Sean+Knisley's+Favorites

The first artist that grabbed my attention was Steinar Lund. The darkness in his "Gothic" illustrations is impeccable.

The first piece by him I'm going to be talking about is a portrait of a ghost in front of a castle; that's what I believe it to be anyway. The symmetry in it is amazing. The way that the "ghost" flows such as a normal ghost would is incredible. I really love the colors in it too.

This second piece is one of a woman in some sort of renaissance gown, her head is a skull, there's a flower where her ear would be, and there are several butterflies flying around her. What I like most about it is the butterflies. They seem to bring some sort of "at ease" feeling to the portrait.

This last portrait is a gas mask. I have somewhat of an obsession with them. In the background you can see what looks like smoke. The detail is done incredibly well in this. You can see the texture in the leather and the glares from the metal and lenses.

The second artist I'm going to cover is Vince Ray. I love his whole retro/pin-up style.

The first illustration by him is a poster for body jewelry. It gives off that 1940's scary movie type feel to me. The mummy with a brain that's pierced is insanely creative and so well thought out. The line "Beyond your wildest screams!" is really clever too. And then the girl covering her face and screaming just adds to the whole old-school scary movie theme.

This second illustration is of a pin-up girl being tattooed by what looks to be a biker. There's also a cobra in the background with skulls on it's skin. The whole skulls theme is all over the place in this illustration. I think the thing that draws me to this the most is the whole overall theme and the concentration to detail that you can tell he put in.

The last illustration is a pin-up girl standing on an anchor with the words "bon voyage" under it. There's a nautical star and then lots of stars all around her. She has a tattoo of a heart on her left leg and she's wearing what looks like a sailer's outfit. I'm really into the whole retro/pin-up girl theme in this one.

The third illustrator is Philip Smiley. He does really well drawn pieces. His attention to detail is incredible. The shading makes all of his illustrations insane.

This first illustration is a man wrestling a bear. The reason why I liked it so much is because there's a band named "iwrestledabearonce". The shading in it is absolutely breathtaking though. The detail in the bear and in the man's uniform are amazing. You can tell he spent some time on this.