Engraving General

[Anonymous No.2908141]

It's time to talk about woodblock printing, engraving and crosshatching. Does anyone have much experience with this? Beginners tips & advanced disciplines? Post your favourite pieces.

[Anonymous No.2908144]

Man this style requires such technical skill, it's so impressive

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[Anonymous No.2908163]

This is such a cool medium, I wonder how hard it is to gain mastery of it. The fine detail blows my mind

[Anonymous No.2908167]

>>2908141
The art in Berserk has always impressed me. Given that it's a comic, which is a medium that greatly restricts the amount of time that can be spent on each individual drawing, the amount of hatching and attention to detail is quite impressive.
It's got some of that old school vibe that was common among illustrators in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

[Anonymous No.2908178]

>>2908167
Oh that's gorgeous! That's really impressive, having such tight control over the rendering hatching when you're on such a tight schedule and low budget

[Anonymous No.2908185]

>>2908178
It does result in Berserk being released at a snail's pace, though.

[Anonymous No.2908187]

>>2908185

[Anonymous No.2908191]

>>2908185

How did Dark Souls get away with jacking so much imagery from Berserk?
I love this, thread off to a good start

[Anonymous No.2908196]

I've also been a lifelong fan of Kittelsen, who's mostly known for his illustration from Norwegian mythology, Peer Gynt and the Black Death.

[Anonymous No.2908204]

>>2908196
No way, this guy did the art for Filosofem, my favourite album! Thanks anon

[Anonymous No.2908205]

>>2908191
To be fair, Miura stole most of his designs from western artists and horror movies, including H.R. Giger and Hellraiser. A lot of them are almost direct copies.
Pic related looks just like one of the God Hand.

[Anonymous No.2908207]

i heard this guy just takes pics and traces over them but regardless it looks cools.

[Anonymous No.2908211]

>>2908207
That's a pretty nice rendering style, who is he?

>>2908205
He lifted a lot of mythology too, like the wheel skellies. Berserk is a melting pot

[Anonymous No.2908214]

>>2908204
Well, he's a contemporary of Arthur Rackham, so he's been dead for over a century. It's simply a case of Varg paying homage to Kittelsen by using his art.
Kittelsen is very famous in Norway, and is known as the artist who most accurately captured the spirit and atmosphere of Norwegian nature and mythology.

[Anonymous No.2908217]

>>2908211
True. Recognize this guy?

[Anonymous No.2908221]

>>2908211
Boichi

[Anonymous No.2908223]

>>2908214
Thanks for introducing me to this excellent guy, one of those artists you stop and read all about.
Do you know any more Scandi artists who capture that bleak folk and nature spirit, the kind that black metal constantly tries to evoke?

[Anonymous No.2908230]

>>2908217
ho shit Griffith, "The Phantom of the Paradise". This little fella is terrifying haha

>>2908221
Great shading and perspective, ugly composition. I love Katsuhiro Otomo's work because every frame in his manga could work as a standalone piece.

[Anonymous No.2908243]

I feel this woodblock printing goes hand in hand with tattooing, I know it's certainly becoming a trend to get 'blockier' line drawings done.

[Anonymous No.2908254]

>>2908223
I can't think of any at the moment.
You do have Erik Werenskiold, who illustrated the Sagas when they were released to a "modern" Norwegian audience in the late 1800s, but his style is looser and simpler, and is meant to emulate the look and feel of the viking age.
While he was a great illustrator, it pales in comparison to his skill as a painter.

[Anonymous No.2908257]

>>2908254
From the sagas.

[Anonymous No.2908264]

>>2908257
I actually have the first edition in modern Norwegian from 1898 or something like that. The book is an artwork in itself.

[Anonymous No.2908268]

>>2908257
What an excellent painter! There's one of his pieces on the ultra hi-def google arts project.
But his norse pieces are pretty great, must have been a fun commission.

I think the best engraver I've ever come across has to be Gustave Doré, his milieu is enormous and nearly all of it blisteringly original and well executed, as well as simply beautiful and haunting. The dude is a hero

[Anonymous No.2908276]

>>2908268
Doré, straight out of Dark Souls 3

>>2908264
Woah, what an artefact! That's something to pass to your children, bet it's a pleasure to read. Norway used to be such a hardy land, shame about the socialist lethargy that's hit a lot of it. Might be why you don't see so many artists like Kittelsen coming out of there.

[Anonymous No.2908282]

>>2908268
I'm not too familiar with engravers, but he's definitely one of the greats.
Hard to imagine how they did it.

[Anonymous No.2908290]

>>2908282
He must have had an army of atelier assistants, hand carving every single crosshatch in reverse would take months/years per piece, and his milieu is so big... And the guy was a prolific oil painter. Mind blowing.

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[Anonymous No.2908297]

>>2908290
Another anon chiming in here--Dore did have other people do the engraving. He was still one of the most prolific artists of all time by the way even though he didn't engrave. He basically would just do composition "cartoons" that had the main drawing, values, and design in it, then let his engravers have a fair bit of freedom in interpreting it.

He did literally thousands of work in his life time and was working professionally from around 15 if I remember correctly. He did political cartoons, religious paintings, fine art paintings, illustrations, sculpture, landscapes, and of course tons of sketchbooks. Sadly he apparently was relegated as "just" an illustrator and sort of looked down on by the fine arts world, and he spent his life trying to gain recognition in their eyes but never did.

[Anonymous No.2908302]

>>2908276
>Norway used to be such a hardy land, shame about the socialist lethargy that's hit a lot of it.
Don't mix us up with Sweden. While the media and parts of the urban population have fallen victim to socialist dogma, we're probably one of the more conservative and nationalistic countries in western Europe, and we keep many of our traditions alive.
Our anti-immigration party became part of a conservative coalition government back in 2013, and they greatly restricted immigration after the migrant crisis in 2015. In 2016, we only accepted something like 3,500 refugees, which is the lowest number in nearly 20 years. There's also been a great rise in people who are critical to modern conventions like immigration, feminism and self-loathing, and they frequently have debates and write articles in various Norwegian newspapers.

>Might be why you don't see so many artists like Kittelsen coming out of there.
We still have Odd Nerdrum. He's a conservative painter who's been rebelling against the contemporary art community since the 60s. He refused to paint like the modernists, and instead decided to paint like the great masters. You might like him, as his themes are often dark, depressing and bleak.

[Anonymous No.2908310]

>>2908276
wow thats a morph spider form magic the gathering

[Anonymous No.2908314]

>>2908302
>He's a conservative painter
Maybe in terms of technique, but he's still an edgelord who feels the need to draw people shitting and pissing, self portraits with boners, and other shock art. He's also got an ego and considers himself to be at an old master level.

Also isn't he still in jail for tax evasion on millions of dollars?

[Anonymous No.2908324]

>>2908314
>Maybe in terms of technique
I was talking about his political views.

>he's still an edgelord who feels the need to draw people shitting and pissing, self portraits with boners, and other shock art.
He's a world renowned artist, and he's got his eccentricities. Despite this, the vast majority of his art has nothing to do with shock value.

>Also isn't he still in jail for tax evasion on millions of dollars?
You should read up on the story. I can't recall all of it, but it had something to do with him being forced to redo several old paintings he had sold, as the paint he had previous used had started to degrade.

[Anonymous No.2908341]

>>2908297
What an amazing life. I wonder if it's the huge range of work he did that shut him out of the circles he wanted to be in, much like an average d/ic/k resorting to Deviantart commissions and then being tarnished with that history.

>>2908302
Ah, apologies, I suppose I was embitterened by the banality of the universities and their ridiculously low standard for acceptance and passing, and the crazy practices of food industry monopoly and taxation up the ass, as well as the plain 'utopia' of the cities like you mention. I did visit some of the outlier towns and settlements, and there is definitely a healthy traditionalist spirit and hard working, self determining good people. I've just spoken with a lot of jaded Norwegians that come across to the UK, including an artist who spoke of the dirth of meaningful, non postmodern art there. But I'm glad that a core of you guys are keeping it 3 hunna.

I agree with >>2908314 to an extent, Odd Nerdrum does seem like someone who enjoys controversy a bit too much, rather than wants to capture the spirit of the land like Kittelson, probably why he isn't universally loved by conservatives and traditionalists, but I like his eye and he paints well, but no better than a lot of graduates from any AARC course. Still, more power to him.

Anyway, back to the thread, my bad for making it political

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>>2908341
>Bernie Wrightson
RIP

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[Anonymous No.2908361]

>>2908341
>I suppose I was embitterened by the banality of the universities and their ridiculously low standard for acceptance and passing,
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Norway is a meritocracy when it comes to education. You get in based on your grades. While we do have "female quotas" in some areas, it's not nearly as bad as affirmative action is in the US. There's also talk about finally getting rid of this highly discriminatory practice.

>the crazy practices of food industry monopoly and taxation up the ass
Not sure what you mean by food industry monopoly. If anything, protectionism is a nationalistic policy, not a socialist one. You're right about the taxes, but that's something most people can easily get around if they start an LLC (or its equivalent).

>as well as the plain 'utopia' of the cities like you mention.
Again, no idea what you're talking about. Oslo is a shithole, but it's nowhere near as bad as London or other major UK cities. Aside from Oslo, most of the cities in Norway are still pretty good and fiercely patriotic. If certain people come off as being left-wing, it's mostly because major cities like Bergen and Trondheim are university cities, which brings in a lot of students, who tend to be more liberal than the population at large.

If you're from the UK, I'd say you guys are far worse off than us when it comes to accepting socialist dogma. That being said, congratulations on Brexit. It's a huge step in the right direction. I just hope your politicians don't fuck it up.

[Anonymous No.2908375]

>>2908361
Alright, thanks for this, I need to readjust my view of Norway. I was interested in applying, but I had heard tales of all but hard science courses being 'egalitarian' in nature, i.e. not discriminatory to those not intelligent to pass with a high grade, but if this isn't the case I might have to reassess. You guys don't have many good arts courses though, that's for sure.
Okay, I didn't know about the LCCs, when we visited we were fucked over by the cost of living alone, food being hilariously expensive and limited compared to the rest of Europe. I did visit Trondheim, which struck me as full of fancy new cars (that weird 'buying up old cars' policy you guys have) and a large population of the left wing people you describe, but it was still a gorgeous place and puts Londonistan to shame, and they were in the midst of a fête, so I guess I take it back. And thanks, yeah, here's hoping we don't just absorb EU laws as our own.

tilbake til kunst, venn.

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[Anonymous No.2908388]

>>2908375
>You guys don't have many good arts courses though, that's for sure
I can't comment on this, as I don't know what the situation is compared to other countries. However, the entire western world is fucked when it comes to traditional art. A lot of art academies don't even teach you the basics, but focus on the more esoteric aspects of becoming an "artist". This also applies to the UK. I read an interesting article about it a few years back, where an old school art professor was shocked to find that many of the art academies in the UK simply didn't teach their students figure drawing or illustration at all. Being an artist, and being an illustrator have become two different things. One is bullshit, one is a craft.

I read a similar article about the situation here in Norway, which incidentally involves Odd Nerdrum. I strongly suggest you read it, as it'll give you a good impression of why I respect that man to begin with, and what the contemporary art world is really like. The art community actually went after him because he wanted to teach his students traditional techniques.

The page is horribly formatted because it's old, but just highlight the text to read it. Seriously though, read it.
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/feature-2004-02.html

>when we visited we were fucked over by the cost of living alone
Cost of living is high, but our salaries are adjusted to match it, at least up to a point. We also have strange tax laws and lots of odd tax deductibles, but it's too broad of a topic to get into, particularly on /ic/. Either way, I realize I'm being defensive, so long story short, yes, our taxes and cost of living are way too high. That being said, traveling abroad as a Norwegian is great. Everything is dirt cheap from our perspective.

[Anonymous No.2908405]

>>2908388
>A lot of art academies don't even teach you the basics,..This also applies to the UK
I actually attend a uni with a very good illustration and brand new drawing course, both of which have very good fundamental teaching - I am talking on a micro level rather than the whole of Europe, there are no AARC ateliers in Norway, for instance, the closest is Florence Academy in Malmo (RIP malmo). I'll happily read that! Yeah, a bit heavy to criticise subsidised bread on /ic/. Good talking tho

[Anonymous No.2908411]

>>2908405
Get back to me once you've read the article. It illustrates my point better than I can.

[Anonymous No.2908441]

>>2908411
I will tomorrow bro, way past my britbong bedtime

[Anonymous No.2908454]

Have this in my room from the Egyptian campaign of napoleon. It's from 1823 or something. I love all of this type of art, I collect it when I can. I'd check out Bouchardon, very talented, they have an exhibit of his right now in LA.

[Anonymous No.2908496]

>>2908454
This guy draws the nicest horses.

Got any more great artists, anon?

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>>2908254
One of those paintings where you can almost feel the breeze in the air. I'm from Norway and know exactly how that air would feel and smell like.

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>>2908151
r.i.p

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[Anonymous No.2909868]

>>2909095
how do i do this ink style?

any good tutorials u know of?

[Anonymous No.2910050]

>>2909868
nigga just study it, the lines are there