Mattia is no less than magnificent. The way he viewed and felt this page always reminds me of a dreamlike feeling, the composition of the landscape sounds dreamlike, in a Lovecraftian way. The gray palettes, the slowness, the beach, the mist, the rocks, the eyes, the creature and the cloudy sky. It is an almost palpable synesthetic mosaic. And it comes, the same feeling as when I read The Night Ocean (1936) by R.H. Barlow with Lovecraft itself. There is an excerpt that might describe my feeling,
“Now that I am trying to tell what I saw I am aware of a thousand maddening limitations. Things seen by the inward sight, like those flashing visions which come as we drift into the blankness of sleep, are more lived and meaningful to us in that form than when we have sought to weld them with reality. Set a pen to a dream, and the color drains from it. The ink with which we write seems to dilute with something holding too much of reality, and we find that after all we cannot delineate the incredible memory.”
Honestly, I love these landscapes of nature with an unnatural object in the middle, the feeling of "strangeness from the unknown" coursing through your veins. Like the narrator of the aforementioned short story, he describes his mood for this as a sight of “brief hideousness and underlying filth of life,” the “lethargic fear…of the peering stars and of the enormous black waves that welcome to clasp [his] bones within them—the vengeance of all the indifferent, horrendous majesty of the night ocean.”
Yes, the dreamlike feeling is absolutely intentional. He did a beautiful option 2, which had equally gorgeous colors (we'll probably show this off at some point?) but less blue and to me it felt just a bit less mysterious and moody? So we went with this one.
Amazing quote, thank you for sharing that.
Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach Oregon (which our fictional coastal town from The Cull is loosely based on) is one of my favorite places on earth and for exactly why you mention above - it's this beautiful coastal landscape that is normal in all ways and then has this almost ALIEN rock jutting dramatically out of the water. It's truly like looking at real life science fiction before your eyes and I love it.
Hyper-realistic comic artists that also have cartooning skills kind of blow my mind. For the longest time it was realism vs. expressiveness, but this is both.
I'm in love with everything you're doing and the people you're bringing together right now - we are all so blessed to be getting to peep behind the curtain, thank you x
So I thought the promo image with the giant lobster in the background was a photo shopped picture. Beautiful work! Can’t wait to see this come together!!
Mattia is no less than magnificent. The way he viewed and felt this page always reminds me of a dreamlike feeling, the composition of the landscape sounds dreamlike, in a Lovecraftian way. The gray palettes, the slowness, the beach, the mist, the rocks, the eyes, the creature and the cloudy sky. It is an almost palpable synesthetic mosaic. And it comes, the same feeling as when I read The Night Ocean (1936) by R.H. Barlow with Lovecraft itself. There is an excerpt that might describe my feeling,
“Now that I am trying to tell what I saw I am aware of a thousand maddening limitations. Things seen by the inward sight, like those flashing visions which come as we drift into the blankness of sleep, are more lived and meaningful to us in that form than when we have sought to weld them with reality. Set a pen to a dream, and the color drains from it. The ink with which we write seems to dilute with something holding too much of reality, and we find that after all we cannot delineate the incredible memory.”
Honestly, I love these landscapes of nature with an unnatural object in the middle, the feeling of "strangeness from the unknown" coursing through your veins. Like the narrator of the aforementioned short story, he describes his mood for this as a sight of “brief hideousness and underlying filth of life,” the “lethargic fear…of the peering stars and of the enormous black waves that welcome to clasp [his] bones within them—the vengeance of all the indifferent, horrendous majesty of the night ocean.”
Yes, the dreamlike feeling is absolutely intentional. He did a beautiful option 2, which had equally gorgeous colors (we'll probably show this off at some point?) but less blue and to me it felt just a bit less mysterious and moody? So we went with this one.
Amazing quote, thank you for sharing that.
Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach Oregon (which our fictional coastal town from The Cull is loosely based on) is one of my favorite places on earth and for exactly why you mention above - it's this beautiful coastal landscape that is normal in all ways and then has this almost ALIEN rock jutting dramatically out of the water. It's truly like looking at real life science fiction before your eyes and I love it.
Hyper-realistic comic artists that also have cartooning skills kind of blow my mind. For the longest time it was realism vs. expressiveness, but this is both.
Mattia is the GOAT.
Every bts thing you share has me more and more excited!
Then IT'S WORKING! ;D
Love seeing the step-by-step on how these things are done! It’s incredible how talented Mattia is with the image lighting!
It's magical.
Catching up on my newsletters. This looks so fucking good!
I'm in love with everything you're doing and the people you're bringing together right now - we are all so blessed to be getting to peep behind the curtain, thank you x
Thank you so much. I feel blessed to have YOU.
So I thought the promo image with the giant lobster in the background was a photo shopped picture. Beautiful work! Can’t wait to see this come together!!
Oh, you mean, because the art is so realistic? Yeah, Mattia's work can make you do a double take.
Yeah! It through me for a bit of a loop in all of the right ways! Absolutely love it. Def looking forward to seeing more :)