Artist style and influence analysisfrom @mike_sunday

Transcript

This artist built their own world and it's starting to leak into ours. Enter the world of Glaiveys, a unique bridge between nostalgic gaming art, hand drawn techniques and tactile object design. I was first attracted to the illustration of Gladys because of their almost hand drawn pencil and acrylic on canvas like textures and tier rejection of the hyper smooth, clean vector, clean line art type of approach. Now, anatomically, the characters have these highly exaggerated proportions, oversized footwear, gloves, but with these slender, compact limbs and delicate minimal facial features, creating this balance between being combat ready to this quiet vulnerability. And I can't help but think of the work of Renji Murata, especially in Blue Submarine number six or Last Exile, where this almost steampunk vintage obsession with older worse and accessories, oversized buckles, engineer better, mixed with this soft rounded rendering style. The rigid geometry of the weaponry in Glaivey's characters also is a fantastic foil to the softer curves. And so when I see these giant weapons like scythes, I can't help but think of Soul Eater. The comically large rounded boots reminds me of Astro Boy and the work of Osamu Tezuka. Now inevitably, there has to be some video game influence, and I'm getting Akira Toriyama's Dragon Quest art, but actually the number one thing that really pops into my head is the Greed Island arc from Hunter x Better. That is one of the most underrated arcs in my opinion. Now one of the aspects that makes a Glaive's post so poignant in their world building is the music selection. Glaive's chooses these almost mystical or renaissance type of music, but they have this modern cyber electronic feel, often using tracks from the likes of AG Cook and White Armour. Better Glaiveys has seemingly cemented themselves in the Drain Gang universe by doing the cover for Dream Your Reality by Ty Boy Digital, aka Ty Boy Goon, aka DJ Billy Bull, aka the number one DJ on the whole planet, man. But the ultimate realization of Glaive's deceivingly simple designs is that they translate so well into physical objects, whether it's through accessories or blind boxes or even designer vinyl. Glaive's has evolved from an underground illustrator into a full fledged world builder and I simply can't wait to see more. So have you entered the world of Glaive's? If no, let's have a discussion down in the comments.