I initially set out to purchase this magazine as an artist named Audra Auclair, who’s work I admire so much and have followed for years now, had her art on the cover and I believed it would contain an interview with the artist inside, however, after purchasing the magazine, I had found the artist had discussed more of her process, showing more of a step by step guide as to how she creates her work.
I had also found that the magazine included another artist that I follow called Loish, or otherwise known as Lois Van Baarle, who has shown and discussed her sketches which I recognise to be from the recent inktober challenge which I myself had taken part in.
So, what is the magazine?
ImagineFX is a digital art based magazine which includes interviews, process guides, reviews and so on, which help look into the current trends within digital art, but also help the reader to potentially discover new artists, learn new techniques and find out more information about the products that are newly released which could help artists throughout their process.
The magazine has been running since 2006, so I would say it is a more new age magazine, focusing on the new technologies and movements within the digital arts industry. I would say the art featured does cater more to the fantasy/sci-fi realm of work, so the audience who this may be directed to is potentially game or concept designers, but I would recommend this magazine to any artist working digitally or wanting to try it out.
Although the majority of the magazine is digital oriented, there is a good section that is traditionally based, for instance, there is a workshop on figure drawing within this specific issue, discussing how to work with tonal value in order to create a 3D figure.
What does it contain?
This magazine’s featured artists are Audra Auclair, who works both traditionally and digitally, but creates beautiful and strong female characters, which in this case she has combined with sci-fi elements to form a whole new being. This issue also features Loish who I had mentioned previously, who typically works mostly digital, but in this case, has shown her sketches and inked work which she had created for inktober. The final artist that is featured is Goro Fujita, who I had not heard about previously, who works with virtual reality creating his own world, but he has a more painterly style as opposed to realistic which is what I am used to when I think of VR, but I feel his work would appeal to younger audiences, as I feel they would give the child a sense of being inside of a real-life children’s book.
Other than the featured artists, the magazine also has an ‘FX Posé’ and ‘fresh paint’ section in which they showcase new artists, showing their work and a little information about themselves. I do like the addition of this to the magazine because it allows the artist to get their name out there, if they have been working on their craft for a while but may have not gotten recognition or enough publicity with their work, having it shown within this magazine, which is directed at the right type of audience of other artists who work in the same genre, or clients who are potentially looking for new artists, is good publicity for those artists. If you are an artist yourself and feel your work is of standard, you can also apply to be featured within this section, by tagging the magazine on Twitter or Instagram which will help in getting your work noticed. So, with a little more development in my own work, this is something that I will think about in future illustrations, especially for once I have left college as I want to keep the ball rolling with my work and progression, I don’t just want to stop and not have an idea of where to go once I’ve left the comforts of education.
The Illustrators
Audra Auclair
This is an artist that I have been following on social media for at least 5 years, I am in love with her work and style, and have purchased three of her prints and one of her books in the past. She is one of my favourite artists and she works at a level that I aspire to be at. I have learnt so much from her over the years as I have used her work as inspiration in countless projects, and I would say that she is one of the reasons in why I love drawing women, how my skills have progressed with drawing them over the years and how I still aspire to grow, now more so with anatomy.
Auclair’s style is a mixture of semi-realistic female characters, with surrealistic twists, including elements of fantasy/sci-fi and in the cover for the magazine, she has created a female figure with cyborg elements, such as head equipment, the body is formed of separate panels, but in the figures hip, you can see all of the mechanics within the character. I feel there is always a lot of thought that goes into this artists work, but Audra Auclair does have a good understanding of anatomy which she has developed over the years, so it does allow her to create these intricate and in-depth characters.
This artist is not afraid to work with colour and she often uses it to help in communicating a message or tone throughout her work. A common colour she uses is pink, but I believe she does have a good sense of colour theory, so she has a good sense of which colours would work well in a specific piece and how to best apply them within her pieces as to highlight key elements or communicate a specific message.
Audra Auclair has come to work a lot more traditionally over the years, using gouache, oil paints, watercolour, pencils, ink, posca markers etc, but in this magazine, she discusses her process when working digitally, I believe whilst working in Procreate on an Ipad, and she talks the reader through her design, almost teaching them from step to step. One day, maybe in one of my upcoming projects, I would like to follow her workshop to create my own work. I do not have Procreate, but I do feel this guide could also be applied to any software, or I know that I could work in a similar fashion to her through photoshop, so I would like to try to do so in the future, to see if I could potentially learn even more from her.
If you would like to follow the process yourself, I would highly recommend purchasing the magazine. If you would like to see more of the artists work, I have shown an Instagram post of hers below, but you can find her at AudraAuclairor she does have a website at www.audraauclair.com
Zelda Devon
Moving on to the next artist which I had not known so much about, and who I had found through the magazines FX Pose section, her name is Zelda Devon and she is a fulltime illustrator, who creates beautiful narrative based illustrations, which I feel have quite a vintage style to them, as they remind me of old carnival posters, with slightly burnt out tones, maybe thinking along the lines of Bioshock: Infinite, as I believe the game is set in the future with advanced technology, but still has western settings, architecture and posters/art.
I love this artists style as it is more painterly and loose, so her characters do show a sense of movement within the frame. I feel her colouring method and mark making techniques are expressive and I feel she does have a good idea of colour theory so her work does flow nicely and it is appealing to the eye.
I believe I have worked with similar techniques to this artist in my own work, but I have not been able to get my own to a high standard that I have come to expect within my work. So, with this artist as inspiration, I would like to experiment with these methods further, as I have now seen that this artist has been able to use these techniques and methods to a professional standard, so I do have more confidence that I may be able to do so as well with more practice and development.
Again, I have shown an Instagram post from the artist below, but if you would like to see more of her work, you can find her at ZeldaDevon.Art and she also has a website at zeldadevon.com
Overall Opinion
In comparison to other art based magazines that I have read in the past, such as Juxtapoz, I do feel this one suits my own personal interests and work more and I was surprised that it is more informative, in the sense that it does have workshops that you can follow along with (if you have the programs/materials) and can learn from in the long run. So as well as having interviews with current well-established artists that you can take inspiration from, the magazine also introduces you to new artists, ones you may not have heard of before but will potentially take more inspiration from in the future.
Once I feel I have improved my work and skill enough, I do feel I will come back to this magazine and potentially try to get my work noticed by them on social media, as having your work within the magazine would be such an amazing opportunity as you would be getting more publicity from artists with similar interests and/or work processes, and you could potentially get noticed by more clients. I feel if you were to get into the magazine, it could be the first stepping stone of many, one day potentially managing to get in Audra Auclair’s spot, designing a cover and discussing my own process of its creation to the readers.
If you are an artist, working traditionally or digitally, or if you have an interest in fantasy or Sci-Fi themes, I would definitely recommend ImagineFx, as I do feel it has the power to inspire and inform their readers, and I do feel you can also learn a new technique or two from it, whether digital or traditional.
Bibliography
Auclair, A. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.audraauclair.com/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].
ImagineFX. (2019) March, (117).
Auclair, A. (2019). Render a Surreal Sci-Fi Character. ImagineFX, (171), pp.62-67.
Carter, D. (2019). Create surreal characters with ImagineFX. [Blog] ImagineFX. Available at: https://www.creativebloq.com/news/create-surreal-characters-with-imaginefx [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].
Devon, Z. (2019). [online] Available at: http://zeldadevon.com/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].
List of Figures.
Melon.R 