ray caesar
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- six
saw this guys work a few months ago in manchester. not a great site but interesting work..
- PSYKHO0
Love it! Scary but love it!
- set0
Scary but wonderful!
- Spookyhome0
I love Ray Caesar's work too and have done since I started being an illustrator. Him, Storm Thorgerson and Kitt Williams were my main inspirations when I started out.
A friend of mine purchased a framed Ray Caesar print for a really huge amount of money at an art fair a couple of years ago. It was a really beautifully executed print, although it was a "giclée" which personally I don't approve of as a means of selling art at all.
But aside from that it was really deep and rich and detailed and beautiful, and in a beautiful frame too, but there was one really startling flaw that for me seemed ridiculously sloppy and ruined my appreciation of Ray Caesar entirely.
To anyone looking who didn't know the software they could enjoy the print and remain blissfully unaware of it (so I didn't say anything to my friend about it) but where the figures elbows bent it was really abundantly clear that the whole thing had been done very crudely in a Poser style application that could manage the mathermatics of the elbow joint properly at all... it was all funny creases and folds in the surface art to get around the elbow. Clearly he puts a huge amount of time and effort and talent into his work, and I just couldn't believe he'd leave this awful crunkled foldy elbow thing. It basically told me exactly how he did the piece, and its never good to know how the magic trick works.
After I saw that I started to scrutinise the piece and could pretty much see how the whole thing comes together, where he's pasted bits on and where he's filtered stuff etc.
If he hadn't fucked up the elbow the rest of it would never have unravelled before my eyes. I was bitterly disappointed by seeing it in the flesh.
Ho Hum. Never meet your heroes.
- that COULDN"T manage the mathematics of the elbow (not Could as I said there).Spookyhome
- Fucking spelling errors on QBN always TOTALLY INVERT the intended meaning. Bugs the SHIT out of me.Spookyhome
- 'Nice' would have done fine. :Dset
- six0
hmm thats interesting. i kinda knew how they had been done but didnt notice any flaws in the gallery. which work was it spooky? i wanna have a look lol
- Spookyhome0
I just went to his site to see if I could find the piece but I can't. Interestingly though, since I last looked at his site (probably a year or so ago) he has updated the images on view and changed his technique. They all used to be very crisp computer generated pieces and now they look more painterly and a bit less detaile, as thought painted on canvas. Hmmm.
I wonder if he felt the need to move away from computer generated work becuase times have changed and more people can do it now.
- Spookyhome0
It wasn't this piece, but this shows a similar foldy elbow thing although nowhere near as crude as on my friend's print. This he could get away with, but even so, look how badly done that whole arm is, and the hand... no realism or plausibility if you look closely enough, just a skin texture mapped round a very basic arm shape.
- Spookyhome0
This is shit by comparison I know, but when I did this artwork years ago I used poser to design the woman, and the one thing I spent ages doing was smoothing over the poor quality mathematics of the Poser elbow joint. Maybe that's why I homed in on it in the Caesar piece, but I just think he could have put the time to smooth it from view like I did!
- six0
bump
- detritus0
Spooky - I'm so glad to learn you use Poser - it's something i need to play with more - I fucked a wee project earlier this year after not being able to convert a sketch into a final product I was happy with. Completely forgot about Poser, which would've solved all my problems (I'm a half-decent digital bodger, but not in any way an artist) - my mindset is one that thinks such fiddling is 'cheating', when of course it's just not. It's just a question of how well you hide your technique, as you point out.
I also completely agree with giclée prints. For various reasons, I go to a few of the art fairs around London and have been amazed/horrified/inspired to learn how much these bloody ink jets prints go for and how artists approach the numbers in their runs. It's a whole new world for me.
Sorry for the thread diversion - I dig Caesar's work too, but now can't help over-analysing it - 'thanks' Spooky :)
Aaaaanyway, back to Hell.
- chossy0
Love it, better than a mother fucker yo!.
- d_rek0
I think the subject matter is great, very haunting and surreal.
HR Geiger anyone?
http://www.hrgiger.com/or Szukalski?
http://szukalski.com/gallery.htm…not the best sites but like to share the love
- chossy0
I wonder if szukalski did the chronicles of riddick stuff or perhaps it was influenced by his work either way it is ass rapingly awesome :D
- sumguay0
Ray Caesar’s got a book that should be coming out any day now. Published by MurphyDesign.
- utopian20
wonderful illustrations