Thursday, May 25, 2006

Drawings of Fictional People

This here is a drawing of Roland Deschain, the hero of Stephen King's magnum opus, The Dark Tower. Through seven novels, Roland quests across a hopeless, poisoned world filled with broken machines and ruined people in search of a mythical place called the Dark Tower. I think this drawing (by an artist named Casey Jones) gets the character of Roland right in ways some of those who did the illustrations for the Dark Tower novels themselves did not (once you get past the Yu-gi-oh hair).

First, he looks frickin' crazy in this drawing, which is great, because while Roland isn't insane in the classical sense of the word, his fixation with the Tower is definitely not evidence of a sane and balanced mind. He's sane the way Ahab was sane. Also, he's junkie-thin and rangy in this drawing, and Jones exaggerates that aspect perfectly. Like an addict too obsessed with the drug to worry about eating, Roland consumes only as much food as his body needs to move closer to the Tower. Anyway, since only Hinesy and I have ever read these things, I'll shut up now, other than to say, this drawing is good stuff. To go to the site to see a long long list of other artists' interpretations of other literary characters, go here. Kill 15 minutes. Paul Atreides (AKA Muad'dib) is represented, as is Sherlock Holmes, Nathan Zuckerman, Captain Ahab, and Holden Caulfield among others, as well as many drawings of authors. Some of the artists are really good, and some are really not, but it's a bunch of free art, so, you know, take a look. I'm out.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I think you can draw better than that, but I'm bias (admittedly).

Anonymous said...

Nice link. Did you notice how hot Scarlett O'Hara is in this drawing?

http://www.digitalmedusa.com/sgettis/mcleod_bob.html
(click on my name if you don't want to copy and paste)

Frankly my dear, meowwww!

blankfist said...

Man, I've been trying to figure out the music from the X-Men 3 trailer. I've heard it in so many things, and I love it - and, I finally tracked it down. It's from REQUEIM FOR A DREAM's soundtrack, which is freakin' awesome!

blankfist said...

This is from Clint Mansell's site (the composer):

Well, by now it must be the default choice for hollywood trailers, as music from requiem for a dream is now featuring in the trailer for the "Da Vinci Code".
That follows the theme being re-recorded and used in the trailer for the "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" a few years ago.

And the irony here? Requiem For a Dream actually used a Moby track for its trailer, rather than the score!


Hmmmm...