The Art Of Rhads - Castles In The Sky

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Rhads is both a musician an illustrator hailing from the Omsk region of Russia, a relatively chilly area of Siberia. Despite his frigid surroundings Rhads' illustrations exude an incredible sense of warmth and serenity which really put a smile on our faces.

Specializing in environment art illustrations, most of his work seems to center around reoccurring themes - Mainly idyllic shots of beautiful skies inhabited by fantastic creatures. Whales, airships, manta rays and beyond, there's a truly peaceful feel that Rhads always conveys in his work. A really cool thing that Rhads also does is create musical accompaniments to his pieces, to further absorb you into each piece. You can check out some samples over on his website, and more of his relaxing illustrations after the break!

The Awesome Environments Of Zhichao Cai

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Art director Zhichao Cai (aka Trylea) uses no tricks or photocomping in his amazing, ridiculously vertical compositions, featuring incredibly pushes perspectives, impossible architecture and a plethora of detail to scour for in his incredible digital painted illustrations. As an art director at the Hangzhou, China based Gamecox, his emphasis is on creating striking worlds via his knack for environment painting, which he's really damn good at.

Zhichao uses personal narratives to give thematic direction to his pieces, including crafting lore including projects like his personal set of paintings titled Legend Of Yunzhong, featuring five kingdoms based off of 5 elemental powers (All after the break). If you're in the mood to gawk at some impossible, fantastical landscapes, you'll get your fill with this incredible art. Enjoy.

The Art of Kuldar Leement

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Kuldar Leement, a self-taught Estonian concept artist has an incredible sense of scale, encompassing multiple layers to his work to create a scene with enough depth to showcase an imaginary world. Each of Leement's pieces have something amazing to tell, often times providing enough detail and visual information to describe an entire environment with just one image. Leement's knack for showcasing his environmental vision with just one piece is absolutely mind-blowing and an incredible talent.

After the break is more of Kuldar Leement's work.

The Art Of YongSub Noh

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Giants seem to be all the rage nowadays. With the fantastic Attack on Titan and Guillermo del Toro's masterful Kaiju film Pacific Rim there certainly isn't a shortage. While both works do their part at creating some incredible scale, YongSub Noh has perfected the craft, offering some incredibly perspectives and beautiful creatures.

Each of YongSub's pieces creates an incredible dynamic with the creatures of his world and the environments the inhabit. The design of both the giants and the environments is absolutely phenomenal and sits with the best of the giants. After the break are nine more incredible pieces for you to gawk at.

The Abstract Environmental Art of j.Dickenson

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j.Dickenson has been in the game for over three decades, and his mind-blowing environmental art certainly shows his veteran status. With work spanning from Disney's Imagneering to Narnia films, jD's work is nothing short of captivating. With pieces providing an impossible yet beautiful environment, I often found myself entranced by them as I tried to make plausible reasoning for why things were the way they were.

After the jump are 8 more brilliant pieces by jD, I'd also suggest jumping over to his website for a full panoramic views of each pieces, they're simply amazing.

Background Paintings from Adam and Dog

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We've made it no secret that we here at AwesomeRobo are crazy big fans of the animated short, 'Adam and Dog,'. This includes our argument that it should have won the Oscar over 'Paper Man,' as seen on our most recent podcast. That aside, we took a look at some of the beautiful environment art by creator Minkyu Lee. His use of light and textures really pulled together a grand and yet serene setting: The raw, unadulterated natural Earth.

More after the break!

The Environmental Art Of Eytan Zana

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Eytan Zana is a California based concept artist with a knack for environmental concepting, having nailed the delicate balance of value, lighting, perspective, textural detail and atmospheric perspective to generate some truly impressive work. Zana is currently employed at Naughty Dog, currently working on the much hyped Last Of Us following getting a few Uncharted titles under his belt.

If there's one thing that's interesting about Naughty Dog, I get the impression that the majority of the concepting team over there mainly specialize in environment art, as their characters typically don't entail a lot of design work due to the realism aspect. It's a stark contrast to studios like Vigil (RIP), which placed a lot of emphasis on characters due to their heavily stylized aspects. Check out more of Eytan's gorgeous, painterly work after the break.

Requiem 2019

Directed by Rutger Hauer and Sil van der Woerd, Requiem 2019 proposes a scenario in which the last blue whale comes eye to eye with it's exterminator, mankind. Despite the presentation being more on the surreal side, the message about whaling species to extinction definitely hits home. We were asked by the creators to help spread the word about this short film, so if you're so inclined, please do so.

The Art Of Nic Ponim

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Some concept artists take the route of being jack of all trades, in an attempt to be more marketable as a well rounded asset, while others choose to focus on one aspect and just get really damn good at it. Polish artist Nic Ponim falls into the latter, having chosen to focus specifically on environmental illustrations and all it entails, ranging from mastering lighting scenarios to color theory.

When you think about it, painting environments is pretty daunting to those inexperienced with it. Having to juggle a few dozen factors at once is no easy task, until you get a process down. Here's a partial list of things to think about when painting an environment : Value, color harmony, lighting color, lighting direction, shape language, depth of field, composition and focal. Pretty mind blowing, huh? Yet with a few years of practice, these elements become second nature. Check out more of Nic's work after the break!

The Art Of Jorge Jacinto

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Jorge Jacinto, aka Blinck on Deviantart definitely has something going on with his environmental work. The Portugese based digital artist truly showcases some beautiful, fantastical natural landscapes with some great color usage, lighting and attention to texture in his work. A lot of digital painters forget that final touch to give their pieces a realistic tooth, the usage of photo texture overlays or texture brush work to give people an idea of the materials at play in these landscapes. Jorge has definitely grasped that aspect, even if he's still developing his technique (Quite a bit of growth from piece to piece). Check out more of Jorge's beautiful landscapes after the break!

Art OF Thom Tenery

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Thom Tenery is an LA based conceptual artist with an environment specialty currently residing in Dallas, working on a certain obscure iD title known as Doom 4, as well as a plethora of other freelance projects for clients including Blizzard, Design Studio Press and even Playboy.

His breathtaking environments encompass a huge variety of genres, styles and settings which are brought to life with his solid understanding of atmospherics, color relationships and shape language. I absolutely loved going through his work, so check out more samples of his envo work after the break!

Art Of Tom Scholes

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I've always loved Tom Schole's environment work. Ever since I discovered his work back in the early days of Conceptart.org and the Guild Wars series, I've found myself studying his work, his color palettes for his peices and rendering technique. There's something really dreamy and flowy about his paintings, which has to do with the fact that most of his pieces set out to capture a certain mood, rather than specific details.

Within the concept art world you'll often find multiple categories of artists, with approaches that range from painterly to technical and detailed. Tom definitely falls on the more painterly side of the spectrum, which is not a bad thing at all, considering the style of past projects he's worked on like Guild Wars 2. After a stint at Disney, Arenanet and 343 Studios, Tom is off doing his freelance thing again. More of his work after the break!

Dump The Big Six

As a cute campaign for the support of spreading green energy in Britain, Ecotricity created this cute little video to showcase the fall of once smiling, mustached carbon based energy sources. You can't go wrong with this type of marketing, so if you're based in the UK and want to show support for eco friendly power, check out their Facebook page!