Artist Study: Ashley Wood

I felt that, before painting environment concepts, I needed to refine my skills in drawing loosely and to gain some experience in painting (both in general, and of environments specifically). To reach these outcomes I decided that I would perform a quickfire art study. 

I've chosen to look into the art of Ashley Wood, an Australian comic book artist, born in 1971, who was initially known for his work on the British 'Judge Dredd' comics. In 2006, Wood ended up collaborating with Hideo Kojima on the Metal Gear Solid franchise. He created a digital comic - 'Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel' - for the PSP and also produced cutscenes for Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. 


Wood was an obvious choice for me because I love his use of muted colour and his 'loose yet defined' style. As a fan of the Metal Gear Solid series, particularly of the story, his art added a lot of personality to the comics written for the series and his work feels quite personal to me.

Below are a few examples of his art, he does a lot of digital work but he also paints traditionally.



I have tried to quickly replicate one of his pieces to get a feel for his style; now that I've explored his art in this exercise I feel more comfortable to begin my own paintings.

References:

https://www.lambiek.net/artists/w/wood_ashley.htm
https://7174publishing.com/
http://www.worldofthreea.com/
https://www.threezerohk.com/
https://www.comics.org/credit/name/Ashley%20Wood/sort/chrono/
https://www.instagram.com/ashleywoodart/
https://kotaku.com/5845007/the-dark-moody-metal-gear-art-of-ashley-wood/
http://ashleybambaland.blogspot.co.uk/
https://callumcap.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/ashley-wood-palette-analysis/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAXnQZu2mTE