CHRIS PARKS aka Pale Horse

"I’ve always just wanted to make a living doing something I enjoyed and not hate getting up every morning. Fortunately, I found my passion for art and design early in life and have been doing my best to master it ever since."

Images from the Pale Horse website

These are some of the works by designer/illustrator Chris Parks, aka Pale Horse who runs a illustrating company also called Pale Horse in Tampa Bay, Florida. Parks has produced works for a range of companies, including WWE, DC Comics and Mini Cooper I will analyse his work for inspiration for my final book jacket outcomes as I will want to use his techniques in Photoshop.

According to the official Pale Horse site, Parks's fascination stems from "mythology and ancient civilisations" as well as being influenced by "heavy metal, pro wrestling, tattoos and psychedelics", most (if not all) his work consisting of portraits. In an interview, when asked about his inspirations, he stated that his best ideas "usually come from when I'm not trying too hard to come up with them", as well as doing some research and some digital layout sketches. 

Parks seems to mostly use digital means to complete his work, usually by Illustrator and Photoshop via a graphics tablet. After looking at his work closely, it seems that he uses the Brush tool from Photoshop, but in different shapes and sizes for texture. His designs are very elaborate, paying close attention to details minor and major. When filling his designs with colour, he uses different layers, naming them after each colour, so that he can separately change them when he wants to, without affecting the other colours. At times, his use of colour is limited, but his attention to detail makes up for it. The scale of his work varies, for instance the first illustration is A4 size (297x210mm), whereas the second pieces are the sizes of two skateboards since they were drawn on to skateboards. Although he does include some typography in his work, as seen in the example above, his main priority is obviously at the artwork itself.

 I really like his close attention to  detail, and his different brush shapes to convey the different textures. Upon first seeing his work, I was amazed at the different shades and marks made from the brushes. 

To some extent, his work does remind me of elaborate patterns seen in some fairytale books from my childhood. When producing my final outcomes of book jackets, I would try to aim for as much detail, especially paying attention in the line art, where the brush sizes and shapes differ.