State of the Union: Part 4

List ten illustrators whose work you admire, or whose career you would like to emulate. Who are their clients? What sort of work do those clients look for?
1. Mathieu Bessudo is an illustrator whose work I greatly enjoy because others in the past have tried to work in a similar style that he does ( the crazy rubber hose animtion look), but none have achieved the easy and zany nature of his that defines his work. Plus he does animation as well, which is what I want to do. He works for The Mill in England as an animator and freelances with Heaven Paris






2. I recently found Frank Stockton's work while looking through a group of artists with similar styles. I greatly admire his line quality and use of flat colors. He also experiments with various media making him quite versatile. Some of his clients are Boston Magazine, Esquire Russia, Best Life Germany, Mens Health, etc











3. I recently happened upon the works of Polish surrealist Jacek Yerka. His handling and rendering of environments is quite unique. He bends perspective and planes of objects to create more outlandish worlds. He does book covers occasionally, but sells a lot of his paintings directly.











4. I first encountered Eyvind Earle's work in the Disney's Sleeping Beauty (he did the background) when I was about 5 or 6 yrs old. A couple of months ago I stumbled across his website and I think he is one of those artists that will inspire me till the end of my days. Eveytime I see his paintings I just have to sit and study them for a little bit. He has worked for companies like Disney and Universal Studios, but only on commision, he sells his art in galleries.








5. Russ Mills is a British illustrator whose work is interesting, but for a while now doesnt have very much depth to it. His use of paint splatter and loose paint strokes to define form is great, but he never uses it for anything but figures it seems. His past clients are Them London, US Playstation Mag, The Royal Court Theater, etc.











6. Mike Mignola is an artist I've greatly admired for some years now. He has worked on his own comic book creation for years now (Hellboy) with a signature style and has managed to have time to work on movies and animation. He has worked for DC, Dark Horse comics, Disney, etc









7. Everyone's favorite illustrator James Jean. He must have a timeless void that he retreats to, to be a ble to produce work so prolificly. He has worked with DC/ Vertigo, Rolling Stone, Atlantic Records,etc











8. Sam Weber is a great guy and an artist whose work seems mystifying and never ceases to surprise me. He has worked for The New York Times, Soul Pepper theatre, Time Magazine, The New Yorker, Scholastic, etc.












9. Emanuel Malin is a French artist that uses flat shapes and textures in a manner I've never seen before. His clients include Imagine FX magazine, Brandweek Magazine, and illustrations for Spicy horse Studios, and Wanda Productions.












10. Sylvain Chomet is a French animator and illustrator whose work seems to be a technical paradigm of what most would call European style illustration. However, it's Chomet's storytelling and quirky humor that sets him apart. Has created commercials for Swissair, Renault and Principality, but has since formed his own animation studio called Django Studios






Find ten magazines you think you could work for. Consider both the content of the magazine and the type of illustration, if any, that they use.
_Juxtapoz
_Time
_National Geographic
_Computer Arts Magazine
_Itsart Magazine
_Digital Arts Magazine
_Hi Fructose Magazine
_EGM- Electronic Gaming Monthly
_3x3 Magazine
_Frames Per Second Magazine

If you were starting your own magazine and your livelihood depended on it selling well and your sanity depended on it being something you wanted to spend all your time on, what would it be? What sorts of writers and artists would you hire? What subject matter would it deal with? How would you want it to look?
Well, first of all I'd really be scared for my lively hood because not many magazines make it today due to the internet, and most of them have internet counterparts anyway. It would probably be a magazine of short story collections (those already exist right). They could take on any format as long as they could fit within alotted pages. All short stories would have to have at least one illustration accompanying them. The Subject matter would be African myth and culture (contemporary and historical). I would hire writers from a broad range of genres whose work I admire such as Wole Soyinka, Philip Pullman, mayber even Chinua Achebe, if literary greats like that cared about small fry stuff. I'd like artists like to work with a lot of the artists above, but mostly to see what kind of spin they'd put on the visuals of an African tale, but mostly I'd like to start a program seeking out indigenous skilled African students. I'd be willing to experiment with its format and aesthetic, but I would be a huge stickler for the way it would be printed and bound.

List ten non-magazine clients that you would like to work with. Why are these dream clients?
1. Naughty Dog- this is a video game company based in California that have been making some of my favorite games for the past decade. I love their concept art team's art direction and their animation is second to none in the industry.
2. Team Ico- A Japanese development team that created my favorite video game of all time, Shadow of the Colossus. Really great, original, character design along with phenomenal animation.
3. Dark Horse (Abe Sapien)- Wouldn't mind doing a run on the newly created Abe Sapien comic. Mostly because the Hellboy series and its spin off have elements of the supernatural storytellin and humor that I enjoy.
4. Working on a Pixar production. I thoroughly enjoy and respect their movies, but I'd mostly like to work for them because of the experience.
5. Designing a new Lego toy line! Of course because Lego was my favorite toy when I was a kid and I still think its brilliant stuff.
6. Doing architectural concept drawings for any one that has enough money to fund the project. Architecture is a second love of mine.
7. Working on an illusrated version of the his Dark Materials trilogy. I love the stories the worlds and the characters in the book.
8. I'd like to work on a special issue of Tintin, mostly because of nostalgia. Tintin is a character whose history has been criticised and adored, however despite obvious flaws found in the comics, it was one of my favorite books as a kid and I still enjoy it.
9. I'd like to someday do a mural with my dad and brother.
10. Work with a ad agency/organisation in Nigeria to come up with a marketing plan that raises awareness of African history and culture. I feel that government eduaction in many parts of Africa is not doing enough to educate the youth in society. My idealistic thinking is that good worthwhile media can help to soften that blow till the eduation system is organised.