Art

Alan Rabinowitz is a gifted artist with a natural talent to envision fantastic characters and landscapes. He began to study art when he was very young, achieving an academic perfection. He graduated with a BFA in painting and illustration at Rochester Institute of Technology in 1991 and was later trained by his mentor, John F. Murray for six years in the Riley Method.

Alan is a very famous fantasy painter and illustrator whose creations can be found in magazines, book covers, gaming covers, games and cards. He was first hired as an artist for Marvel, being responsible for creating Conan Magazine. He has also illustrated all the images on the Magic Cards. Alan has worked for publishing houses such as: Marvel Comics, Mag Force 7, Harper Collins, Wizards of the Coast, Iron Crown Enterprises, Five Rings Publishing, Wizkids Games, Last Unicorn Games, Alderac Entertainment, TSR, among many others.

We interviewed Alan Rabinowitz to enter his fantastic and magical world.

Interview by Marisa Darnel

ARTIST INTERVIEWS: Your art has the techniques of the old masters. What made you decide to create such fantastic, futuristic paintings and illustrations?

Alan Rabinowitz: Interesting question. I have always been into dark art and fantasy art since I was in elementary school and I would play "Dungeons & Dragons" frequently. I used to draw my characters to show to my friends. It was after I met my mentor John F. Murray at School of Visual Arts in NYC that I began to understand the figure and the "Old Masters" became more of an inspiration than the fantasy illustrators I had admired in my youth.

A.I.: You spent years of training with your mentor John F. Murray. What memories do you hold from those years that you would you like to share with us?

AB: Well, I hope to be putting up a few tutorials on my website about the Riley Method. It was an intense traditional academic approach to drawing and painting. It required drawing and painting from life everyday. There is actually a picture of me in the New York Times drawing a Carpeaux statue at Metropolitan Museum of Art. If we couldn't find a person we drew the statues in the Met.

One interesting lesson is how realistic painting is more abstract than abstract art.

How can this be? Think about it. Abstract art is trying to be abstract, hence it already defeats its purpose. Whereas realistic figure painting is trying to copy life. Yet, we are limited in the range of values and colors that we can use to imitate flesh, blood and bone. The lightest effect of light that we can paint is white. But, If you look at the sun the light will blind you. The darkest we can paint is black with light on it. But, if you look in nature there is the absence of light. Hence, we take our limitations and try to create a representation of real life people, so we are in effect creating an abstraction of life to appear as life. An abstraction of flesh blood and bone.

That always amazed me. I spend a lot of time thinking about it. Its blatantly obvious, yet, when you actually hear it or speak it, or in this case - read it, it seems to take on a different and more powerful perspective. That was one of the many intellectual painting lessons I was taught by John F. Murray.

A.I.: You are a digital artist as well. What do you enjoy the most?

AB: There is nothing like the feel of a paint brush in my hand. The touch a brush makes on a canvas. The feeling of accomplishment one gets from finishing a painting and being happy with it.

I love to paint portraits where I can be very bold and free with my hand. I also like illustrating where I can use my imagination and create my own worlds in paint and be super-realistic.

I generally work digitally only for Romance work or when I have a lot of work to finish on a short deadline. I have a love for the computer as a tool as well. I use it for every painting. I compose all my images and create color studies digitally. I then project the final comp onto my board, masonite, or canvas before I paint it.

A.I.: Can you tell us about the techniques that you use in your digital art?

AB: I started creating art digitally around the time Adobe Photoshop had just come out. I still have a copy of version 1.07 on a floppy disk. My techniques rely more on my skills with a mouse than with any special effects or filters. I have used almost every filter out there and found most to be useless except for special effects that I want to use. I found that I get better effects in Adobe After Effects than Photoshop. After effects effects are geared for movies and science-fiction.

I use Photoshop, After Effects (for filters), Bryce and if necessary Poser for creatures or robots. People and creatures tend to look to fake or cartoonish when created with 3D programs, So I use photographs as a base and then paint them as I would if they were paintings.

A.I.: What can you tell us about your art shows or exhibits?

AB: I exhibit my work online at my web site: Fantasy-Illustration.com and at Science Fiction Conventions generally in the New York City Area. On occasion, I will go to Gencon or one of the World Cons. I mostly travel to conventions that have a good exposure to art directors in the publishing industry. I see my work as cover art and not meant to be lost in a deck of cards. Although some of those cards are a lot of fun to paint. The exposure today is not what it was a few years ago, and my work is a quality above being just a card artist.

A.I.: When you are creating a comic do you use live models or your imagination?

AB: I use both. I always use live models for the people. Sometimes I just use my knowledge of figure painting to paint creatures that have little or no human qualities. At other times I will use people as reference for human-ish characters.

A.I.: Would you like to be an artist in an animation movie? Which kind of movies would you like to work in?

AB: Yes, I would like to use my skills there. I would love to work on horror films, fantasy and science fiction films to help design sets, backgrounds and character studies, as well as concepts. I think I should have been contacted for the "Lord of the Rings" movies. I'm not really sure what happened there. Maybe next time.

A.I.: Do you think that digital art in movies is going to become more and more frequent in the future?

AB: I think digital art is already frequent in film and television. Most commercials rely on special effects for a major part of the commercial. Every science-fiction, fantasy and horror movie with the exception of "B" rate movies and psycho-killer movies now uses computer generated effects, and would probably fail without them. I do not see 3D people taking over though, I don't think they have enough of a human element for people to really relate to.

A.I.: What are you working on now and what are future plans?

AB: I am finishing up several pieces for Oxford University Press and a couple for an internet game company in the UK called: Time2joinin.co.uk.

As for future plans I am working on a series of dragon paintings for my own book. Concept writing and art will all be created by me. I won't mention its name until the series of promotional paintings are complete. I'm a few years away from completion, due to my current work schedule. "Dragon Winter" on my web site is the first of these paintings.

I am also starting a few portraits that will be used for my soon to come portrait website. Which will be at a different web site and more suited to the portraiture look.

A.I.: What is a day in the life of Alan Rabinowitz?

AB: (Laughs). Nothing to really write about, but if you must know there is a bit of playtime on the internet, some web site design and search engine optimization. Oh, I forgot to mention I like to play around in this trade a little bit. I work for several corporate clients designing, or optimizing their sites. Followed by some painting of course!

The rest of the day goes to my daughter. Oh yeah, and my wife (a slap to the arm makes me remember that).

A.I.: Thank you very much, Alan!

AB: My Pleasure!

You Can Visit Alan Rabinowitz's at: www.fantasy-illustration.com