****non-genre Illustration/painting****

[jhagler]

Hello,

This is my first time to this forum. I spent some time just clicking on random threads to see what kind of stuff is posted. Some of the stuff I was just amazed by, especially when I saw how little time it took some of you. I've done some illustration for comics, but not for RPG's or video games, etc. Lately I've been doing a lot more gallery shows than illustration, but am always interested in learning more about art fields I'm not too educated about. I'm interested in seeing what kind of reaction my work gets on here. If you get a moment, please respond. . .and be honest, I've been around long enough not to jump off any bridges if you don't like it. I'd really kind of like to know, in your opinions, whether you think the sort of clients that some of you work with would be interested in the kind of work I do.

Please fill me with information.

Thanks for your time.

Josh Hagler
www.joshhagler.com
This image is called "Husk" which is now showing at the Urban Earth Gallery in Los Angeles.http://www.galleryculture.com/images/art_3_8_85500x500.jpg

[Shadowkiller]

Its hard to comment on these peaces of are because of the abstraction. I do see somethings, The lady left arm just cuts off at the elbow and disapeirs in the background and the mans head should be so tilted back to give him more of a looking at you effect like the womans head

[mtw]

You've got an interesting style. With the painting you've posted, I'd put the horizon lower so that it crosses the two people's bodies somewhere around the chests. This would create a + shape, which has strong visual appeal. It would emphasize the people more.

[Atomick]

I find this piece pretty compelling. Kinda like if you melted one of Odd Nerdrum's paintings on top of a Francis Bacon painting. :D

j/k

It's distressed, disturbing, and WAY open to interpretation. I got a dreamy but apocalyptic impression of the Old Testament for some reason! Damn Christians invading my subconscious!! :p

Let's see more,
-Atomick

[OLSEN]

Nice art on your webpage, although i would love to see some bigger pictures of your paintings as i feel there is a lot i miss when viewing them this small. Thanks for sharing.

[sparth]

wandering around your site is really a marvelous experience. your logic of color is plain great. impressive!

sparth

[jhagler]

Wow, thanks everyone for so much feedback. I guess this is a good place to post. I'll try to respond to everyone.

It looks like I probably posted something a little bit too non-commercial, that is, for the purposes and goals of what's this forum is going for. I'm interested to see how reactions might differ when I post some of my more illustration-oriented imagery. So that really answered my main question about whether the field of concept art would go for such work.

I was really excited to read that you got the religious subtext, even though there's nothing in the literal sense that would give that impression in the image alone. I try to stay away from the literal or the contrived one-liner. I grew up in the bible belt culture and changed when I got older. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the religious upbringing I had. When I made this particular painting, I was thinking back on the Mississippi floods in 93 and 94. The flood damage was incalcuable and minutes from my rural hometown. I enjoyed your reference to Bacon and Nerdrum, two highly influential artists for me, both perveyers of post apocolyptic environments, which is really what the flooding in the early nineties evoked. God's promise broken again since Noah's flood. I pictured myself as an old man having lived through a flood, an unexpected interruption, an uncontrollable disappiontment, and having nothing left except a wife you once loved, or who once loved you, or perhaps only a memory of a wife. Does it bring people closer together or just make them feel smaller, more insignificant? I can only ask the question.

As far as my webpage, I'm really happy anyone went to it. I'm a novice web designer and learned everything as I went. It was very long and frustrating but I learned a lot, since I knew nothing before. I agree that the images should be larger. But since they're laying in a flash document, I wouldn't want it to take longer to load. I used Flash to prevent theft and general misuse of the imagery, and also because I'd personally rather wait a few seconds for all to load so as to browse freely than to have to wait for each one. But, like I said I'm a web design novice and have a lot to learn.

Thanks again, everyone. If anyone here ever posts imagery, let me know where I can find it and I'll be sure to extend the same courtesy.

Josh

[jhagler]

Sparth,

I just went to your website. I'm blown away by your technique! It's really amazing. Please keep my email on your mailing list if you have one. I'm interested to know when your work is published and where I can get it.

Thanks,

Josh
joshhagler@yahoo.com

[king.cn]

iS GOOD!

[Zafio]

First of all must say I love the expressiveness of your work and agree with sparth about the color x).
Originally posted by jhagler
I'd really kind of like to know, in your opinions, whether you think the sort of clients that some of you work with would be interested in the kind of work I do.

As game artwork, Imho this kind of work would fit in a narrow range of games, because almost every game needs to be very "comercial" in all senses, but I think there is still that narrow range of games where developers would be interested in this kind of work.