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Eclipse: The Well and The Black Sea
This book features the conceptual art of Justin Sweet and Vance Kovacs for a world they have collaborated on for nearly 20 years. The images in this book have been rendered in many different mediums, all with an intent to bring out, more than anything else, an impression that most closely reveals the feeling that was sought after. In many cases, a more rendered image will be replaced with one that emotionally reveals what we want our places and subjects to be like as opposed to literal design. Justin and Vance are freelance artists in the film, games, entertainment, and publishing industries. Together they are the creators of Carbon Canyon Studios. A studio devoted to delivering artistically guided projects. They have been friends and collaborators for over 20 years.
144 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 26, 2020
Dark fantasy takes many forms and wields equally as many tools or weapons in its myriad quests to convince its participants the world really is as dark and fantastical as it appears. Kovacs and Sweet assemble in ECLIPSE: THE WELL AND THE BLACK SEA the fragmented tale of otherness, of obscurity, and of survival at the dithering edges of reality.
As an artbook, the publication serves as an odd and lovely look at the eerie and phantasmagoric. As a pseudo-storybook -- typical of artists fond of worldbuilding but lacking literary storytelling chops -- the publication loiters for want of cohesion. Kovacs and Sweet, together, dabble in graphite sketchwork and more fundamental paints whose characters range from deceased old men to vibrant goddess figures and from an orphaned boy at the shore of dark and nameless waters to tattooed vagrants wielding the colors of war. It is a feast of layers. Visually, the theme is always muddy and full, and the level of detail often varies. Whereas the inclusion of excerpted literature spans a multitude of human culture: indigenous American short stories, Egyptian mortuaries, Latin poetry, Biblical phrasings (some canonical, others apocryphal).
Readers, by extension, must conjure from these images a narrative all their own. The vigor of the shirtless, bearded man who steers a wrecked ship? The intuition of a six-headed hydra, skulking dark caverns? The boldness and integrity of a warrior woman, her dark skin and muscled figure cutting a strong contrast against the fuzzy, muddled background? The fate of a shepherd, protected by a lone soldier whom, cliff-side, must defend against a cycloptic giant whose chains are set to break? The purpose of the lone entity, gjallarhorn in hand, who strides across the rocky shores of a nameless dark ocean before an orange-gold eclipse?
ECLIPSE: THE WELL AND THE BLACK SEA is beautiful and cryptic. It doesn't make a lick of sense or contain any semblance of consistent narration, but still, it's a beautiful book. There are no names for many of these haunting figures and there are no back stories to entertain. And so, the narrative, however complicated, is up to the enthusiast.
As an artbook, the publication serves as an odd and lovely look at the eerie and phantasmagoric. As a pseudo-storybook -- typical of artists fond of worldbuilding but lacking literary storytelling chops -- the publication loiters for want of cohesion. Kovacs and Sweet, together, dabble in graphite sketchwork and more fundamental paints whose characters range from deceased old men to vibrant goddess figures and from an orphaned boy at the shore of dark and nameless waters to tattooed vagrants wielding the colors of war. It is a feast of layers. Visually, the theme is always muddy and full, and the level of detail often varies. Whereas the inclusion of excerpted literature spans a multitude of human culture: indigenous American short stories, Egyptian mortuaries, Latin poetry, Biblical phrasings (some canonical, others apocryphal).
Readers, by extension, must conjure from these images a narrative all their own. The vigor of the shirtless, bearded man who steers a wrecked ship? The intuition of a six-headed hydra, skulking dark caverns? The boldness and integrity of a warrior woman, her dark skin and muscled figure cutting a strong contrast against the fuzzy, muddled background? The fate of a shepherd, protected by a lone soldier whom, cliff-side, must defend against a cycloptic giant whose chains are set to break? The purpose of the lone entity, gjallarhorn in hand, who strides across the rocky shores of a nameless dark ocean before an orange-gold eclipse?
ECLIPSE: THE WELL AND THE BLACK SEA is beautiful and cryptic. It doesn't make a lick of sense or contain any semblance of consistent narration, but still, it's a beautiful book. There are no names for many of these haunting figures and there are no back stories to entertain. And so, the narrative, however complicated, is up to the enthusiast.
December 30, 2019
Evocative sketches and full art pages compliment the (brief) story given.
This was not what I expected - I thought there would be more story but even with the brief amount of written words, the imagery helped complete and flesh out the story and it's atmosphere.
This was not what I expected - I thought there would be more story but even with the brief amount of written words, the imagery helped complete and flesh out the story and it's atmosphere.
December 25, 2024
I first became aware of Justin Sweet's artwork from the PC game Icewind Dale and have always wanted to own a collection in that style. This is dreamy and otherworldy account of images split into a kind of biome-type subsections.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews