Wednesday 12 October 2011

The alien art of Alex Ries

I've never been a fan of sword and sorcery type films. The Lord of the Rings leaves me cold. It's the science geek in me I'm afraid; I can't accept the idea of two headed dragons or talking trees unless there's an underlying evolutionary reason for it. I also get bored very quickly with any film or TV series in which the aliens are portrayed as humanoid. I'm afraid that the idea that intelligent life elsewhere in the universe will look anything like us is sheer hubris (as I discussed a few months ago in this extended essay by me and this excellent piece by P Z Myers on Pharyngula). It's why I find myself drawn to the science fiction art of people like Wayne Barlowe; artists who go the extra mile to make their alien creatures believeable. Another such artist is Australian Alex Ries.




Alex is studying zoology and I guess that's what makes him go the extra mile when it comes to form, function and realistic possibility. With some of his creations, he even goes as far as to work out how they work internally. It's amazingly clever stuff.





You can see more of his artwork on his website, his Deviant Art page, and on his now sadly abandoned exoblog.

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