Dave McKean and my 'Man of Moons'

 I think Dave Mckean's work is haunting me. 

I mean they're everywhere I look. I must really be drawn to his illustrations because somehow, a peculiarly large amount of my favourite works are designed by him. 

From MirrorMask 2005 (one of my favourite films) to The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman (a book I love), his work is always there!

 If it sounds like I'm complaining, I assure you I'm not.

From what I have observed, his work seems to be a beautiful marriage between surrealism and cubism using mixed media. One of my favourite elements of his style is his clever use of collage to create texture while not making his pieces too 'busy'.

 This below is an interpretation of Mckean's distinctive style.  

I played around with the different elements of his work and created my own piece from it.

I normally don't name my digital paintings or paintings in general but I think this one just had to have one. 

I call it, Man of Moons and The Little Prince.

I wasn't really trying to draw anything in particular when I started off and was just experimenting with brushes and colours.

Somehow, however, a story appeared in the random characters and I loved it.  

Edward Gorey and his wonderfully dark world

I stumbled across Gorey's work a couple years ago and along the way his name somehow slipped my mind. His work however didn't. Especially his creepy alphabet with children and unfortunate events.

Both a writer and an illustrator, I really admire his gothic Victorian style and strange dark tales.

I've always thought his style was done with wood etchings but was pleasantly surprised that it was just pen and ink.

Pleasantly because it means that I can experiment with the style a lot more conveniently than I had previously thought.

 I love the contrast of having detailed backgrounds while leaving his characters quite simple. Usually with plan white faces and simple lines for their features. Even their clothes are generally kept quite simple.

I was working on an idea over the holiday for a project and really started to get excited about it but still wasn't sure about what style I wanted to explore.

Maybe this might be a good one?? Maybe in colour??

Here are two versions of a drawing I did as an interpretation of his work:

Having in no shadow in this one keeps it simple and to me kind of implies he's running away into the woods on his own terms.

This one however, is completely different to me.

He's scared and running to get away while heading straight into the woods.

Most likely not on his own terms.