Let’s start this post with an easy question: What makes art, art?
While this is a question that could be analyzed for years, and constantly is, indulge me for a moment when I say my own belief. The defining factor of art is in the intent behind it.
I, the author of this post, am not an artist. Or at least, I am not a visual artist. While I craft words in prose I actually have a severe ineptitude when it comes to most other artistic mediums. That is why I find the artistic process so incredibly interesting.
When I began working for Josh, the man behind Draconius Hunger, I was taken aback by his work. It is not conventional art in a lot of ways, though it still has a bit of a classical edge to it. While it would be easy to shrug off this sensation and just get to work, I realized that I needed to immerse myself a bit into the art in order to adequately do my job.
That is why I asked Josh to send me some progress-pics of one of his paintings. Before we take a look at those, let’s take a peek at the final project.
One of the defining features of this piece comes in the form of texturing that has been applied to the subject’s body. While it would be easy to mistake this as just an artistic interpretation of a real person, the intent behind that look was there from the very beginning.
Like many of the pieces featured in the Draconius Hunger galleries, this piece started with a photograph.
As you can see, the subject’s body was first painted with a thin coat of black. This helps to give their skin that iconic Draconius Hunger texturing as can be seen in a number of different paintings.
As you can see, from the first pass it is clear that the darkening of the skin has helped to give an idea of texture even in the early stages. Let’s take a look at how this continued to buildup as time went on.
While something as simple as the texture of a man’s skin in a painting like this could be seen as nothing more than impressionism, it is quite clearly something that was planned with the intent of achieving this look from the very beginning. Where other artists use impressionism to add a degree of art to the reality of their subject, Josh has changed the reality of the subject from the very beginning in order to influence the art.
