Most of the pieces are not pure black-and-white, a lot of them have a splash a tiny bit of color. While they feature some color they’re still perfect for the purpose of our study though and I’m sure they’ll get you’re creative juices flowing whether you’re a hardcore black-and-white buff, color lover or somewhere in between. Enjoy and be inspired!

I love coming across illustrators that blow me away at first contact. Joao Oliveira definitely falls into that category, I had never seen his work but the class and style of his pieces is very impressive.

Joao’s work is both classic yet modern at the same time. In the first two pieces Joao uses the extreme contrasts black-and-white allows combined with digital effects to attain a classic sci-fi look. The third and fourth illustrations look much more classical but still have digital elements that makes them very intriguing.

Multi-faceted designer and illustrator Pete Harrison loves to combine a black-and-white base image with colorful lighting effects. By using well placed lighting effects and strong contrast his pieces nearly pop off the screen.

Italy based Alberto Seveso needs no introduction in the illustration scene. Dark backgrounds with hues of gray and some color splashed in give Alberto’s work a modern look with a classic undertone.

Mike Harrison’s non-digital look immediately sets him apart from the general field. In the pieces below Mike uses deep dark backgrounds, black-and-white models and a soft splash of color to set the mood.

Alessandro Pautasso combines classic black-and-white photography with vector splashes, swirls and patterns to create a sexy marriage of extremes (classic looking photography with very digital looking elements).

In the pieces below Alessandro uses a gray on gray base to create low contrast between the background and the models. This makes the bright colors in his work really stand out.

Christopher Haines, located in Australia, has a very broad style to his illustration. In the Electro set below Christopher uses monochrome color bases that he then brings to life with “designery” purple.

Belgian illustrator Bram Verhaeren has a lighthearted open feel to his work. The pieces below have a soft look to them due to the fact that Bram uses little black and instead goes with subtle hues of gray.

I also feel that Flash’s good name has been spoiled mostly by designers who love making pretty sites but know or care nothing about usable, user centered web design.

See more of the awesome submissions to the Noir chapter on Depthcore.

So enjoy, be inspired and be sure to check out the source sites listed at the bottom of the post. While you do that I’ll decide if I should do a showcase on Vodka bottles - some are just so brilliantly creative. I would love your opinion on that by the way!

Source: These images came from the following sources - Packaging World, the Dieline and the Spoon Sisters.

Just like the in the dark illustration showcase you’ll notice that dark backgrounds allow the subject to really stand out. Colors will “pop” more and the use of lighting effects becomes much more dramatic than it would have been on a lighter background.

This showcase is divided in four parts. First up are the typographical illustrations that make good use of the dark background in respect to light and color. Below that are sections for typography made from light, metallic effect typography and typography flavored up through smoke.

The pieces below make great use of vivid colors and gorgeous light effects. If you want to see more from an artist just click the name to check the site out.

Craig Shields
Craig uses dark backgrounds and a black and white base to make his subtle use of color really stand out.

Alex Trochut
Alex’s Beautiful decay is colorful on any background but the pure black background makes it liven up like no other background color could.

Go Media
Funky colors get a bit more serious on a black background in this piece by Go media.

Kliment Kalchev
Kliment uses a fruity gradient in his logo and accompanying illustrations to set a playful yet serious mood.

Nicolas Alexander
This piece has a great sense of motion and creative use of typography.

Pablo alFieri
Pablo has so much great typography work he could fill a whole showcase by himself. Make sure to check out his other work!

Rodrigo Braga
A colorful an heavily detailed piece that gains grounding from a black background.

Theo Aartsma
Theo’s awesome work is so full of detail that these small size images don’t do them justice. Head over to his Depthcore page to see them full size.

ShinBinary
Nik shows that while vivid colors can really stand out on a dark background, you don’t always have to go that route to impress.

You can use lighting effects to liven up a typographic illustration, but why not simply turn the text into light? Some examples below.

Guilherme Marconi
Guilherme’s illustration has a neon effect on all of the type.

Theo Aartsma
Another one by Theo. This is probably a made up symbol but one thing is for sure, it’s a beauty.

Tony Ariawan
Tony’s light streak illustrated type has a magical feel to it.

Mark Mustaine
Mark Mustaine created these by hand using slow shutter photography. Very impressive!

What’s shiny and lends itself very well to being illustrated in combination with stylized light and reflections? Metallic substances of course!

Alex Trochut
Alex makes the gold 3d type really jump from the background in this piece.

Emeric Trahand
Trust the KDU? Maybe, I’ll trust Emeric though, that’s for sure!

Rodrigo Braga
Rodrigo doesn’t overdo it with the reflections and ensures the bottom illustration radiates pure class.

Lastly we have smoke effects. Smoke stands out very well on a dark background and can really set a mood. I couldn’t find that many smoke examples unfortunately.

Von
Von’s piece isn’t really smoke but has a similar look. The piece gives me an uneasy and eerie feeling (in a good way of course).

Daniel Gordon
Daniel combines smoke with a strange effect on the type to set a strong mood.

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Youri asked me if I would be interested to help him out for an article that demonstrates the various steps I pass through doing an artwork. First of all I would like to thank Youri for this opportunity . As I already said in the comments I was totally speechless seeing my artworks in his latest blog entry among all the other great illustrators.

When not working for actual clients (in my case mostly bands) I always try to realize my own ideas. On one hand it’s necessary to have them out of my head and on the other hand it’s always like a journey that brings new experiences. Most of my “free” artworks are definitely influenced by literature (Neil Gaiman, China Mieville), art (Caspar David Friedrich) or mythology. I like mixing “fantasy/mythology” elements with scenery that is more contemporary which is quite obvious in “Escape from Twilight Melangery”, the artwork I’ll use for the demonstration. In the next steps I’ll explain the main stages I do to achieve a characteristic “Season Zero” design.

1. Source image selection
The hardest part doing an artwork is finding the best matching source pictures. Rarely will you have the possibility to shoot every scene yourself and so you’ll have to rely on stock material. In my case I always have the composition in my head (seldom do I do a sketch first) and sometimes it’s really time-killing finding proper pictures that satisfy my inner imagination. In this case I wanted a street with old houses as main setting

2. Cleaning up
It’s never possible to use source images the way they originally are. In this case I had to remove all urban things like traffic lights, cars, signs and so on. I also flipped the whole picture to match my original idea.

3. A new sky and street
One very important thing for me is the choice of the sky. It has a real impact on the whole mood of the image. Normally I try to have a surreal, shady sky with nice clouds. In this step I also make some first color adjustments and added some street in the foreground to have more space and better proportions (keep the “golden section” in mind!). With this the whole artwork gets more depth.

4. Shadows and light effects
Now it’s getting fun. By using some galaxy/nebula images it’s quite easy to achieve great “magical” lightning effects. Combined with selective gaussian blur you’re able to get a nice smoothness. In this step I start adding a few props like street lamps and made some corrections concerning the shadows (as seen on the buildings).

5. Extra props and lighting
I simply added a few more props like tents and caravans to bring the whole scene to life.

6. Adding the creatures
Now we come to the main actors. Like finding good source images the next difficult step is to get images that fit into the picture without messing up the perspectives. The three creatures (a gryphon, black unicorn and a manticore) are put together from different animal pictures like bat wings. an eagle head and so on. After extracting and placing them into the street I always do the color corrections and adjustments on the contrasts right away.

7. Effects and shadowss for the creatures
Correct shadows make it so that everything blends together in a more realistic way. Sometimes I use blurred shapes to do the shadows or just draw them by hand with a soft brush. I added the horn to the unicorn and added a few brushed sparks with outer glow and some blurred shapes around it. Note that the light reflections on the horse and lion are important to give the effect a more natural feeling.

8. Color balance and contrast
Last but not least we reach the “post production” stage. Using color balance I push the whole color range in the desired direction. More contrast makes the artwork more atmospheric and again you gain a lot of depth. I always try to have a reduced color range in my artworks since that gives them a distinct mood and feel.

I hope you enjoyed this short explanation and I would be honored to have you as a guest on my website Season Zero.

Instead of doing the usual showcase I’m going to do one with less creatives but more of their work to let them really shine. Be sure to head over to Behance to check the rest of their work.

01. Adam Spizak | Adam Spizak’s site

02. Akimo Lee | Akimo Lee’s site

03. Matthias Bauerle | Matthias Bauerle’s site

04. Danny Ronald | Danny Ronald’s site

05. Maciej Robak | Maciej Robak’s site

01. Sean Rodwell | Sean Rodwell’s site