Top PaleoArtists
Click on the name to view the artist's website.
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Meet Joshua Ballze, Jurassic jabber’s newest paleo artist of the week!
An academic artist with a bachelor’s in science and Multimedia arts. Mr. Ballze has been studying animal anatomy, which includes humans, since his youth. His art has been featured on the cover of “Prehistoric Magazine” and has worked for a few client companies that you may have heard of as well, Jakks Pacific, The CW, Stan Lee's LA Comic Con, Netflix, SyFy Channel, Associated Television International.
When I look at Joshua Ballze’s art I see unique and inspired work. Something that is out of the norm and really jumps off the page. Paleo art is a one of the few fields that does not have a living creature or structure to base your inspiration for. There are organic factors that we can only speculate on when it comes to the fossil record, like keratin. Joshua has studied modern birds and reptilians to come up with some great and original depictions of what organic material might have looked like on top of bone. What is most impressive to me aside from the out of this world detail of his creations is the angle and position of the animals in his art. Some of which are almost a straight on view. Which is very hard to do. Also, the scene his animals are living in. The trees, the sky, the ground, the lighting. All aspects that make his art more compelling and bring his creations to life.
The Science aside, his art is stunning! A style I have never seen before. It is almost 3dementional and has an embossed metallic look to it. Some of which look like they were created on canvas which is even more impressive because you can see the texture of the canvas. Even more amazing is that most of his work is digital and is always evolving. MIND BLOWN!
Every artist needs inspiration and when I asked Joshua where he gets his I think he answered with some great advice for other artists at the same time.
“Art in itself is a organic process, and I tried a lot of different things and still do with my art. Sometimes because I know it works. Sometimes it’s just because I want to see what would happen if I tried something different. Inspiration for me comes for any number of things, not just looking up art on Google or flipping through art books. But sometimes just doing life studies at the zoo, drawing out in the park. Trying to capture things like movement and posture and poses and even landscapes from the world outside of one’s computer or phone screen and just let your eyes capture all those subtle details you can only see in person.”
He also had some very unique and specific advice for any young paleo artist out there.
Dino Skin! What better way for the question of, “what did a dinosaur look like”. It bring an animal to life and the only way to know what animals had scales, osteoderms, quills and feathers is to study the physical fossils that are available to us and listening to the experts. Spending hours reading the latest papers to come up with the best example possible. That is the difference between casual “dino atr” and “Paleo art” which should not be confused with one another. It will be hard at times when you just want to create something cool that will get a lot of likes. You have to realize that the importance of the accuracy of actual Paleo Art is more important than the number of likes you get off your post.
Thank you Joshua Ballze for your creative eye and insight to your world of art.
see more of his work at https://joshuaballze.wixsite.com/arts
or follow him at https://www.facebook.com/joshua.ballze/