[Awetopsy]

Holy Stink!!!!

http://www.toypaintings.com/gallery.htm

these are apparently acrylic paintings of toys... but they look like photos. No sign of brush work at all.

unbelievable.

[Basement bound]

You know I looked through them all and some of them I might be streached to believe. Only a few though, the rest I am like, I DON'T THINK SO!! Mostly because there is a inconsistance here. There seems to be no progression from 1983 to present. I would have to see them, to believe them.

JA

[roundeye]

yeah, its like a novelty and no more. how could you paint tin toys for years on end? i think id end up killing myself. definitley a job for someone with zero creativity, and for that i can appreciate it no longer than it takes for said novelty to wear off.

[Awetopsy]

still some great brush work.

[Arm Head]

http://www.toypaintings.com/still_lifes.htm

It most probably is true that they are paintings, but I just can't get my brain to believe that they are paintings

[pixelsoldier]

Amazing, isn't it? He is very well known - and yes, they ARE paintings. Not 'probably' paintings.

[[Shizo]]

Check this out..
A digital photo is taken, and given to two people

1st person makes a copy of original file and gets.. an exact copy of an original photo!

2nd person loads up PS, zooms in real close, and on a new layer starts copying the photo pixel by pixel. Eyeballing or color-picking each pixel and placing one just like the original one on a new layer.
In about 2 months he's finished and has an identical piece as the first guy.

No point here, just an example that i thought was interesting.

[Jelo]

Haha!!! a living xerox machine and a very good one too but maybe he should concentrated on duplicating money instead. =)

[Rat]

This guy has waaay too much time on his hands.

[Freddio]

everyone says that any artist is able to acomplish photorealism, sure but to this extent?

if anyone says this guy has no talent then they are just kidding themselves.

but then again he has different refined skills to other artists (he just focuses on slavishly copying a photograph and he does this with amazing proficency) and therefore doesn't make him better than most of the elite artists around the world.

Hi work is simple, plain, technical, which is really rather boring. but it is through this photorealistic aproach that he is making a statement.

but it looks AWESOMEeew1#!@$#!

heh

[tyron]

poor guy...

[V Shane]

I don't see the point. Maybe if he was employed a digital matte painter for Restaurant commercials.

Well it is STILL LIFE

Whaqt do they call Ponds...Still Water..stagnant

I am so greatful I failed still life in High School.........FANTASY..SCI FI!!!!

[ZippZopp]

his work is very amazing....i'm quite fascinated by this sort of work. Ive tried to paint with oils and acrylics while eliminating all brush work and its very very difficult. a few other artists are amazing like this too...check out work by Richard Estes and also Ralph Goings, they are both pretty amazing!

[mjmcchesney]

They're all paintings. This guy is very well-known for his hyper-realism. He works from photos, though, and thus there is a flatness to the majority of his work - it looks like a photo that's been painted. So, take that as you will...but yes, they're all done by hand, and no, it's not a farce.

[ June 28, 2002: Message edited by: mjmcchesney ]

[Drunken Monkey]

Its amaizing how realistic it is, but the subject matter is really really boring...

[the_monkey]

whats with all the negitive posts?
id love to have that much skill, regardless if its repetitive and mechanical.

yes the pics are boring, but so what, the guys freaking talented.

[[Shizo]]

It just depends what you consider talent.
the_monkey considers the exact copying of a photo with paintbrush a skill, while i consider having new concepts and creative ideas (as well as knowing how to put it down) a skill. Different people different things.

[Tom Luth]

Fascinating. Seems to be a contemporary version of the "New Realists" of the late 60s, such as Don Eddy. The big difference seems to be scale. The New Realists (sometimes called Super Realists) painted HUGE paintings. The first Don Eddy I saw was while living in Hawaii in '66, of a rat with its head in a vice having diodes implanted in its brain. The painting was something like 10 x 12 ft. Quite an impact, particularly on a little kid!

Aside from the impressive ability to mimick a photo so well, I've found most of the work boring. Chuck Close's later work, however, evolved into some incredibly exciting spin-offs from his original direction that I very much enjoy.

[Tom Luth]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddio:
everyone says that any artist is able to acomplish photorealism, sure but to this extent?

if anyone says this guy has no talent then they are just kidding themselves.

---

I suppose that's where it can become a debate. Certainly, there is an incredible discipline and dedication involved; a skill that had to be refined and honed, and demanding of remarkable patience. I won't try to debate the issue of talent, beyond stating my own preference for works that reveal the hand of the artist, through brush strokes, arbitrary marks, gesture, etc.

[Andromeda]

There is most definitely SKILLS there, so dont kid yourself .. the guy is good ...

You wanna paint well ? you wanna draw well ? every artist will tell you to start from still life .. draw from life.
this guy does just that ! and how !

Like nearly everyone else here, i think his subject matter is nothing more than eye-candy.
They're so boring =\ ...

but imagine this guy painting an Orc warchief, or a babe with guns or something ... imagine him doing stuff that we would do ...

anyway maybe he loves still life .. who knows.
maybe he has paintings of demons and out of this world cities that he never exibited ...

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: Andromeda[*] ]

[Basse_Ex]

Very, very skillfull shit. No doubt. But, you know.... we've all seen the hyper-realists before. At least I have. But this is very good hyper-realism.

But... the subject matter... That's the really good stuff. TOYS!!! TOYS!!! TOYS!!!!!! WOHOOO!!!!! Hyper-realism is so boring when it does people, but toys, oh them sweeet toys, what a perfect thing to combine with hyper-realism. Splendid!

[Lunatique]

I think the negative posts are not about the subject stricly. It't more about copying photos like a human zerox machine--no imagination involved. The novelty of the idea wears off real quick. Why do it again and again when the artist has already proven he/she can reproduce a photo exactly?

[[Shizo]]

Does that guy have an email? Cause i'd ask him to make me a wall-sized copy of the followind pic



And Lunatique is just jelous.. hehe joke.,

[Bone Dry Mcfly]

Really amazing work... This guy is very skilled and talented.

I find most of the negative posts very hipocritical, you talk about how he is lacking creativity and the subject matter is dull. While most of you slobber and drool over any mechanical women with a huge rack fighting off grotesque looking creatures. The amount of paintings\drawings here (on this forum) that have to do with guns or action girls must be at least %90. And you go and downplay this guy's work because it deals with toys. In my opinion it's a much more interesting subject matter than super bitch from planet who gives a shit fighting off chewbacca look-a-likes.

[zaar]

I find it highly amusing that this dudes technical painting abilities are waaay up there, but he uses them to copy photos that aren't very good to begin with...
Maybe it some kind of artistic statement� He might be doing it just to annoy people. Or people pay him lots to do it.

[Loki]

[Hands Luna the Golden Bowl of Absolute Agreement(tm)]

[Basse_Ex]

Maybe he just likes toys.

Orc warlords and space-sluts don't seem naturally creative to me. Fantasy and sci-fi art has it's own weird language that most people follow very strictly. It becomes interesting first when there's a special use of that language, or a succesful breaking of it's laws. And I really like to think that creative things should always be interesting.

These days, we've seen everything. Images are tossed at us from every direction. All we do is copy things from way back in our memory.

What this guy does, is force the viewer to look at familliar objects in a slightly new way. It's wouldn't have be the same if it were photos. It wouldn't be the same if it were sculptures. It wouldn't be the same if it was just the toys. This is painting. And if you like toys, I can't see any reason you shouldn't like these.

I don't know if it's creative. But it's good craftmanship, it's fresh, it's nice to look at, and it's toys.

Could anyone really ask for more?

[Lunatique]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Loki:
[Hands Luna the Golden Bowl of Absolute Agreement(tm)]

---

Holy shit! I've never seen anything like it!

So pretty.... *stares*

[edraket]

If these were photo's they would be mediocre.
I don't see how copying them with paint improves that.

[James Bradford]

Basse_Ex: Absolutely right! I couldn't have thought or said it better myself.