I had the pleasure of seeing your work and it made me smile! You have a gift of interest and story telling. I encourage you to keep creating and hope to see what you make next!
Ow wow, nice art! Me myself, I love hyper realistic depictions, but I also still love the mystical, eerie aspect of the deep past and just the unknown in general. Perhaps this 'feeling' comes from a lifetime of observing the prehistoric world through paleoart and its very own evolutionary path. Paleoart was often exactly that: strange and fantastical, with stuff like the Fantasia segment on dinosaurs, where you have these dark forests covered in blankets of mist, with long-necked creatures roaming about. It's all quite romantic and unreal, almost like a dreamworld. The deep past, the prehistoric world as a dream-state. It grabbed you as a kid, and drew you in, feeding your sense of adventure and your curiosity. And it's all based on reality; on the fossils, and nature as it is today, but depicted by artists who were in a lot of ways beautifully ignorant of the world they were presenting. That's not a bad thing, nor something to look down on. I think this mysticism surrounding the deep, dark unknown world of giant reptiles, as depicted in art for 200 years, has inspired so many of us to want to learn more about it, and put our own visions and ideas on paper. The fantastical, the creative, the dream.. mixed with the hyper realism of the actual world; that's what I love about paleoart in particular. The balance between up-to-date information and accurate, detailed presentations, and a more poetic view of reality. Like I really enjoy Hugo's Pelecanimimus, exactly because of how much attention to the physical details went into it, resulting in a very realistic image, just like what we usually see when we look out the window and see an animal like a bird standing still, in all its sharp, vivid colors. The 'danger' with hyper realism is that it could become too clinical, losing its 'soul', and I think the best artworks find a balance between the two extremes, captivating the viewer by its highly technical quality, as well as a more primordial, dream-like view of the world. The Archaeopteryx slowly floating down into the lake is also how reality affects us as observers. The animal is sinking down into its final, deep, dark sleep, metaphorically, while in reality, it's also sinking down into the dark depths of the lake. The lake becomes like an allegory for its dying. Death is still a mystery, and a reality. I think Julius' image captures both the (sometimes harsh) realism of life, as well as the romantic, philosophical, or even spiritual interpretation that we experience when observing and interpreting events. It tends to incline more towards the mystical imo. Me personally, I think Esther's Ichtyosaurs is the best work shown here. It's my favorite, because it's beautifully made, technically, and it depicts a very real event that must've occurred in some way, while at the same time, there's still a very 'emotional' and mystical aspect to the piece, but to be honest; depictions of underwater events are always somewhat dreamy, simply because of the water itself. The deep dark blue automatically inspires a sense of awe and wonder, because it makes you lose your sense of direction and location, and you don't know what's out there in the fog beyond the limits of your vision. It's like time in a sense: you grasp it as long as it's close-by and near to you, but the further out you try to venture, the blurrier it gets, and in the unknown past and future, anything might be possible. Reality slowly giving way to imagination. Still, Esther did an amazing job on that one in particular. Sorry, I type a lot, I know, lol. Great video, great contest!
Even though my art didn't make it on this video, this contest was very fun and exciting! Seeing everyone's submissions was just as fun! Everyone had such amazing art! I'm glad the contest was made! I'm grateful for this! Thank you, Brian!
The most chilling part to me about the archaeopteryx fossilization drawing is that it's informed by actual science... to think there was possibly a sight at one point in history that looked very much like that... and an animal died and drifted down through it to lead to such a beautiful and informative fossil today... astonishing
I have always appreciated and been fascinated by Paleoart-Great video and congrats on the contest and to all the talented artists! You might consider putting paleoart in the title-you might get more views?
It's really inspiring to see so much great art. I wish I'd have had time to participate myself. I sincerely hope there is gonna be a SummonEngh2019!! Thanks for hosting this amazing challenge dude!
