"Legends of the American Old West" Art Book!

Hi folks! Here's another finished painting I started & completed some weeks after my last movie poster; this piece titled 'Belle Starr' (Bandit Queen). I think I made an official blog post about this particular project on my maxidoodle sketch/ WIP blog, but basically this piece is for a western themed Art book I was invited to contribute to by my pal Mike Collins! Some of you may have read me mention his name before on earlier posts, but Mike is a super cool & talented L.A based digital clean-up Artist for Cartoon Network.

The book is basically going to be a compilation of artworks by over 30 different artists from around the globe all working under the same theme of 'Legends of the American Old West'.
Here's the official post I made for more details on the project...






As well as Mike, there are some other amazing people featuring in this book also. Just to name a few, there's talented Jez Tuya, Rhys Byfield, Gillian Reid, Justin Rodrigues + much more! Here's a great post over on Mike's blog showing how the book's looking so far.

Will post up a WIP breakdown over the next few days to share my thought process on working on my piece. I went in several different directions in the beginning & couldn't quite decide where to go, but thanks to the help of my friends online who threw in their thoughts & opinions, I was able to settle with something... One thing I did manage to agree with myself on was to present the piece as a movie poster for a classic Western you might have seen back in the late 40's or so... Stemming from my Vintage Movie Poster project, it was actually more of an experiment to try out a few new painting techniques & compositional style (combining studies of a little Frazetta & McGinnis)... Was definitely pleased with the results, & the response from people on the final piece was amazing (very surprising actually). I also decided to give some shout-outs in the "film credits" to some friends too =)

Hope you guys like it also!

-M-

"The High Priestess" (of Argos)

And here it is finally... Presenting the latest addition to my ongoing Movie poster venture, "The High Priestess" (of Argos)! For those new to my blog/ this project, here's the first & second piece I completed last year... I have to say I'm really pleased with how this one turned out. 

'The High Priestess' (of Argos) vers 02 ©Maxwell. A. Oginni 2011

Taking what I had learned from my last two paintings + studying several other poster artists such as the Legendary Robert McGinnis, Frank McCarthy & even a little Frazetta. I really tried to push things further in this piece. One technique I knew I wanted to adopt early on was to shape the composition with a collage of scenes, figures & events that almost seemed to tell the story, but leaving gaps for your imagination to fill... This is something movie posters did so well back then, but I feel is sadly lost today in the now dominant photography composted poster-art... Don't get me wrong, I love photography, but it will never truly capture what illustration can; much like how computer animation will never give you what traditional 2D animation does... Photography is & can only ever be a capture of what already is, but illustration is, will & can always be so much more... There's just something about how the mind works in it's process of taking in information, interpolating/ extrapolating it to then create a vast & unmeasurable addition of new data that a camera or photo simply can not do...

'The High Priestess' (of Argos) vers 01 ©Maxwell. A. Oginni 2011

It's really no surprise most movie posters of the 40's, 50's, 60's & even 70's, very often would present a more appealing visual narrative than the actual movie would turn out to be...

I'll end this post here but stick around for a process breakdown of this latest piece "The High Priestess" (of Argos); I hope you like it... And as a bonus for stopping by, here's part 01 of a great documentary on my favourite poster artist Reynold Brown... Enjoy!

Ps: Drop by my FaceBook Art Page to stay even more updated with my work.

















-M-