Thursday, March 4, 2010

an indulgent sigh

I got the How to Train Your Dragon art book a week or so ago. I just flipped through it again. Nico Marlet has the distinct talent of making my fingers momentarily wither so that I can't draw any more. I hear a little voice that I ignore and it is saying why bother. Such beautiful lines!

If you haven't seen the dragon book yet it is much better than the Kung Fu Panda book, and I adore that book. Pick it up if you haven't. Apparently the sites selling it have god awful page previews that make it look kind of lack luster.

4 comments:

Bobby Pontillas said...

Feel the same way Katy! I have been looking at this book everyday since I've gotten it.

A couple of things I'm taking in is that Nico pushes his shapes more so far. Those Massive Viking torso's with the teeny tiny legs come to mind. And when you break them down the big shapes are really simplified, but the designs themselves don't feel "simple".

The discipline, everytime I see his work he's gone through great lengths to describe and design every detail, big and small, from every view, varying textures, varying shapes. But it doesnt feel cluttered to me. And he explores his ideas so far and ends up producing a massive amount of work.

Which leads me to believe that , if he's really pushing himself to such heights, he must get frustated some times, or make mistakes. But somehow I don't see that struggle in his work, the designs feel effortless, and fluid, as if he's just bangin' them out. There's a real sense of fun to everything.

Having said all of that, I see some of those same qualities in your work! The work on this blog is case in point!

Katy Hargrove said...

I do see a lot of pushing in the form, but it all appears so loose. I love that all the underlines are left to see in his drawings. What I see is a lot of fiddling around, based on shapes that seem to come out naturally. He is putting so much work in to each image, but it looks like his feelings just lead him forward without much battle. While I can assume he does struggle, it doesn't show through at all. I haven't seen a stiff image out of him so far, not that I'm being exposed to more than a handful of his drawings. I'm curious about his work and I'm hungry to see more of it.

marbarsal said...

Hey guys,

Thanks Katy for the info. I'll make a trip to borders and see if they have the book. :)

Does this guy have an art-blog or website?

Thanks again for sharing....

Cheers,

Katy Hargrove said...

Not that I've found Martin, but if you find one let me know! :)