Alberto Mielgo is a Spanish illustrator living in London. He is a masterful painter who has an astonishing ability to create a kind of reductive literal realism that appears almost photographic. Here’s a small section…
… of a much larger illustration Mielgo created for an advertising client. On his blog he explains how he did six comprehensive roughs before this version of the image was settled on… and then, after execution, the project died!
Mielgo hints at his work on many major film and video game productions… but unfortunately, because of corporate secrecy, he is often unable to share much of that work with us. He had to take down an example of his contribution to Beatles Rockband, but was allowed to show a sketch from a Dorian Grey film project.
Alberto has also done some comics projects. This is a page from a story he drew for Image’s Popgun #3.
Illustration, concept art, comics… *whew!* … and somehow Mielgo finds the time to do fine art gallery painting as well!
I’m generally not much of a fan of 3D animation modified to look hand-drawn, but this trippy short/Nike ad, Onwards shows that it can be done well. It’s the work of toy designer James Jarvis and Richard Kenworthy of Shynola.
There’s a new one out for all you kitsch-mavens, advertising art gurus, and mid-20th-century style hounds. Warren Dotz and designer Masud Husain have just released Ad Boy: Vintage Advertising With Character, a compendium of cool brand identities culled from what must be a spectacular collection of ephemera. Although it is a followup to his previous book Meet Mr. Product: The Art of the Advertising Character, Warren says this one is quite different. Although I haven’t yet got my hands on a real live copy, there is a preview available on Amazon. The table of contents shows the book is arranged by subject matter: Mechanical Men, Scottish Plaid, Genies, etc.
I asked Warren if he had information on the creators of all these mascots, but he said it’s so hard to trace that he doubts if he has even 10% of the designers’ names. If any of you old retired illustrators and designers are the culprits and you read this blog – gee, a lot of us advertising and illustration historians would sure like to know who did what and when!
The doctor named Seuss is well known for books
But here are some other pics worthy of looks:
Some ad art for sugar, some ad art for clocks,
Some ad art for shaving cream inside a box,
Some ad art for bug spray, some ad art for beer
To heck with this rhyming. Go on, now, click here!
Update:
Tim in the comments says, “wait there is more!”
“You mustn’t forget Geisel’s take on the war!“
Well, whuddya know–looks like fellow Retro Kid Leif Peng got Boing Boinged. And it’s worth it, too. Previously mentioned Leif has accumulated a nice collection of mid-century Ads w/ Cartoon Elements. Go there and see just how keen living was during that time.
Oh, and be sure to sniff around the rest of Leif’s photosets. He’s got over a hundred sets featuring many classic illustrators (big and not-so big), such as Al Parker, Bob Peak, and Robert Fawcett. It’s like stumbling upon a virtual illustrative library. Organized alphabetically, of course. Go and know your past.
I stumbled onto Joel Solomon’s humble little collection of Logomen this morning and got inspired. I mean, just look at this weird wiener stuff and the cute little Reddy Kilowatt clip art. As mentioned over here at Diamond Galleries, Reddy was a popular mascot, inspiring many toys and comic books. He’s one of my favourites, because, you know, he’s made of pure, deadly electricity and is targeted at children. Reddy and Packy did not, however, make it onto this list of the century’s top ten ad icons alongside such fun-O-rama stalwarts as Ronald McDonald, the Jolly Green Giant (I prefer Sprout, personally), and the Pillsbury Doughboy… which leads me off onto another icon tangent…
dePlastilina is the home of Irma Gruenholz. We’ve covered a lot of artists here on Drawn!, and a lot of different media, but (apart from a few Aardman posts) I don’t think we’ve ever covered an artist who works in clay. The site doesn’t have a lot of work, but what there is is very nice.
Pintlings is a charming little ad for Tennant’s lager animated by the folks at Aardman. You can read more about how the piece was created using a combination of stop-motion animation and good old-fashioned puppetry at my favourite new blog: PuppetVision.
I’ve seen this little guy here in Toronto, and always wondered about him. Thankfully Diego sent in this link, and cleared it all up: Where is Lepos? It’s street art meets CG meets the travelling garden gnome. (Interesting note: the word Kilmer in the background is part of the mysterious Val Kilmer tagging caper)
I’m such a book junkie.
Well, whuddya know–looks like fellow 
I stumbled onto Joel Solomon’s humble little collection of 
dePlastilina is the home of 
