The Brilliant creative team blog

Martin Schoeller is a New York based photographer hailing from Germany whose style is distinguished by similar treatment of all subjects whether they are celebrities or unknown, capturing them with a slightly embellished visual representation of their personality traits.

It seems that there is nothing Martin can’t get people to do which ultimately ends in a fun insight into the subject.

His most recognizable work are his portraits, shot with similar lighting, backdrop, and tone. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Outside Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, and Vogue.

Ji Yong Ho is a Korean artist who uses tires to create new sculptures that show the material’s possible mutations, reborn as a whole new other form of life. His works vary from an 11-inch-tall dog to a 10-foot long shark.

There are many more showcased on his website from animals to hybrid animal/humans to total mutants check it out.

This week conceptual designer and illustrator Ralph McQuarrie past away. Even if you don’t know it, you will all have seen his work come to life on screen.

Ralph was the concept artist behind the original Star Wars trilogy, George Lucas commissioned Ralph to draw up some scenes from a space-fantasy script and ended up designing most of the main characters including Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and C-3PO. His artwork heavily influenced the film with Lucas taking a lot of reference from Ralph’s artwork when considering scenery, buildings and vehicles.

McQuarrie played the role of General Pharl McQuarrie in The Empire Strikes Back and he also appears in Echo Base on Hoth in the film’s opening sequence.

So not only did he get to design Star wars, and star in it but an action figure in his likeness as "General McQuarrie" was produced for Star Wars 30th anniversary... how awesome is that.

Star Wars is not Ralph’s only triumph, he also worked on the original Battlestar Galactica TV series, E.T., Cocoon, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, batteries not included and Jurassic Park.

Cheers for all the beautiful illustration and inspiration Ralph.

Nikita Nomerz is a Russian street artist who travels around local cities in search of derelict buildings to deface with, erm... faces.

His work isn’t restricted just to this but it really is quite unique, at least to me it is. He paints on anything from water towers to dilapidated buildings and beyond.

Check out more of his work.

Graffiti guru Above has been one of my top five favorite graffiti artists for the last decade not just because we share a common love of using chunky-ass arrows but the shear vibrancy of his work that has kept me looking out for him. Apart from his signature arrows stencil, the art is full of color and manically controlled backgrounds which almost pay homage to the 80’s, plus he paints lots of hot chicks.

He, just like King Robo and Banksy prefers to keep his identity a mystery but he has a
website, a book and even a wikipedia page.

Happy new year everyone... so back to work and back on the hunt for more awesome stuffs to inspire, excite and generally distract you from what you are supposed to be doing.

I have found some really talented work by Laura Bifano who takes the focal subject of her paintings and throws a modern twist at it, turning the subject into blocks with almost an over sized, disorienting pixel like effect.

They have a hallucinatory quality to them which I really enjoy plus, it reminds of that Simpsons episode... you know the one where homer eats the mega hot chilly and trips balls.

View more of Lauras fantastic collection here.

i’m a huge fan of Street art and Graffiti, It’s sheer rebellious undertone attracted me as a kid. The large and often unusual canvas, the strong colours, experimental typography and of course the complete illegality of it all invigorated my need to draw on things that I wasn’t supposed to... personally I blame my parents for going nuts if i ever got close to a wall whilst brandishing a fist full of Crayola’s.

Over the years I have drawn on, painted, splattered, scratched and melted pretty much everything from 12" vinyl to a Sky dish to a car bonnet!

It’s great to see a project like the WCP (White Canvas Project) happen from the guys at Supremebeing, a band of brothers style gathering to produce art on abnormal surfaces.

I have also just come across the artwork of two brothers form Germany, QGRK and Nerd who paint together and recreate characters they made up during their childhood... they seem to love a good fox!

You can check out their portfolios by visiting their website www.lowbros.de

OK, this may be two month old news but it’s the first time I have seen this, how I don’t know, guess I should buy a newspaper once in a while.

So an artist/painter & decorator in Sofia, Bulgaria has vandalized a monument depicting Russia’s Red army "liberation" of Bulgaria from the Nazi’s during world war 2, causing a lot of of debate and controversy only to end up being dubbed "The Bulgarian Banksy"... doh!

My history isn’t the best but I’m pretty sure the Bulgarians were allies to the Germans during WWII and that no German soldiers were stationed in Bulgaria... so how the country was liberated, I honestly don’t know? I do know that the Russian’s "moved in" for a few decades of what some would call oppression.

Some people will be for it and others against it, I for one don’t see a problem with the art since the scene being depicted never really took place, in fact I find the irony of the original statue to be quite creative in a propagandistic type of way. I do however feel bad for the soldier that’s been painted to look like Wonder Woman, just not cool.

Anon quote: "Monuments to Russia’s dominance over Bulgaria are fair game to graffiti artists these days."

I caught this advert yesterday and chuckled all the way through. The advert from Deutschinc involves a mini Darth Vader attempting to use the ’Force’ at home and on a Volkswagen car. The timing of the little Darth is impeccable and his disappointment/surprise (0:46) really makes this advert what it is, brilliant!

My first blog post of the new year and to be honest, it’s a good one!

This is the work of Cheong-ah Hwang, a Korean based artist who takes the paper and card I would normally use to draw on, print on or mock up with and turns it into amazing multi-layered pieces of artwork. Its not just the technique she applies to her work that is impressive but the sheer amount of detail that goes into each piece.

You can check out more of her work on her Flickr page.