Focus on the artists: Scott Blair, Modern Pin-ups

Hard Candy, Modern Pin-Ups by Scott Blair. Self published.

One of my most pleasant stops at the NYCC, right after Penelope Gaylord’s stand, was the stand where Scott Blair was selling his wares.

He was selling two books (if memory serves me) but the highlight of his stand was the multitude of posters of different sized and quality, and lots of prints.

I’ve been following Scott from his expositions in www.deviantart.com

http://scottblairart.deviantart.com/

Scott Blair’s main contribution to pinup art is being able to re-invigorate the canvas and prepare it for the 21^st century sensibility.

It is undeniable and at the same time refreshing that  there are a bunch of new faces in the world of art,  new artist and showcasing new styles, so much that’ sometimes audiences become de-sensitized to the efforts and struggles the artist have to endure to get noticed.

People who know me from the blog are quick to pigeon-hole me in the category of those art lovers who ONLY admire Hal Foster and Neal Adams type of hyper-realistic style.

That’s not entirely true. I just am of the opinion that if you are going to adopt an art style that is highly stylized without learning the classics, you better have something new “stylistically speaking” to offer to the world, cause the art scene is full of artist who do toons their way, and it is going to be hard to stand apart from the crowd.

Scott Blair is not the best realistic-style artist. He is not the best stylized artists out there either. He is not the one who commands most graphic techniques under his hat, nor he is the one who masters the most original angles and points of focus.

Why does he get a review all by himself, then?

Please, pay attention, artists-in-the-making, and future poster-makers:

Scott Blair condenses all the essence of pin-up art, destills it, summarizes it, and redirects that concentrated extract of everything that makes a good pinup, and uses it in the renditions of his own pinups.

That’s art. The intangible part of art. The one that doesn’t come with schooling, with studying techniques, with imitating the admired masters.

In the art school some lucky students may have a good teacher that may convey techniques of “visual Translation”, and that is the term with which I describe the difficult task of seeing something three dimensional, and converting it into a two dimensional rendering. How to convey the shadows, how to render the lines, the thick ones and blend them with the thin ones, and another long list of techniques that when grouped are the elements that constitute one artists styles.

Almost every painting of Scott Blair  I study  portrays this amazing power of condensation. The chromatic tones on paintings use a palette of soft tones that for my taste (and this is coming from a guy who thinks that Richard Corben is the standard against which all comic book colorists should be measured against) is a bit non-exciting, but to its credit they add to the collection of techniques that Scott uses to maximize the Pinup factor, when reducing the models, the poses, the shadows, the contour to just the minimal expressions needed.

Also notice the attention to detail that Scott puts on the models facial expressions. He does not bother giving us Hyper-realistic portrays of the female anatomy, because, after all, he is painting a pinup, but the faces of these ladies they offer a soft contrast with the pinup bodies.

The inside page where Scott Blair immortalized the great Amber Lu. (More on this in the next post)

While the bodies and the general female figure is posable, flexible, and usually adhering to Pin-up conventions, the faces are those of real women, usually hard at work posing for the artists. If you analyze Scott Blair’s art under this lens, you will be able to enjoy and partake of a bit of the synergy that transpires between the artist and the models. A pleasant, personal, intimate experience that only the greatest artists are able to convey to the degree we see it conveyed here.

Check out Scott Blair’s art at

http://scottblairart.deviantart.com/

and then go and pick up his self-published book. You know you will supporting an artists and you will also get your rocks off with amazing Pin-up art!