Tuesday, July 15, 2014

12 Angry Men

"12 Angry Men" (1957) is definitely one of the best films I have ever seen. No doubt, it's call to reason and emphasis on not letting prejudice and ignorance lay the foundation for our decisions, is equally as important now as it was when it was made. I hope I will be able to display the characteristics, the courage, clarity of mind and compassion, of Henry Fonda's character if I'm ever faced with a similar situation. I want to wholeheartedly recommend it to all of you. This movie feels more fresh than anything coming out of Hollywood today (except for Paul Thomas Anderson). And how skillfully the multi-figure compositions are handled, the readability reminds me of Akira Kurosawa's movies.

The light and feeling in this one captivated me.
 Original photo from http://spaceghostzombie.tumblr.com (Warning!! NSFW) 

My half-uncle Alex, who's an animator and illustrator (and french), bought me The Iron Giant when I was around 18 (as well as introduced me to Claire Wendling's "Iguana Bay"). I loved it very much, and I still regard it as maybe the best 2D animated Feature-film (alongside Don Bluth's "American Tail"). Directed by Brad Bird, the story-armature "You are who you chose to be" strikes a strong chord with me. Here are studies of some of the hand-references which I assume were used internally by the animators. I never felt comfortable with digital drawing, but now, using a new brush, being more at ease with the imperfections and working in layers, refining the sketch gradually, at least I feel I have tools and a process to handle it. I can't deny it, looking at the original drawings of these hands, I'm just a little bit aroused, so damn good..


This, this is jazz at it's finest. I love this song beyond words. I read it was composed by Miles Davis for Cannonball Adderley.


Fantastic composition. Love this song, listened to it like a dozen times in a row.



Lots of love ya'll, take care ;)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful studies mate! And I do love that kinky side you´re bringing out ;)

Lots of love!

Johannes Helgeson said...

Thanks bro! Hehe, you ain't seen nothin' yet though. My paintings are still real innocent imo. ;) I don't want to turn this into a purely erotic blog just yet, and I'll leave some things to the imagination I suppose. Maybe some day I'll go all out ;)

I have to say though, getting these out of my system feels great, and hopefully my design-choices in my "real stuff" will be less influenced by my sexual preferences, which I feel is a primitive and sub-optimal design-paradigm (although it seems to be prevalent in the game-industry). I'd rather have a venue and outlet where I can be completely honest and unambiguous, and unabashedly flaunt what I think of as sexy.