Craig Mullins

Craig Mullins (* 1964 in California , USA ) is an American artist working in the commercial field.

He was born in California in 1964 and moved to Ohio when he was 3 years old. At 18 he went back to California where he lived near Los Angeles for several years . Today he lives in Hawaii .

He began his artistic training at “Pitzer College” in Claremont , California, USA, where he stayed for two years. Then he went to the "Art Center College of Design" to study product design. However, since he was more interested in drawing vehicles, he switched to Ford's design department in Detroit after just 6 months . After his type of design was found to be of little use there, he switched back to the Art Center to study illustration , which he finally completed in 1990. He worked for British Petroleum for the first time with Photoshop in the preparation of a traditional advertising painting, then, on the advice of John Knoll , one of the inventors of Photoshop, decided to do the whole work completely digitally on the basis of photographs. Since 1994 he has been working entirely digitally for commercial work, which put him in a pioneering role during this time.

Work

Movie

Through his many work for architects and theme parks, he came into contact with the film business, which resulted in many artistic works for well-known films. Among other things, matte work for Matrix Revolutions , Armageddon , Flubber , Contact , Apollo 13 , Final Fantasy and Forrest Gump could be mentioned here.

Computer games

With advances in computer games, they also increasingly required professional illustrations by artists. Mullins has also made a name for himself here through many impressive works. Mention should be made of works for the marathon trilogy (the forerunner of Halo ) 1994–1997 ( Bungie Software ), Age of Empires III , Return to Castle Wolfenstein , Need for Speed: Underground , Halo: Kampf um die Zukunft , Fallout 3 .

meaning

Since Mullins mainly works digitally, he is seen as a representative of a new generation of commercially working artists who use the computer as a medium for their images and thus no longer create material original images in the classical sense. His pictures often differ from others in that he works at least in important areas with a clearly visible brush or eraser stroke. He himself speaks of having oriented himself on many role models. These include the history painters of the late 19th century, but also artists such as Lovis Corinth in his later works or Alfons Mucha with his history paintings on Slavic history ("Slav Epic"). In contrast to the historical models and earlier artists who made paintings for film sets, Mullins already incorporated the cinematic perspective as an important element in many of his scenes. In order to implement the sometimes extreme views, for example from a bird's eye view , Mullins not only works with Photoshop and Corel Painter , but also with 3D programs.

Mullin's pictures are distinguished in that, in contrast to earlier illustrators for film and advertising, he emphasizes the process of painting and deliberately allows structure and style to flow into the pictures, which makes them appear less “clean”.

See also

• Digital painting

Web links

• Craig Mullins in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Mullins' personal page