Jason Raish Illustration Blog: December 2010

Movie Inspiration - Tarsem Singh's "The Fall"
Monday, December 13, 2010

The Fall is directed by Tarsem Singh. The film was shot on 26 locations over 18 countries. This is an unbelievably beautiful movie. Is it cheating to use the most exotic and beautiful locations in the world as your set? If so then its ok with me. Singh funded this movie himself, risked everything he owned, so its his baby and it shows. Ebert is all up on this movie and i usually agree with the guy. The child actress Catinca Untaru was great and was an excellent choice. This movie is more style than substance but what an amazing style it is. If you're an artist or a lover of vast, beautiful, sweeping landscapes then you've got to see this movie. Excellent camera movements, cinematography, composition, color, and all that technical stuff. The guy is an artist. I'm gonna make it to that blue city of Jodhpur someday!

the kind of compositions that i dream about. I wish i had this kind of space to work with in my illustrations.

i know this is framed and all but its still amazing that there is a wall of sand this tall somewhere in the world.

Jodhpur, the blue city, India

also India somewhere

Posted byJason Raish at 6:26 AM 1 comments

Labels: Movie Inspiration

Phobias Book Singapore
Thursday, December 02, 2010

A big 20" x 20" illustration for Kult design agency in Singapore. Its for a book about fears. my assigned fear was Gephydrophobia - (Fear of crossing bridges). Some people with this affliction imagine monsters under the bridges they must cross. I thought this would a great time to illustration some Japanese themed stuff i've been wanting to draw. this illo almost didnt happen. That bridge took like 8 hours to complete and i had to do it all over again because the photoshop file got corrupted when i was halfway done with the whole illustration! then my keyboard stopped working and more time was wasted finding the fix for that. This is acrylic paint, pencil, japanese patterned paper, chinese ink, and photoshop. I used a sponge for the tree leaves and moss. What a monster it was completing this. I'm sorry to say I logged 60+ hours on this one.

I have seen all this stuff while living in Japan, except for the monsters of course. Jizo are little stone statues that are the protectors of travellers and children. they often are decorated with red clothing. Ravens are bad omens. There is a whole encyclopedia of Japanese monsters (Yokai). Here are 6 (and a raven, so i guess this continues my Japanese crow series too). They are all based on the original Japanese design but with my twist of course. I sourced some real life disturbing looking animals for some of these. The melting face guy in the back is based on a blob fish (truly disturbing). The red oni is based on a Chinese girl in my Japanese class hahaha. the bug eyed furry guy is based on a Tarsier (some kind of monkey with huuuuge eyes). The guy on the upper left is a Hitotsume-kozo (one eyed monster that resembles a bald Buddhist priest)

an umi bozu (sea monster)

a Suushi Nuppeppo (animated lump of decaying human flesh), a Kijimuna (a forest sprite from Okinawa). All Yokai have crazy stories that are super strange and intersting to me as a westerner, for example the Kijimuna bug-eyed monster on the right, here is an excerpt "a kijimuna may offer to carry a human on it's back as it leaps through the mountains and over the seas. The kijimuna dislike people passing gas on their backs, however, and will immediately throw the human off their backs, no matter where they were at the moment."

Seen here is a kappa (turtle like thing that will do bad things to you but has a hole in his head with water in it so if you bow to him he must bow to you therefore losing the water in his head and disabling him so you can run away), an oni (demon/ogre, you throw beans at people wearing these masks on setsubun day)

awesome japanese papers i found at various stores for the kimono.

and one final thing you didn't want to see. After 3 days of not shaving and not very much hygiene I was dead but had met the deadline. why do i always make these things so complex so i have to work 16 hrs a day on them?