Koren Shadmi » Uncategorized

Disappearing Forests

admin — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:15:20 +0000

This drawing was done for an article in The Progressive, written by a lady who’s been collecting notes for the past 75 years about the various changes in the environment surrounding her. She discusses the negative and positive influences of man, and sadly mourns the disappearance of the forest and the animals inhabiting it. Couldn’t help thinking of Princess Mononoke when I drew this.

Mind Games

admin — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:07:55 +0000

This was a fun little assignment for Tennis Magazine. The article was discussing various methods of overcoming your opponent using different psychological manipulations which can be applied during game. I came up with a few sketches, and we ended up going with the clean and simple solution – where the silhouette of the head is filled with a brain hive of tennis balls.

The Pleasure Principle

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:23:37 +0000

This was a short turn around job for the israeli magazine Kalkalist. I was called on thursday to come up with sketches for sunday (work day in israel!) and finished illustration for tuesday. The article dealt with the psychological mechanism behind pleasure – what causes pleasure to be generated in the brain. I used the idea of a volume knob to create a conceptual solution and allowed myself to have subtle sexual expression on the girl’s face – though we don’t know for sure what’s causing the pleasure. Come tuesday morning I get a call from the designer – their main article was dropped and they are moving the ‘Pleasure’ article to the cover. they needed a quick cover image – to be done in a few hours. Since we didn’t have much time we decided to go with something iconic that will float in white space and will be in the same vain as the first illustration, fastest cover I ever worked on…

the inside illustration:

cover image:

Earth – Fragile Planet

admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:55:58 +0000

If your in New York this Friday come say hello at the Society of Illustrators, I will have one illustration up in this fantastic group show with tons of famous illustrators!
No time is more right for this show then now, when oil is still gushing out in the mexican gulf.
Earth Fragile Planet
Facebook Page

SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS
128 east 63 street new york city
friday, june 4th, 2010
6:00 pm

other hours:
tues 10 – 8 wed – fri 10 – 5 sat 12 – 4

Carnivore

admin — Sat, 29 May 2010 03:43:37 +0000

In between the minefield of illustration assignments I try to find time to write and draw comics – a place where I usually feel I can express myself more freely. Certain periods are more fertile then others depending on the amount of commissioned work I have and various other factors (for instance – I discovered that my descision to start playing video games again after a 7 year break did not help my level of productivity). In addition to working on self contained short comics I also try to conceive bigger stories. About two years ago I came up with a Vertigo-esque tale called ‘the Carnivore’ – the story of an obsessed food critic who adopts a young girl who looks exactly like his deceased wife. I developed a synopsis, drew a few pages and even made a book cover (below) for the pitch. Alas, nobody picked the bait and the project never got to the next stage.

Browsing through my hard drive the other day I stumbled over the folder with the story material and decided to post the illustration! The color scheme is inspired by a polish film poster from the 60’s or 70’s – I’ll post the image if I find it. I was going for a very nostalgic look since the story was a sort of Hitchcock homage. I was aiming towards an image with high levels of negative space, with the prospect of the book title having plenty of room to float in. Here’s the result:

Sketchbooks

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 21:07:23 +0000

Here’s an assortment of some recent drawings from my sketchbooks. A few figure models from the Society of Illustrators sketch night… and some other doodles.

Beauty and the Law

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:44:41 +0000

A few weeks ago I was called up by the Washington Post to do the opening illustration for an article about beauty and discrimination. The writer maintains that throughout the US there is an overall phenomenon of discrimination against people who are unattractive. You will have more chances to be hired and get a better position if your are an attractive individual, while overweight or unattractive folks might be assessed negatively due to their looks and not their qualifications. The author thinks that the law should address this problem and there should be ways to protect against discrimination based on looks. I personally do not agree with the author’s idea, I think that a law of this sort would be kind of silly – its human nature to prefer more attractive looks and you can’t fight it with the law, there is already too many laws correcting ‘discrimination’ that are bordering silliness but this one would really be down right senseless. but that’s just my opinion. Anyhow, personal opinions can’t play a part when doing a job and regardless – the article provided a really fun subject to work with.

We ended up going with an image that shows a workers discontent with her workplace’s beauty biased choices. I decided to contrast sharp square shapes with the rounds curves of the observing figures and also to contrast the colors. I usually prefer not to use text in my images but I think in this case it helped bring the concept into light.

Hector

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 00:53:36 +0000

‘Hector Is a Robot’ was a story that’s I’ve worked on about a year ago with my friend Ray Sohn. I wrote a rough draft and gave it to Ray who in turn interpreted it according to his own fancy. I thought the story would fit Ray’s sensibilities, and I’ve been wanting to do a collaboration with him for awhile. I didn’t see pencils, just finished art, which was surprising because his visual and narrative interpretation of the story is so radically different than what I would have done if I were to draw it. We did some editing following that, with a few additional panels and pages drawn. I wanted Ray to go the extra mile and do another set of revisions, with a new ending in mind, but alas, that never happened. Even though, I am happy with the result – a very strange yet striking story with some unique visuals. This is very very NSFW, so please be advised.

Without further ado, I present you with Hector:
Download the story (6.1mb pdf)

Ebb & Flow

admin — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:23:27 +0000

I came up with this concept a few months ago, while staying in Gig Harbor, Washington. During my stay I got really interested in the abundance of life that kept washing up on the shore; mussels, oysters and barnacles, small crabs laying under rocks and so on. My initial thought was to draw two embracing figures coming out of the waters covered with various sea life to the point where they are unrecognizable. I held off though, feeling that something was missing from the rough sketch I made. Other projects kept coming in and I had to put this idea in my mental drawer. A few months later, I came up with the solution, only one of the figures will be obscured by sea remnants, the other will be bare – a contrast to the first. I also changed the angle, putting the girl high above and the other figure coming from below adding more tension to the composition.

The drawing and even more so the colors, were inspired by the japanese wooblock print artist – Kawase Hasui. In his prints there is often an impression of nature and man’s mark in it, at a certain time of a day or season of the year, I feel like if there was such a thing as visual haikus – he’d be the undisputed master.

A print of Ebb & Flow is available in the printstore!

New Print – Jane D.

admin — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:24:11 +0000

There’s a new print available in the print store. The drawing was inspired by an old pulp novel cover and was a personal un-commissioned project which I worked on during some off time. The final art was inked with a japanese nib (I usually use a #3 brush) – it’s a great tool for getting a more detailed and controlled look.

The first 10 people to order the print will get an additional ’surprise’ signed mini print for free! so get her while she’s hot…