Analysis of artist Phroilan Gardner - Lich King

 Phroilan Gardener is an illustrator based in America were most of us work is based on characters from Video games and other lines of work to do with concept art. All his work is done digitally were maybe a piece or two of his has been done non-digitally such as with paints. He used a graphics tablet on Photoshop to create the Lich King

This piece of work that he created was from an already known character named Lich King from the PC game World of Warcraft. The reason he created the picture like this was for a poster or concept art which I am really heavily interested on.

On his blog http://phroilangardner.blogspot.co.uk/ it seems like he barely uses just line or one colour in his work for his poster / concept art. He is heavily based on using texture, form, blending of colours in each of his designs.

The way Phroilan Gardener uses  the turquoise colours on his eyes and sword can instantaneously understand that this characters soul has been  consumed by something and the dull grey colours also represent that there is barely any life in him that use to exist. His use of the formal elements such as Visual texture were he has scratches on his sword or the holes in his cape can make the viewer of this piece know that this person has been in many battles.  The way he makes the viewer feel like the image is cold is because he used dull colours such as black and grey. Turquoise  depicts the coldness to the drawing. There is a small amount of line, but when he does use it enhances the life-like appearance to the image. Such as the fur on the Lich Kings leg gives the fur layers and depth to the image. Also the greaves that he is wearing on his leg has been created with lines to give each layer of the greaves layers as if they were overlapping.

The way Phroilan Gardener used a large brush to paint the simplistic background gave more focus on the focal point which is the Lich King since he is far more detailed than the few brush strokes behind him.

Phroilan Gardener did use some sort of shape such as the small white circles all around the image showing that it is snow falling at a high speed giving it surreal movement. Some of the snow droplets have a lower opacity to some to the others to give it even more form to the image meaning some snow droplets are further away and some are really close up. 

The composition in the design shows the Lich King to be the focal point of the image. Such as the way his leg is raised and the sword is at the front shows his dominance to people / undead followers. This can be further shown by the way his head is tilted down to him looking down. whereas before I was talking about the turquoise look on his sword and helmet show he is in a cold environment and he has been consumed by something, the hilt of his sword most of his armour has skulls of animals depicts that he is of an evil kind and even promotes my last statement where he has been consumed by something evil.

The mood of the image portrays violence and a negative feel of sadness and death.