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hey guys it’s Adam from noose pixel and today I have a very special and very sentimental treat because this book is was illustrated and written by two of the most influential artists in my entire life one of these artists in particular created a piece created a book at one point that really in my opinion knocked over that first domino that paved my future as an artist this artist if you can read titles you know where I’m alluding to this artist had created a book that had a certain type of approach towards illustration towards storytelling that defined me artistically it kind of set a certain a certain precedent for me moving forward the two artists in this book called fairies okay are Brian Froud and Alan Lee now Brian Froud if you’re not familiar with him just think of the movie labyrinth think of the movie Dark Crystal if you’re familiar with those films you’re very familiar with the creature designs the goblins and the trolls and fairies and all of these missing mythological creatures you’re familiar with the particular design aesthetic and the particular type of theme that the design of these creatures on we in collaboration of course with the master puppet creator Jim Henson really set a genre and really created a style that has been unparalleled since the it you can’t imitate that particular level of brilliance for certain specific reasons that I want to talk about today alan lee on the other hand you might recognize if it’s not familiar you will be familiar with him when you realize that he was one of the key concept artists for this movie which we’ll be getting to this series in the near future so stay tuned for that but he’s one of the original Tolkien artists him and John Howe Island Lee and John Howe were two of the principal concept artists the lead concept artists for the film’s with Peter Jackson Laura the Rings and The Hobbit they worked on both of them and and we’re totally original and probably one of the most well respected Tolkien artists that actually Illustrated Tolkien’s books you bring these two masters together to create this book and a lot of things can be learned but there’s one takeaway from this from these books in particular that I feel that once you start to dig into their minds and start to understand how they created and what they created and the means at which they achieved their goals artistically will unlock that artists blocking you I adhere to these books I adhere to these lessons as an artist whenever I feel like I’m at a loss for what to do next so let’s crack it open and you’re gonna immediately start to recognize the unique style differences between the two different artists if you want to if you’re trying to identify with with Brian Franz work think about labyrinth think about Dark Crystal if you want to think about Ellen Lee’s work think about Lord of the Rings and you’re gonna start to see that that style and feeling behind their work now I mentioned before that there was that Brian Froud had influenced me profoundly as a young as a young artist or to be artists one day I was probably around my son’s age around six or seven he created a book that had a lifelong impact on me and continues to impact me today at 44 years old as it did when I was six years old it was his book called Brian frauds book of pressed fairies if you haven’t seen that book it’s one of the most brilliant book illustrated books of all time essentially the book was an illustrated book made to look like Brian Froud had caught pretty little fairies and squished him in a book like you would with flowers which if you think about it it’s kind of a dark theme isn’t it that’s not exactly an innocent thing it’s not exactly a child-friendly thing you would do to a pretty fairy but as a child reflecting back on my youth looking at this book I was not I wasn’t horrified by it I wasn’t disgusted by it I was fascinated and entertained by it because I understood that it was an illustration I had the I had enough maturity at five six years old to know that it’s a drawing I’m looking at and it’s a cute idea besides all of the fairies inside had silly little expressions on their face like making fun of you it’s almost as if he caught them in the act of being mischievous which is really cute right and his art and this theme stuck with me was a seed that was planted in my head moving forward now when you look it over here you can see Brian frogs work it immediately starts to become familiar to you if you’ve seen the movie labyrinth like for instance when you look up close if we look at maybe we can zoom in a little bit so you can see some of the details here as you start to move through this page you can see there’s all these little hidden creatures in the shadows big and small with probably his wife right he did dote on her quite a bit there you go who’s also a very talented artist and what you start to see what you start to learn and what you start to feel looking at this work is although this was at least on the surface directed towards children as was Lord of the Rings by the way with Mordor the orcs and the dwarves all that these are children’s books but there were children’s books written in a little bit more trusting a time when there weren’t an abundance of people out there crossing the lines of morality with kids with regards to marketing or YouTube videos or whatever the case might be that that ends up very often making parents myself included very concerned for your children’s safety what they’re watching the content they’re exposed to back during the time of Brian Froud and Alan Lee and Tolkien for that matter they were allowed to be a little dark they were allowed to be a little bit naughty and and mischievous there’s there’s nudity in this but it’s not gratuitous nudity it’s artistic nudity she’s a fairy creature she doesn’t wear clothes and it’s perfectly acceptable to see her like that and I have absolutely zero qualms showing my kids this stuff little nude creatures is perfectly safe but this is acceptable and it’s also very fascinating and it’s also very beautiful and very creative all these little mushroom creatures little baby most likely whenever you see something that looks very realistic it’s most likely from but he knows right then you get into alan lee’s work look at how delicate his line starts to get just a little bit of a side note if you’ve ever watched the making of Lord of the Rings – behind the scenes extended DVDs which by the way are the greatest art fuel you will ever get ever and I’m not just talking about the illustration side of it I’m talking about the armor design the costume design be casting this set location designed the the the lighting the big atures I watched that series every night it was my lullaby to bed I would click on oh just play all on my DVD player and I would fall asleep every night watching that same thing with the Hobbit alan lee had a very unique way of drawing john how the other Tolkien artists – I absolutely adore as well head who is discussing he was explaining the differences in the way that that he and Alan Lee would draw John Howe was arguably a little bit faster than Alan Lee but had a very different technique he was more of a structural artist he always had to kind of block in the sketch he was much more methodical and he’d kind of plan out his page in a very methodical way his desk was a reflection of that being very tidy and organized Alan Lee on the other hand was more of a straight ahead more starting at one point and moving your way across the page just kind of discovering what he would draw as he moved his way across the page from one one side to the other and I could compare this directly if you’re familiar with animation – key animation or pose-to-pose animation versus straight-ahead animation post oppose key animation is what you typically see nowadays was for Disney films or things like that where they draw the key they structure things first and then they fill in the gaps with breakdowns and in-betweens to make fluid animation where isn’t straight ahead animation like Don Bluth is a very good example arguably though he did a lot of rotoscope in his stuff but a straight-ahead animator would be somebody who starts on frame 1 and then draws for him two three four five six seven eight nine ten sequence and what it does is it might not have that same timed solidity but it had a lot more spontaneity there are more surprises so if you’ve ever studied animation Richard Williams the guy who wrote the animators survival kit because they’re like the Bible for animators advocates for both drawing straight ahead and post opposed and he teaches a technique on how you can do both now you translate that into art as a teacher one of the things that irritates me is this kind of like you know paint-by-numbers type of approach to teaching and to being an artist and what Alan Lee and John Howe had the Liberty to discover on their own was that they had two different ways of approaching creativity there was a way of actually holding the pencil and creating there was a way of thinking there was a way of starting and executing and finishing a piece that was unique between the two and that’s what allowed them to be able to create the greatest art and to you I extend that permission to you as an artist to to allow yourself to experiment with different types of drawing for instance if you’ve seen my last video my last art talk where I was doing kind of that skeletal creature with with the colorful veil and stuff like that you’ll notice that that’s very straight ahead a lot of people commented on the line how I just kind of put my pin down and I didn’t even take my pen off the off the page I just continue to draw with one continuous line that’s a very Alan lean way of drawing and I find that drawing that way allows me to unlock my spontaneity as we start to delve through this you start to realize that this isn’t only a book of illustration this is a compendium of creatures their understanding of the lore of the backstory of these different creatures and they describe them and they give backstories to all of them as we move forward here’s just an introduced introduction of their particular style then they start to discuss fairy rings let’s flip through and continue to look at some examples and then you get to a page like this where he has Spriggans you start to realize that we’re dealing with full-grown adults mature adults trained skilled artists that have dedicated their lives to delving into this deep mythological lore of these different specific creatures the miser on the ferry Gump ferries on the eastern green these are elaborate these are people did these are artists that are dedicating their lives to studying mythological creatures they’re not just drawing fairies they’re trying where fairies live and the uniqueness is between their different types of personality and the different species the different races of fairies and different creatures I’m just going to flip through very quickly you can immediately tell if you’re looking at an alan lee or Brian Froud illustration some different humanoid or elven legends it’s gonna let you enjoy this for a minute there’s only noticed that for every single page he’s Illustrated there’s a little at least a little paragraph to describe what it is that he’s drawn the same thing applies to John how he’s not somebody who just draws armor he’s somebody who studies it who LARP a lot and who owns many coats of armor he’s a particularly skinny guy so you can fit into armor quite easily it’s beautiful frescoes murals type illustrations beautiful penmanship look at that beautiful handwriting hurling now we’re getting to different races different creatures very ways now he’s starting now he’s starting to describe or they’re starting to describe fairies in particular we start to delve deeper into the lore of fairies protection against fairies denizens of fairy I’m just gonna let the artwork speak for itself leprechauns no leprechauns we know leprechauns as Lucky Charms is just some little creature at the end of the rainbow no – two – Ellen Lee and John how leprechauns play a very specific role they have a place in mythology and have a very specific role to play nin in comparison to all these different creatures why am i emphasizing this why am I putting so much attention on this some of these goblins definitely labyrinth you could even remember that shot where at the beginning of the movie where when sara is contemplating having the Goblin King take take Toby away from her and she goes she goes goblin king goblin king she’s saying this chanting to see ha she’s gonna say to watch and they’re all hiding in the mirror or something like that they’re hiding in the darkness that’s this Jim Henson decided to make one of one of Brian frogs type of like little murals of faces and creatures the witch line I guess cobol’s a lot of these mythological creatures that we Cobalts you probably recognize them from World of Warcraft it all start these are the guys that started all this stuff Cobley now dwarves again not just any type of dwarf there’s many different species of dwarfs there’s different clans and dwarves all of this stuff translated into Tolkien’s work now why am i emphasizing this why do I keep describing this it’s because one of the main reasons why we get artists block is because we’re thinking and creating too superficially you’re trying to you want to draw an elf so you draw you think elven ears and an elven nose and blonde long hair and a bow and some green Peter Pan looking outfit and then you sit down to draw that and very often you blame your lack of skill as being the reason why your your drawing is not successful and more often than not it’s not your lack of skill it’s your lack of inspiration and your lack of depth you didn’t actually think of who this elf is and where they’re from think about Tolkien’s work there’s a very big difference between the Rivendell elves and the Lost Lorien elves the high house versus the regular elves versus the dark house and then when you get into the Hobbit you’re introduced to yet another race of elf every different species has this very important backstory when I start to do a drawing there’s one of two things that I do to spark an idea number one I don’t grab my paintbrush I grab my pen and I write out a short story I try to delve into what it is that I’m drawing and who they are and where they’re from and what they’re about because that informs the costume the haircut the facial structure the anatomy the skin color the posture the personality and I just opposed that next to different creatures the second thing I’ll do is a look towards already pre-existing lore mouska kuchisake-onna hanako-san la Llorona okay all of these different characters are based off of mythological lore from Japan from Mexico from us from Germany etc these are very well-known myths so what does that mean for me as an artist that means that I’m illustrating something that has already been explored narrative Lee for quite some time there’s a lot of back history to it and that’s what informs my painting and understand you are completely allowed to steal that idea and illustrate it you’re not claiming to have created la Llorona what you’re doing is you’re giving you’re creating your own artistic rendition your own interpretation of that particular story and you can give that same story to 150 different artists the same story the same lore and you give it to 150 different people and they will all draw something completely unique none of them will be a forgery of the one next to them because everybody thinks and creeds differently that’s why we’re so awesome that’s why we’re artists as we have that ability to create so the takeaway that I want you to get from this book and the lesson I want you to get from this is number one it’s not just about drawing versus not drawing there are a million different ways to draw how you hold a pencil how you start and finish a line how you capture form how you capture texture are you somebody who likes to draw more with line or are you somebody who likes to draw more with form are you somebody who likes to start on a white page and paint contours and shadows or somebody who prefers to start on a dark screen and paint with light and furthermore thinking superficially what will generally create superficial art the more you research the more you dil delve deep into the backstory well either pre-created or something you create yourself will unlock you because it’ll stimulate it’ll literally turn your visual mind off and the cool thing about writing is that you can create an entire painting in five minutes because it takes only a moment to write out an idea but when you jump straight into an illustration you’re not giving yourself a chance to visualize Bobby Chu one of my personal favorite artists has always for years ever since I’ve known him always advocated for visualizing close your eyes think imagine place your character in a place have them act have them react to other people have them behave in a certain way dress them give them a home try to think of where they are Gandalf loves the hobbits and loves hanging out with the hobbits and loves simple things and he’s more of a nomad who travels around radagast lives among the animals who’s fashion to tree and just by slapping wood to a tree like a nest of a bird understanding their backstory and understanding their purpose fuels your design and I guarantee you if you take that approach and give some more time and thought into the story of what you’re creating you will unlock your greatest artwork and you will give everything that you create purpose and once you’ve unlocked that the theme the story that you want to work with such as mythological creatures and lore from around the world urban legends or the own your own story that you’ve created like Tyler edlund’s Thunder fall like Noah Bradley’s sinneth men like Marco boo cheese creature his greed the boy in the green ball that he loves to illustrate all the time he’d gotten to know these creations intimately I’m gonna close on this Chuck Jones was asked the question being the director of Looney Tunes he was asked the question where the hell do you come up with all of those great ideas for your shows and he said I don’t write anything I don’t I don’t I don’t tell my characters what to do ever I know Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Porky Pig I know them so well that all I have to do is just present them an obstacle here’s the obstacle and they do all the acting for him he developed and knew those characters so intimately that the art made itself at a certain point because they became real to him as do all of these beautiful creatures to Alan Lee and Brian Froud the fact that I delve into darker grittier subjects is not because I’m into creepypasta not at all it’s because there’s a certain beauty and elegance and richness of thought and expression that comes with not being safe all the time but I understand the fact that being a little bit naughty and being a little bit mischievous is fun and I think that’s a lesson that everybody needs to learn from these artists and hopefully this continues to be explored and appreciated and created moving forward artistically like films like Matilda for instance which is one of the greatest children’s films I’ve ever seen in my life so thank you again for watching I hope you enjoyed this I hope it was informative and inspiring as it is for me and happy painting take care you …