Red Nose Studios art -- tilt-shifty fantastic illustration/photos

Earlier today, I blogged about my story The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away, just published on Tor.com. Tor commissioned a dynamite illustration for the story from Chris Sickels of Red Nose Studios. On Megan's suggestion, I spent some time checking out the other art at Red Nose and discovered a captivating wonderland of beautiful and surreal tilt-shift-y illustrations and photos that tickled every bone in my body. Red Nose Studios (Thanks, Megan!)

[#1 posted by Bouncy Bouncy , August 6, 2008 2:42 PM]

The influence of Dave McKean is so ubiquitous isn't it?

[#2 posted by ChuckEye , August 6, 2008 2:53 PM]

Indeed, both tilty and shifty! (There's probably even a bit of Sheimflug going on too...)

Though to be fair, it's the quality of the models that really makes these work, more than the orientation of the lens plane in relation to the film back. (And this coming from a guy who really likes shallow depth of field.)

[#3 posted by clothingoptional , August 6, 2008 3:34 PM]

I was happy to see the Red Nose Illustration on this story. HOW Magazine did a nice interview/profile of Chris Sickels some time back. Amazing work with Sculpy.

http://www.howdesign.com/article/chrissickels/

[#4 posted by Bender , August 6, 2008 4:04 PM]

Very nice work. I wonder if he gets to come up with the concepts? That's the fun part.

[#5 posted by teckels , August 6, 2008 6:58 PM]

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the image in this post, was that it is eerily "Edgar Allen Poe" like.

I love Poe!

[#6 posted by Anonymous , August 6, 2008 8:32 PM]

These photos aren't "tilt-shifty"--they are actual closeups of small models with a normal depth of field which is, of course, what "tilt-shifty" is trying to look like. That's like describing the giant antique machines in the Smithsonian's Centennial 1876 exhibition are "steam-punkish".

And yes, Red Nose's models are -extremely- cool. Whenever they turn up in IT magazines I always love them way more than the articles they're illustrating!

[#7 posted by rednose , August 7, 2008 7:03 AM]

Dave McKean indeed. his Mr. Punch graphic novel came out when i was in college. you can see some of my favorite details from the Weak and Strange piece here:

http://www.rednosestudio.com/blog.html

thanks to Cory for some great material.

as far as 'Scheimpflug'.. most all my work is shot on 4x5. tilt and shift are an integral part of taking the 'scale out of my work. and besides when something miniature is a little out of focus is tends to be more believable...

chris

[#8 posted by Megan Lane Patrick , August 7, 2008 8:07 AM]

If you really like Chris's work, you should check out his book: The Look Book. It's entirely his concept and the execution is flawless.