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I’ve gone into a non creative mode over the Christmas break, partly due to a busy schedule, partly due to being ill with the yearly winter flu and not feeling like expending the brain energy required to be creative. My non productive modes tend to result in lots of web surfing and a non intellectual frame of mind lends to picture gazing, in particular at the delights of artwork uploaded to the amazingly varied deviantart.com. DeviantART is a community similar to Flickr but with a much larger focus on artwork rather than photography. Here are a few beautiful samples I found today…

On the Grass by lastscionz

Train Station by hideyoshi

Dark City by Audic

The nice thing about the DeviantART site is that it allows the artists who create the work to also sell prints through the site, a feature sorely lacking in Flickr. I’ve often thought that Flickr and DeviantART should also provide a means to allow people scouting for images to put in money offers for the images commercial use, the reduced barrier to making an offer then might help prevent a lot of the unpermissioned image use that occurs. I myself recently had an image from Flickr used in a Hong Kong newspaper without my permission, I only found out due to a local HK reader spotting it and sending me a message.

Another site i frequently visit just to browse around and admire those more talented than myself is conceptArt.org. This community is the hangout of a lot of the game industries concept artists who do a good job of doling out sound advice to budding and professional artists alike, there are a lot of ‘in the works’ portfolios on display of fantastic quality. This would certainly be one of my first ports of call when hiring any concept artists for game development.

DieselPunk Car by PanzerCobra

And last but not least is a more recent discovery (for me at least the Solar Voyager site, which houses an artist community focused on producing some amazing Eve’esque space art.

Orbit by Gary Tonge