The Making of iKlawa - 4

...continued from 'The Making of iKlawa Part 3'...

Workflow

We are at the end of this exotic tutorial. As you can see, in the final phase we pass from the rough sketch to a polished and finished illustration. The intermediate step shows an image where the brazier wasn't present. I stopped there, but just for a minute, then I went ahead completing the furniture. At the end the publisher chose the warmer solution on the right (my choice, too!). The only reason for the pause was the dreaded bar code that usually appears on the front of the magazine cover and it needed to put in somewhere...! I spent a few days thinking about the brazier under the bar code, but the final composition respected most of the good spots of the picture... :)

For the Extended Portfolio of the final section,

click on this hyperlink!

To reward the patience of everyone following the chapters of this voyage in Deep Africa here's the full illustration without titles, lettering or bar codes obstructing the visual from the celestial hut of Nokukhanya...

INDEX:

The Making of iKlawa - 1
The Making of iKlawa - 2
The Making of iKlawa - 3
The Making of iKlawa - 4
Extended Portfolio - 1
Extended Portfolio - 2
Extended Portfolio - 3

Maurizio enters the EON Challenge

The EON CHALLENGE is an illustration contest sponsored by CGSociety and inspired to the science fiction novel EON by Greg Bear (I've read it three times together with the follow-up ETERNITY!!!)

Here's the Express Link to the Maurizio's

EON Challenge Page
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May the inspiration be with you!

Captured by the Eon Contest!

EON, Worlds within Worlds. Another Art Challenge has been launched at The Computer Graphics Society website! And this Contest looks irresistible! First thing, it's a competition based upon the visualization of a science fiction novel by Greg Bear! I've read two times the novel upon which this Contest is based and I can assure you the plot and the environments described there are amazing!

An excerpt from the Guidelines:

Your challenge is to create material for the promotion of a (potential) blockbuster film based on EON, a novel by highly acclaimed writer Greg Bear. Expanded to three categories: Illustration, 3D Scene and Film Trailer, the challenge is to put great words into great pictures using 2D, 3D or video format.

Despite selling thousands of copies and being recognised a sci-fi classic, EON has not yet been visualized for the screen. In this challenge you get to role-play as the creative genius behind the visual interpretation of what could be a blockbuster film. Your mission is to interpret script-to-screen and dream up ways to best portray the story (or parts of it) through visual narrative. Your goal is to convey maximum impact and engagement to the viewer in a very short time.

As a SF Cover Artist and a Greg Bear's fan, I'm going to dive in the competition... just for the fun itself! I don't know personally the writer. By the way, I had a contact with him a few years ago when he wrote a blurb about my Art on the occasion of an international Exhibit of my Artworks:

"Manzieri carries on the grand old tradizion of SF art in the digital domain--a modern Ed Emshwiller, and just as versatile!" (Greg Bear)

Now tell me... shouldn't I be captured by this adventure...? ;-)

The Making of iKlawa - 3

...continued...

The Making of iKlawa - 1
The Making of iKlawa - 2

Before and After

Here we have Nokukhanya in all her splendour. Magnifying the picture you can see how the illustration changes gradually into something completely different and we pass from a watercolored pencil sketch to a detailed canvas. Usually I spent a great amount of time on the human figures and their garments...

Even for this phase of the work, there's a html page that you can enjoy here:

Extended iKlawa Portfolio

...to be continued

Spectrum 13 is out!

Maurizio's artworks have been included in Spectrum #6 and #11. One of the selected artworks, "Pictures from an Expedition" is available in the Shop as a high-quality 13"x17" Limited Print Edition in 100 exemplars, signed and numbered by the Author himself.

SPECTRUM 13, the Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, the magnificent volume edited by Cathy and Arnie Fenner, is out! Their scope is to promote the Fantastic Arts and provide an annual showcase for contemporary artists!

Together with the volume, it comes naturally the Call for Entries for Spectrum 14, advertised with a splendid Poster by Brom. On the Spectrum website is already downloadable the precious pdf leaflet with all the instructions for the umpteenth competition. This year the publishers have added a new Category: Concept Art (it concerns works realized between 2004-2006 for films, TV programs, theater and video games).

Deadline for the delivery has been postponed to 26 January, 2007, a good thing considering the Treasure Hunt that some overseas artists enjoyed in the past with the International UPS service during the Christmas Holidays.

At work! If I'm not grabbed by a temporal distortion, I should submit something worthy of the Jurors' attention!


"Pictures from an Expedition" is a cover realized for a story by Alex Irvine (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 2003)

The Making of iKlawa - 2

If you lost The Making of iKlawa - Part 1, jump here


I think it's nice to share the creative process.

You cannot imagine how many simultaneous mental processes there are behind the scenes. The act of creating an illustration is by itself something you cannot teach, it's that subtle subspace feeling where you go looking for ideas, it's that place when you were a child and everything was possible... Fantastic literature is a literature of ideas and my lucky strike was to become a lover of science fiction and fantasy, at the same time I was becoming an illustrator.

OK, as you can see, it was Concept Art #2 to win the Contest!

In this post you can admire Concept Art #4, too (click on it for a larger image). I didn't include #4 in the previous post, because the ballot concerned only the first three proposals. All of them may be reviewed in a better format and presentation visiting the following address, the same document I showed to the publisher originally for scrutiny and analysis.

iKlawa Concept Art Portfolio

I suppose to have enough material in my drawers for an interesting volume about my Art. Although I've been caressing the project with some publishers, it's unnecessary to wait so long! At the moment we can meet each other in this delicious space.

...to be continued

Plug on Locus Online!

My brand-new Blog has just been added to Locus Online, the incredible outpost for Locus magazine in the World Wide Web administered by Mark R. Kelly . Welcome to all the sailors coming here from that way.

If you wish to taste my sense of wonder and follow my path, in this space you’ll be discovering previews of the artistic mosaic of my life plus snapshots from unknown Universes. Mostly I'll let images speak for myself: sketches, concept art, new covers...

Welcome to all and enjoy my dreams!