Australian artist Ashley Wood does some incredible work. He blends traditional painting technique with digital imagery to create some truly imaginative scenes. His world may be dark and ominous, but for some reason I want to find myself inside. I want to fight alongside the World War Robot. I want to trudge through the snow with a giant metallic companion. I’m sure my sentiment is just the result of seeing such unbelievably creative work.
Be sure to check out Tom Muller’s excellent book design for Wood’s Popbot. Dedicating the rest of my night to tracking down an actual copy. (Muller also designed Wood’s website.)
One of my favourite artists. I adore the work he’s done for the Metal Gear games.
I’ve been a huge fan of Wood for a number of years now. His work is truly inspirational. On top of the awesome painting he also produces a lot of self-published books of his art (or at least he used to) that he would sell in his online store http://www.bambaland.com. I love everything about his style
Saw this guys work long time ago, really awesome.
Ashley wood, has been a huge inspiration for me not only for his painting and illustration, but his story of becoming an illustrator and painter. He briefly talks about it in one of his earlier books. Great post Alex.
@ Garret
You have any more info on his path to becoming an illustrator/painter?
I read he was in advertising for a short while but can’t dig up anymore than that.
Great art. It looked familiar but I couldn’t place where I’ve seen this style till the first commenter mentioned Metal Gear and then it all came together. I love this style of art. There’s so much motion in this simple, unrefined way. Would love to have one of the first three as a large print.
Ashley’s work on the Spawn annuals, maybe 8 years back, was absolutely mind blowing. Makes some of his more recent stuff look less dark and ominous too…
I adore ashley wood! I even have a popboot book autographed my him. Great reminder! thx n love from lisbon, Portugal
Good luck tracking that book down! The original softcover I designed sold out years ago. There is a hardcover version floating around but thats not my design (Ash remixed it).
For those interested, I also designed the WWR logo for Ash
http://www.hellomuller.com/work/2007/wwr.html
(and much, much more)
Drat! Thanks for the heads up Tom. I’ll search for the softcover. Will not give up!
(the WWR logo is one of my favorites)
Wow really cool, I get a kind of Cowboy Bebop feel from it.
best be careful in this area…
you’re likely to get addicted to his amazing robots, like me.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/wwr/pool/page5/
I just woke up from a dream, its was about me and a bunch on my friends stranded on an abandoned island. The dream ended with a sunset and than i woke up feeling depressed.
Listening to music via your blog now 🙂
cheers from Penang Island , Malaysia
Love his work, although he rarely uses computer techniques with his paintings these days, opting for a purer approach.
He’s currently doing a drawing a day through December on his blog
http://ashleybambaland.blogspot.com/
and he makes absolutely the best toys in the world, his company, 3A, is thing with what they are doing
http://www.threeaonline.com/blog/
Tim –
I am shaky on some details, that’s why i was reluctant to share, but here is the gist. He was in school to be a graphic designer. He told his faculty he wanted to do illustration. They laughed at him and said he sucked. He said screw you (might have dropped out, can’t remember) and taught himself to draw paint and illustrate, and has a remarkable career.
Tim —
He’s never worked in advertising as such, but he does get commissioned quite regularly to do ad work.
Garrett —
Thats kind of the public version he puts in his books, but yeah, he basically ditched graphic design in order to become an artist.
I just bought this book, it is awesome. It just draws you in. You don’t just look at the scene he creates, you feel it.
I have always liked his work, but much of WWR owes to the influence of the amazing Kow Yokoyama and the world of Machinen Krieger/ma.k/SF3D