As a big fan of French culture, I found this fascinating and extremely amusing! It’s by French animator Cedric Villain, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Bryan Ballinger creates illustrations in both 2D and 3D, whilst maintaining his own style in both mediums. Does his style look familiar? Remember the award winning CD-ROM encyclopedia ‘Encarta’? Bryan was the lead illustrator on that project. He has also worked for five years as the 3D Design Lead for Big Idea Productions and as a professor of Digital Media Arts at Huntington University in Indiana. Buthat’s not all; visit Bryan’s website to find out more! Thanks for getting in touch Bryan.

Miss Heather Dixon recently started a fantastic blog over here for illustrators and artists who really want to improve their skills, fast. The basic premise is that you choose a picture you want to paint in 30 minutes, then post both your version and the original on the blog.

Rules

- You can paint in any medium

- 30 minutes to paint (not including prep time)

- No colorpicking

- Post both your picture and the original

- Try to stay active–1 speedpaint a day is a good goal.  Months without posting & you let Mrs. Eisenhower & the American people down.

- Keep it super clean. (Sad I have to say that, but I do.) Anything inappropriate will be taken off.  Our moms visit this site, y’know.

Want to join?

Email Heather at storyboarder@gmail.com. I think it’s a brilliant idea.

If you’re into cooking, take a look at They Draw & Cook for some interesting illustrated recipes. They are submitted by illustrators from all over the globe, and everything seems a very high standard. Here’s a little about the site:

“Nate Padavick and Salli Swindell are a brother and sister design and illustration team who have been working together for over 10 years as Studio SSS. Nate and Salli came up with this idea while on a family vacation. Nate was trying to recreate a favorite dish – fettucine with figs in a balsamic butter sauce – while Salli sat at the counter with her watercolors painting the crate of figs. This led them to realize how fun it was to illustrate food. They then started talking about creating a little recipe book for friends, family, and clients. They asked some of their artist pals to help, but never got enough recipes to justify printing a book, so Nate built a quick blog and Salli started to spread the word – it spread fast! They Draw & Cook now contains the biggest and best collection of illustrated recipes anywhere.”

Scottish illustrator Linzie Hunter has a large portfolio of beautiful hand lettering and illustrated maps on her website…go and take a look!

Bryan Christie Design is an illustration studio is based in Maplewood, New Jersey and lead by the award winning Bryan Christie. His work has been featured in such publications as WIRED, Newsweek, The New York Times, Esquire, and Field & Stream. The Bryan Christie Design studio specializes in informational design & illustration, created as 3D graphics.

The studio’s work covers a broad range of topics, from the astronomical to the gastrointestinal, the microbiological to the nanotechnological. But whatever the subject matter, our images strive to represent ideas, not just objects. Illustrating the unseen is a particular speciality. Much of the work done by us is executed in 3-D modelling software; however, the treatment is designed to let visual realism take a back seat to more conceptual truths.

Delve deep into their website for more marvels.

Do you remember those beautiful history books on Roman and other ancient cultures with the acetate pages revealing the inside of buildings? Well, This should refresh your memory. All that imagination-inspiring artwork was created by one very talented and patient man, Stephen Biesty. I can almost be certain my fascination with history began with those books.