Project: Music Inspired Imagery - Illustrators (4)

Lars Henkel

At first I thought these were drawings or paintings, but it turns out they're manipulated photos, sometimes using puppets. This ghostly world appears like it goes far beyond the mist that covers the background, which only intrigues me to know more about it. Lars Henkel's greatest strength seems to lie in the incredibly stylised atmosphere he is able to create within his photos. The instant your eyes cross these photos you get a very blatant sense of the mood that is trying to be set, which seems to be a ghostly sort of ethereal world.

The fact puppets are used in his works makes me think that the manipulation isn't entirely done in Photoshop, but set up beforehand like the little objects inside the deers were most likely inserted inside them during the photo-shoot.

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I Love Dust

I love dust seems to be a typical illustrator in way he creates his work. He draws up some sketches, scans them in, and digitally recreates them in Illustrator/Photoshop. The hand-drawn look to some of his pieces are what attracted me to his work in the first place, but it appears he does some digital work too as you can see above. Not to mention the immense detail in his work leaves you looking at all the little bits and bobs while remaining a pleasure to stare at.

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Herr Mueller

Another recognisable style is this one from Herr Mueller. Once he creates a regular drawing, he transforms it into a far more interesting image by cutting it up, scrunching the paper, using adhesive tape to mess it up some more, and then paints are used to add in anything else he feels is necessary like blood from mouth or these drips on the skull. In some of his other works the tape is a lot more visible and you'll be able to see how it changes the image. It would seem he has a lot of fun in messing up the original images too, being able to scramble up your work to enhance it rather than bin it can be quite satisfying.

The drips going over the skull's eye socket are my favorite bits about this image. It really gives a sense of depth in the paper. The idea of using a bright colour such as yellow with something quite dark like a skull could be done on purpose here to contrast with each other, which might be the message here. That there is still life within this skull, but in the form of a memory rather than a literal meaning.