ott; what makes boris vallejo…
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ott; what makes boris vallejo art so popular?
Mistara
Posts: 38,675
i like the sensuous works, but i'm prolly in a minority :)
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I guess people just like paintings of nearly naked men and women with huge ... biceps.
I used to mentally group Boris Vallejo, his wife Julie Bell, and Frank Frazetta all together, because of the similar themes of their work and, to some degree, similar styles. Then one day I actually looked closely at Frazetta's work and decided that he's a vastly better artist. Like many people, all I'd seen was the muscular fantasy heroes, and had entirely overlooked the strength of technique, particularly the lighting and composition.
Vallejo and Bell are certainly skilled, but I think it's Frazetta who has the best chance of eventually being recognized as an important American artist in his own right.
i've heard of Frazetta, of course, can't call to mind his work though, but that's what the internet is for, lol, :) ...
Frazetta looks more violence, imo.
Strong colors, strong lightning, strong women...
To be honest, I started 3D rendering because I alsways liked these images and wanted to create something similar to this. But I have absolutely no painting skills. But with 3D rendering you have the chance to create something similar. And turning a render into somewhat that looks like a painting is not as hard as painting from scratch. It just takes some practise :-)
I don't really consider most Boris art to be sexy. Overdeveloped bodybuilder types do not look hot to me, they look steroidal, but I think the appeal-for me, is that he seems to have a good grasp of anatomy, and I like the colors he uses when illustrating the skin of his characters.
It is the same attraction I have for classical greek statues. They are nice to look at, but not sexy.
needs more tentacles :lol:
But at least more sexy than all those living pencils they call supermodels :-)
It's the same appeal as most cheesecake/beefcake art, but the fantasy veneer makes it a bit more acceptable to talk about in normal conversation than the art of someone like, say, Varga or Petty. I was a huge Boris fan from way way back and still have most of his early books, including a signed edition of the very first one that I had him sign at a convention the week it came out, but while I still appreciate his style and technique, it seems to me that he's been stuck in a creative rut since about the time he hooked up with Bell. It's not that his newer stuff isn't good, he just hasn't dazzled me with something since the days of Mahars and the Barbarella poster.
On the flip side, I have to agree with angusm about Frazetta. As I've seen the wide variety of mediums, genres and styles he worked in over the years, and consider the huge number of iconic images he was responsible for, it's become easier to see how distinct and unique his artistic vision was, and how much influence he's had on other artists (including Boris.) Like Jack Kirby and Maxfield Parrish, I'd say he's definitely one of the handful who'll still be remembered and used as a reference in a hundred years.
I have to agree there.
Frazetta is really the master that the others just fall behind on.
For me it is all in the posing. Frazetta had an eye for posing that was very natural, strong and not stiff. While I do like Vallejo'/Bell's work, I find their posing way too stiff.
I was following Boris Vallejo's since his early days of being published. He does allot more than just overly muscled characters in his paintings. Julie Bell really got allot of recognition doing the Super hero trading cards and other stuff. Frazetta was a huge inspiration to Boris and I think they even met. I have many calendars from past years that Boris released as well as his black & white hard cover book showing his pencil works and sketches. He's brilliant actually. Frazetta's style was more loose and almost had a water color effect even though most of it was oil. Boris has a tighter, highly detailed technique with allot of color that pops out. Julie has more of an illustrative look to her art work since her early stuff was... as mentioned above. I used to collect those cards and had everyone of them. Then she released an art book which collected allot of those cards but got to see them in a larger format so I could see her technique better. She's quite brilliant in her own right.
Frazetta: http://frankfrazetta.net/
Boris and Julie: https://www.imaginistix.com/ (they are married by the way)
I actually disagree, Boris and Julie Bell are able to put much more detail into their works than Frazetta, who was more painterly. I personally think Paul Abrams, Joe Jusko, and David Gaillet are this generation's best fantasy artists, but in my opinion, Boris is the standard by which all fantasy art is judged.
SnowS
Well...for me and most of the guys I grew up with...it was WHEN we first stumbled onto it.
We were young, hormonally driven just into our teens boys...I think you all can figure it out from there.
That's my answer for everything.
Frank Frazetta is kind of the Simpsons of Fantasy Art, no matter what a fantasy artist puts out you can say "Frazatta did it first". Frazetta goes at the top of my list, but there are many others that i like Vallejo/Bell, Brian Froud, Clyde Caldwell, and others
I often enjoyed the poses and the muscle definition in both artist's work, I think that is what entices me about both what Vellejo and Bell have to offer. Frazetta is just plain creative as well as talented. I believe the biggest difference is that Frazetta had more of an down to earth feel with his work and Vallejo and Bell were majestic and out of this world.
My personal favorite is still Brom, I don't know what it is about his work but he is just amazing. And his version of Drizzt is still the best I've ever seen.
I'm old enough that the first Frazetta work that I saw were the Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks, then later Creepy and Eerie Magazine covers.
It was only later that I discovered that they were all the same artist.
I have to say that when it comes to the great fantasy and science fiction artists, I love them all.
It's an exhibition, not a competition, so no wagering. :)
Brom.... no words except BRILLIANT!
Brom IS f-ing brilliant. I remember how blown away I was when I first saw his art. Frazetta though, remains the master (for the sword and sorcery stuff).
Boris and Julie Bell's art is amazing for their technical (almost surgical) precision and beautiful subject matter, but their work lacks the immediacy and raw energy of Frazetta's works. Boris' art looks like gorgeous paintings of people sitting in a studio, Frazetta's stuff looks more dynamic.
Here's a painting I did a few years ago (obvious influences) using one of the warrior maiden characters (V4). I use 3D as if it were my own modeling studio and paint (in either Painter and Photoshop) from the reference render. Much as anyone tries, there is only one Frazetta.
Dorian Cleavenger's another one.
I remember when I discovered the art of Boris and co in the early/mid-nineties. It just kind of clicked for me... Felt like how fantasy art from sword-and-sorcery worlds should be like.
Above all else, inspiring. Tremendously, powerfully, visually inspiring. For some, it's as superficial as sexuality, but for me, the works of these people ignite the imagination. Same goes for the likes of HR Giger and Chris Foss: These people are artistic visionaries. In more recent years, we've also had people like Denis Beauvais, who can do near-photographic levels of fantasy-themed art.
That's why I love Daz Studio. I'm still a relative beginner, but I know that with the tools I now have at my disposal, being able to emulate these styles is finally within my grasp.
Of course, discovering that Boris was also responsible for some of those iconic eighties era movie posters, was quite the revelation. :)
Brom IS f-ing brilliant. I remember how blown away I was when I first saw his art. Frazetta though, remains the master (for the sword and sorcery stuff).
Boris and Julie Bell's art is amazing for their technical (almost surgical) precision and beautiful subject matter, but their work lacks the immediacy and raw energy of Frazetta's works. Boris' art looks like gorgeous paintings of people sitting in a studio, Frazetta's stuff looks more dynamic.
Here's a painting I did a few years ago (obvious influences) using one of the warrior maiden characters (V4). I use 3D as if it were my own modeling studio and paint (in either Painter and Photoshop) from the reference render. Much as anyone tries, there is only one Frazetta.
That is a gorgeous painting. When I first got into 3D I got into it for that very reason. To have models as a reference point to do my paintings. Then with my health issues mounting with HIV I had to stop using natural media altogether and then just surrendered to the entire 3D experience. Now I'm back to sketching each night before bed using non toxic sketching pens. I've done some nice stuff in Photoshop but it's not the same, admittedly!
I prefer Frank Frazetta's arts over Vallejo. Frazetta's lighting in my opinion is close to the way Rembrandt and Rubens did it. And you can not write off his style of showing huge... biceps.
To me Vallejo seems to be more of craftsman type comparing to Frazetta.
I checked all the artists out, I can sum it up with three words, Boobs, Biceps and Swords. The content is the same in all of them, only the style is different. Also you guys forgot to include Luis Royo. My preference is Luis Royo, his art isn't just a single image all the time, he does a series. I would be really interested in a Graphic Novel by him, though will probably have a lot of sex in it...lol...with demons...lol
I collected Boris for a while, and even got some of my ideas from his art and he's the king of that genre. But for me that genre is almost too copied, and passe'.
I'd always liked Frazetta too because of the heros. Later learned that he did covers for Buck Rogers sci-fi magazines and for a while did the art for "Lil Abner" newspaper comic strips.
Of course there probably aren't 10 of us here who remember "Lil Abner" but he was popular when we all lived in caves and hunted dinosaurs. Abner was a hot muscular man and the star of the strip, but in my teens I drooled over his little brother "Tiny" (* oh be still my beating heart *) who was perpetually only fifteen and a half "yars" old and a 7 foot tall gorgeous hunk'a muscled, blond crew cut hillbilly teen.
Frazetta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Frazetta
Tiny Yokum:
Tim Hildebrandt, Michael Wheelan, H.R. Gieger
I'll always love the masters of the Renasance, Der Blaue Reiter, the Impressionists, the Surrealists but it was the fantasy artists that won me over.
Love Frazetta (besides the early Burroughs paperbacks, the Lancer Conan covers and the first Vampirella cover stand out in my memory); my early impressions of early Boris was of someone taking Frazetta's very artistic, occasionally almost impressionistic paintings and adding in all the detail stuff to make them more photographic. One of the early Boris books had a procession of how he did his paintings; he had the initial sketches, then he photographed himself, his then-wife Doris and a model or two, then used them as the basis. I always wondered why he didn't just use his initial sketches, because they were excellent, but I imagine he needed the photographs to help him make them more realistic.
Whelan, also top of the list; to add to some of the other artists listed above, Frank Kelly Freas along for the purely fun stuff, and people like Chris Achilleos and Chris Foss to round out the party (not to mention Roger Dean for a little extra style).
-- Walt Sterdan
Love all those guys (Magritte is one of my favorite Surrealists). I visited the Hildebrandt's art gallery and studio some years ago (before Tim passed away) and got to see the inside of their studio where they actually worked (full of years of props and easels). For me it was like visiting a beautiful medieval cathedral.
I didn't know Tim passed. As a kid I wanted to be paint like him in the worst way, and I did in the worst way.
Ralph McQuarrie was another one that smacked it out of the park for me, Virgil Finlay did too. These guys were my 'sports' heros.
If you ever want to get knocked on your ass looking at a cathedral and your anywhere near Barcelona Spain go see this; you will think it was carved by master elves because there is no way anyone could make this.
http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/
like some of this guy? :) http://www.daz3d.com/nybras
Virgil Finlay, now we're talking.
Give the Alan Parsons album "Gaudi" a listen, especially the song "La Sagrada Familia".
Virgil Finlay, now we're talking.
Give the Alan Parsons album "Gaudi" a listen, especially the song "La Sagrada Familia".
will give the APP song a listen (are they still suing Lady Antebellum for blatantly ripping them off btw?)
I found out about the same time I discovered Finlay he had lived about 5 miles from where I was growing up. He was long gone but I would have loved to make the pilgrimage, I probably drove past it a hundred times and never knew.
SIGH... lost my sub again..... great thread/