Step by Step Illustration after the jump:
Hard to believe, but that's what the artist says and he has the skills to make it so. Then again, who are you going to believe? The artist or your lying eyes?
"This is a painting completed in February 2005. It was a Portrait Class project that I decided to finish in my spare time after the workshop. It probably took a total of around 65-75 hours to complete. The small images are step by step photographs taken during the painting process, and the large image is the final painting after detail and skin texture are added with an eraser and colored pencil. The main colors are blocked in at the beginning, but refinement is withheld until the very end. Look for a more complete step by step article in an upcoming magazine issue~Dru Blair" -- Blair Art Studios
Artists can be visually pedantic. Who knew?
Not inspired by this even a little bit.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at October 22, 2009 4:00 PMWow....Just wow.
He's like the Michael Jordan of portrait-painting.
That's some mighty fine looking pedantry.
The days of full employment for coked-up pretties with eating disorders and soulless eyes are indeed numbered...Children of Men via Japan.
Posted by: monkeyfan at October 22, 2009 8:05 PMWow, it looks like a photo, but not quite, there is a tiny extra bit of perfection. I wonder how difficult it would be to make an actual photo like that?
Posted by: chuck at October 22, 2009 9:29 PMTo clarify my earlier remark,I am not saying it isn't an exhaustive effort, but it is much in the same league as building a model of the Bismark with toothpicks. It takes a patient and focused mind along with a steady hand to graphically reproduce from a photo something that looks like a photo. And if you can't tell the difference, well that's an amazing feat, a curiosity worthy of remark and admiration for the above-mentioned effort.
I dunno. I guess I'm an art curmudgeon or something. So, I shall appreciate this on an engineering level, for it certainly is impressive.
Posted by: Joan of Argghh! at October 23, 2009 5:35 AMI'm not buying it.
I say the step-by-step was built in reverse beginning with the photograph.
bloody impressive by any stretch...
Posted by: pdwalker at October 23, 2009 9:29 AMBULL
Posted by: at October 23, 2009 12:35 PMOh ye naysayers...
Why are you so willing to believe that there's so little talent in the world?
Personally, I think this was a proof-of-concept piece more than anything. I'm willing to bet that the artist usually doesn't expend that level of effort for something so easily created by another means, but instead does something more "artistic."
Posted by: B. Durbin at October 23, 2009 12:43 PMNice picture. Whoever made it has a skill, but hardly a unique skill.
Photographic accurate painting has been done for at least two centuries. Painters consider precision unimportant except as a demonstration of drafting skill.
Today, with computers, it is easy to get the colors right. That was difficult in the past.
Posted by: K at October 23, 2009 5:16 PMMaster craftsmanship has a quality of its own. I may not know a lot about art, but I sure do appreciate superior craftsmanship when I see it.
I suspect that 99.99% of self-proclaimed "artists" couldn't paint like that if their lives depended on it.
Posted by: rickl at October 23, 2009 5:29 PMThe earlobes are a bit odd, don´t you think?
How long before these techniques are misused for criminal purposes? A really good fauxtographer will be harder to spot than the amateurs who doctored news photos during the 2006 Lebanon war.
Posted by: El Gordo at October 24, 2009 2:22 AMThat is an absolute crock. Bullshit.
Posted by: ahem at October 24, 2009 12:36 PMYou'll notice that he doesn't show any of the 'process' steps, only the finished stages. Plus, he is able to paint details to a level that aren't detectable by even the best human eye. Again, bullshit.
Posted by: ahem at October 24, 2009 12:42 PMNope. Sorry. It's for real and it is what it says it is.
Check out the links beyond the link to Blair Art School in the item. You'll see.
Posted by: vanderleun at October 24, 2009 1:21 PMIncredible. But it's not a photograph. However, it proves that still, man is the master of the machine, and not the other way around. Strange way to prove it.
Posted by: RiverC at October 26, 2009 6:37 PMWhat's even better is that's a real painting, like with paint and everything. he's an airbrush artist.
Posted by: Charlie Martin at October 28, 2009 2:46 PMNonsense. Magnify enough and you can tell it is a photo. The timeline illustrations are also nonsense.
Posted by: S at May 31, 2010 5:19 AM
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