Bastien
Welcome to Artist Featured newsletter.
Exposure and visibility is one of the key struggles of a digital artist. As an artist myself, I know the immense joy of being appreciated for what I do and what I try to say with my art.
My goal with this newsletter is to do the same, to pinpoint and elevate other artists' work. To bring more eyes to them, help them with getting the attention they deserve. In the end there is also always a small interview with the artist.
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So, without further ado..
This week's artist is Stefan Große Halbuer. I've been following his journey for about a year now and I have always deeply admired his attention for detail and complex artworks.
In his own words, this President of purple allows us to enter his visual genius by letting us dive into his imaginative illustrated worlds. These are created with precise, playful strokes, followed by mellow colour palettes usually consisting of tones of orange and purple.
His distinct style and well crafted worlds reminisce of traditional Japanese ukiyo-e illustrations and paintings. That is a great little plus for me as I'm a huge appreciator of these old art and graphic styles.
As with every other artist, you can see the development of his style. What originally started as a cyberpunk-ish vibrant purple illustrations developed into those atmospheric animations reminding us of what is really important, peace of mind.
Yet his style is definitely not limited just to that. It is not hard to get mesmerised watching those gifs, admiring thin, curly outline strokes wrapping around various elements in his pieces. Let yourself watch the strokes go from left to right and you will soon find yourself 'illustrating' the whole artwork again in your head.
Stefan also dabbled a bit with physicals, but probably in different way than you'd imagine. He came up with a colouring book of his illustration called Lines, and I absolutely love it.
Stefan is not really an emerging artist per se. His reach on X hits almost 40k followers, yet I think he is very much worthy of our attention, even if just to admire his absolute banger of an art.
What software do you work in? What is – in a very brief and simplified way – your process?
I mostly work with Procreate, but I also like Clip Studio Paint or Affinity Designer when I'm not on the iPad. For my animations, I work with After Effects. My process usually starts in my sketchbook, where I collect moods and ideas. The rest is simply sketching, outlining and coloring.
Colouring books – such a great idea for an illustrator. How did you come up with it?
Colors and color theory is a topic many beginner artists struggle with - I remember having a hard time figuring colors out myself (and I still sometimes find it hard now). I liked the idea of making a book that included both coloring tutorials and tips, and artworks to directly try these out on without putting too much thought into compositions and outlines. That's the idea that turned into the "Lines" book.
In your pieces you play a lot with the theme of Japan and Asia. Have you been there? Why is it so prevalent in your style?
I get that question a lot, it's a little weird but I haven't been in Asia before. I'm using some kind of "second hand inspiration", filtered through photos, videos and gaming experiences, to create my artworks. I'm fascinated by this kind of process, just as I'm fascinated by Japanese architecture, cars and culture, but I'd really love to take that trip for some first hand inspiration soon.
Do you have a goal where you'd like to see your art in 3 or 5 years?
I don't have a big picture, I achieved most of the goals I had in my 20s by now (the biggest one being able to afford a freelance life, ideally through art & illustration), which is incredible. I've got a couple smaller milestones I want to reach in the next years though - to name some of them: release another book/make my first comic, host my first solo exhibition, build up a nice YouTube channel, finish some of my ongoing series.
1/1s price ranges: Mostly in the 2-3.5 eth range. Historically some smaller ones.
Chains: ethereum, solana, tezos
Links:
Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/grossehalbuer
SuperRare: https://superrare.com/grossehalbuer
Foundation: https://foundation.app/@grossehalbuer
Exchange: https://exchange.art/series/Singing%20Doors/nfts
Objkt: https://objkt.com/@grossehalbuer
Lines colouring book: https://grossehalbuer.gumroad.com/l/lines-book?layout=profile
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