ and ‘The Prince of Persia’ and films such as ‘Death race’ and ‘Repo man’.
Subjects, themes and issues
The main subject and theme of raph’s paintings is landscapes and architecture. His usual work is fantasy orientated, sometimes changing a usually normal scene into something else by adding contrasting buildings, a fortress or something steampunk related.
Because of his work, some of his paintings are based on the work he is doing at the moment, maybe a scene from a movie of a map from the game, maybe even including a character or two.
Movements and styles
All of Raphael’s paintings are amazingly detailed depending on how many hours he had spent on it, but the amazing depth and composition of the scene and the brilliant way he has imitated real light is the same in every picture he creates.
Context of work
Most of Raphael’s paintings are work related, drawn so he can show the team he is working with what he expects the final product to look like. He also takes commissions and does thing for himself as they come to his head or as an experiment to find other ways to paint.
Material and Processes
Because this type if painting is digital there are no materials, although he does use Photoshop and most likely a drawing tablet. He is known as a matte artist because of the realistic appearance of his paintings and because of how he sometimes paints over a photo and adds and removes things from it.
Events and Trends
As the graphics for games and films has greatly increased with better computer graphics and HD TVs, he has had to adapt to make his painting much more detailed to keep up with the advancements. He must’ve also adapted to make things look more realistic as people like the visual stimulation and not having to compensate with their own imagination.
How I can use this artist
For my animations I could use this artist for inspiration when drawing my scenes backgrounds to give my animation a more realistic feel and to give off a different mood.
Allee Workshop
Assassin's Creed Kingdom - October 2007
Coridoor to thr Reactor - Novebmer 2007
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Path to the Gothic Choir
Return of the Emperor - May 2009
Terry Goodkind Phantom - April 2010
