The hottest Art & Illustration Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Art & Illustration Topics

Takamoto and Disney and the War

Animation Obsessive • 19733 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Design History Biography Industry
  1. He endured Japanese American internment as a young man and used his drawing talent to get a start at Walt Disney after the war.
  2. At Disney he became a meticulous cleanup and quality-control artist who refined key characters and kept films visually consistent, shaping looks like Lady and Aurora.
  3. He later moved to Hanna-Barbera, where he designed iconic TV characters (most famously Scooby-Doo) and left a lasting legacy in animation.

Dangerous Light

Animation Obsessive • 23859 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Cinematography Visual Effects Lighting
  1. Classic cel-animation light came from photographic tricks like backlit/bi-pack exposures, holdout mattes and lens effects, not just simple on-screen glows.
  2. The analog look depends on film behavior — aggressive inverse-square falloff, color shifts, halation, bloom and grain — which standard Gaussian glows don’t reproduce.
  3. To recreate that “dangerous” light digitally you must layer custom glows and then push them through film emulation and texture, intentionally reintroducing the imperfections that digital pipelines usually remove.

The Same Stories

Animation Obsessive • 2063 implied HN points • 06 Mar 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Theater Illustration Exhibition Ceramics Film
  1. After wartime exile he returned to Italy and quickly made a name designing striking, expressive stage sets and costumes that mixed old‑world grotesques with modernist shapes.
  2. He moved freely between theater, illustration, ceramics and animation, treating each medium as a different vehicle to tell the same stories.
  3. His stop‑motion films with Giulio Gianini won wide acclaim and a major 1980 exhibition collected his work, with the show’s catalog remaining a valuable resource on his designs.

'Sand and a Source of Light'

Animation Obsessive • 13544 implied HN points • 16 Feb 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film History Collage Visual Arts
  1. Animation isn’t only for elite studios or people who can draw like masters; many styles and low-tech approaches mean anyone can make animated work.
  2. Artists using humble materials — sand, paper cutouts, scratched film, a kitchen table — solved technical limits with creative problem-solving and produced deeply original, emotional films.
  3. Today phones and free software have removed many technical barriers, but AI-generated shortcuts risk bypassing the hands-on problem-solving that helps artists grow and make distinctive work.

How the Little Guy Moved

Animation Obsessive • 19105 implied HN points • 09 Feb 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Digital Art Illustration Film Art history Techniques
  1. Early game creators borrowed traditional animation tricks like rotoscoping to make tiny, low-resolution characters move in believable, fluid ways even on very limited hardware.
  2. Creators used highly inventive, hands-on workflows — filming live motion, tracing frames, Xeroxing silhouettes and digitizing them — to convert real movement into economical pixel animation.
  3. Good animation decisions, not just better hardware, made the work memorable and durable, so lively motion stayed effective and influential as games moved to newer platforms.
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Designing the Powerpuff Girls

Animation Obsessive • 33277 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Character design Design process Industry News
  1. Bold, simple, and graphic character designs—big eyes, clear silhouettes, and distinct colors—gave the girls instant recognizability.
  2. The final look was the result of years of sketching, trial and error, and precise model sheets that removed unnecessary detail and found a natural drawing shorthand.
  3. Those tight, iconic designs made the characters memorable and helped the show remain culturally relevant and influential for decades.

Designing 'One Hundred and One Dalmatians'

Animation Obsessive • 42606 implied HN points • 19 Jan 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film History Character design Graphic design Illustration Production
  1. One Hundred and One Dalmatians introduced a bold, modern graphic look for Disney, using angular shapes, scratchy lines and loose color so the drawings were meant to be seen.
  2. The film leaned on Xerox to put animators’ pencil lines directly on cels and to layer drawn layouts over painted backgrounds, which saved money and created a lively, hand-drawn texture but required much cleaner drawing.
  3. It was a big collaborative success and a commercial hit, yet its modern style clashed with Walt Disney’s taste and remained a rare experiment rather than a lasting studio direction.

Why Continue After Five Years?

Animation Obsessive • 6458 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Publishing Film Media Criticism Community
  1. They’re celebrating a five‑year anniversary for their animation newsletter, marking a big milestone in the project’s life.
  2. The project began as a Twitter account about animation and evolved into a full publication run by co-runners.
  3. The newsletter uses a paid subscription model with a seven‑day free trial and gated archives for paid readers.

How I Pieced Together a Personal Style in Photography

In the Flash • 2238 implied HN points • 16 Oct 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Photography Visual Arts Creative Process Art history Personal style
  1. Developing a personal style in photography can take time and experimentation. It's normal to feel anxious about finding your unique voice.
  2. Originality in art comes from mixing ideas from different sources, not from trying to be completely unique. It's about remixing influences to create something new.
  3. Learning from other artists and styles can help shape your own work. It's okay to borrow elements that resonate with you to build your signature style.

Magnum Square Print Sale Announcement

In the Flash • 679 implied HN points • 24 Oct 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Photography Curation Visual Arts
  1. There's a special photo print sale happening called the Magnum Square Print Sale, featuring work from famous photographers. Prints start at $100 and there's a deadline coming up soon.
  2. One of the highlights is a photo of people enjoying time in NYC that captures the city's vibes after the pandemic. The photo reflects beauty and stillness amidst the busy city life.
  3. The sale's theme is 'Eden,' showcasing the beauty of our planet and the need to protect it. Diverse photography styles are represented, but the focus is mainly on documentary and portrait work.

Oscar-Winning Storyboards

Animation Obsessive • 1614 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Illustration Visual art Film History
  1. The newsletter issue focuses on storyboarding, using case studies from Oscar-winning animated work across different years.
  2. The timing is tied to the Oscars, suggesting the awards season makes the topic especially relevant right now.
  3. The full article is behind a paywall and requires a subscription, but a 7-day free trial is offered and existing paid readers can sign in.

Satoshi Kon's Impossibly Real Tokyo

Animation Obsessive • 21617 implied HN points • 15 Dec 25
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Illustration Digital Art Production
  1. Satoshi Kon paired exaggerated, cartoony character animation with extremely realistic, photo-based backgrounds. This deliberate contrast heightens emotional impact and makes the characters' performances pop.
  2. The backgrounds were created from heavy photo reference, detailed storyboards, and digital layering techniques like repeated white-on-white snow painting and "harmony processing." Limiting camera moves and reusing angles let the team spend more time adding dense, lived-in detail to each shot.
  3. Contemporary animators are pushing craft and storytelling with mixed techniques — for example, Alina Popescu's music video Other I uses reference-driven animation, strong composition, and layered effects to tell a compact, powerful story. Meanwhile the industry is being reshaped by major news such as prominent passings, shifting box-office patterns, and debates around AI and censorship.

How to get your art into museums

Science of Art • 418 implied HN points • 23 Oct 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Exhibitions Cultural Diversity
  1. Museums acquire art through buying, donations, and exchanges. It's not just about buying; they also consider gifts and bequests.
  2. Artists should align their work with a museum's mission. If their art matches a museum's goals, their chances of being noticed increase a lot.
  3. Networking is key for artists. By participating in events and connecting with art communities, artists can improve their visibility and create opportunities for themselves.

Ina Garten Portraits for the New Yorker

In the Flash • 1698 implied HN points • 11 Oct 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Photography Portraits Lifestyle Visual art Creative Process
  1. A photographer was advised to keep the shoot with Ina Garten simple and natural, avoiding anything unusual. This means sticking to natural light and straightforward setups.
  2. The photographer brought various tools for creativity but had to focus on a more minimalist approach as per the instructions.
  3. It's important in photography to balance creativity with the preferences of the subject or their team, ensuring everyone is comfortable.

The toil of (blog) art

lcamtuf’s thing • 11019 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Illustration Graphic design Photography 3D Modeling Software Tools Workflow
  1. Illustrations often take the most work in a technical blog and can require as much or more time than writing the text.
  2. Building a simple, consistent workflow and a reusable library of elements (scale, line thickness, fonts, colors) makes creating clear technical diagrams much faster and keeps a coherent style.
  3. Use the right tools for the job — photography, CAD, Excalidraw, Affinity — and apply deliberate visual tricks like shadows, outlines, and afterimages to imply depth, motion, or emphasis in 2D illustrations.

Closing Out 2025

Animation Obsessive • 17222 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Artists Techniques Industry History Curation
  1. Focusing on human-made craft in animation offers a meaningful alternative to generic, AI-driven content and keeps attention on artistic skill.
  2. Highlighting artists who work with materials like oil, sand, paper, wool, or metal pins shows how creative techniques and perseverance matter even when industry and politics make things harder.
  3. Celebrating concrete wins, growing an audience, and sharing work freely during hard times helps sustain the creative community, while planned breaks and continued effort keep the project viable for the future.

When Yuri Norstein Appeared

Animation Obsessive • 1435 implied HN points • 20 Feb 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Film History Artist profile Restoration
  1. A new Blu-ray release has made Yuri Norstein’s films far more accessible in the U.S., collecting famous shorts and rarer restorations including his debut.
  2. Norstein’s debut, The 25th – The First Day (1968), is unlike his later poetic character films: it has no plot or familiar characters and works as a music-driven "revolutionary étude" timed to Shostakovich.
  3. Although it looks like propaganda, the film was criticized and partially censored in the Soviet era and can be read as a layered, personal meditation on a past epoch rather than a straightforward celebration of the October Revolution.

Come See the Chair Show on Nov. 23

The American Peasant • 2036 implied HN points • 06 Oct 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Exhibitions Creative Process
  1. The Chair Show is happening on November 23, and it sounds like a fun event to see lots of interesting work.
  2. The person organizing the show prefers to sell their work directly rather than through a gallery, which often takes a large cut of the sales.
  3. They haven't shown their work in a gallery before, but they are excited about the opportunity and the social aspect of gallery shows.

For Paid Subscribers Only

The American Peasant • 1557 implied HN points • 08 Oct 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Crafts Design Sculpture Painting Photography
  1. The first 100 Exeter hammers are on sale for $133 and come numbered. It's a great buy if you're into woodworking.
  2. You can learn more about the different types of hammers and their uses on the website provided. Knowing the right tool can really help your projects.
  3. Shipping for the hammers is free in the U.S., and you might want to check out the new T-shirts they offer too. It's a fun way to support a brand you like.

New Emoji: Distorted Face đź«Ş

Did Someone Say Emoji? • 293 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Visual art Digital Art Illustration Design Animation Art history Pop culture
  1. Distortion has long been an artistic tool for conveying deeper truths and emotions—artists from Da Vinci and Bacon to animators and SOPHIE warp faces to express what normal features can’t.
  2. Online distortion like fisheye selfies, .5 selfies, and deliberate filters acts as an emotional shorthand and a way to reclaim control over your image, signaling authenticity or resistance to airbrushed perfection.
  3. New emojis such as Distorted Face, Melting Face, and Dotted Line Face make internal tension and complex psychological states visible, giving us a shared visual language for feelings ordinary expressions can’t capture.

The Enigmas of Gerhard Richter

Justin E. H. Smith's Hinternet • 449 implied HN points • 01 Mar 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Contemporary Art Painting Exhibitions Art history Portraiture Artist biography Photography
  1. Gerhard Richter is often seen as possibly the greatest living painter because of his extraordinary versatility, moving from photorealistic blurred images to grey monochromes across a seven-decade career.
  2. Even though Richter claims his paintings 'mean nothing,' they repeatedly engage personal and historical trauma—World War II, the bombing of Dresden, and intimate family tragedies—and often explore the experience of looking at photographs of loved ones and enemies.
  3. Key techniques and series carry clear critical readings: the 1965 photographic blur was a major innovation, the 1980s–90s smear paintings are read as reflecting art‑world financial cynicism, and some late works like the Birkenau paintings have been judged aesthetic and moral failures.

The Roots of China's Animation Boom

Animation Obsessive • 1973 implied HN points • 06 Feb 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Digital Art Software History Industry Online Media
  1. A recent attempt to retire Adobe Animate was reversed after strong creator pushback, showing how important Flash-era tools still are to artists.
  2. Flash made animation cheap and easy to share online, letting anyone publish work, reach audiences, and sometimes launch careers.
  3. China’s modern animation boom traces back to the Flash era, which built a wide community, iconic works, and many of the artists now driving the industry.

The Colorful Fever Dream of Djeneba Aduayom

In the Flash • 1039 implied HN points • 03 Oct 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Photography Contemporary Art Creative Process Artist interviews
  1. Djeneba Aduayom mixes color and black and white in her photography, choosing based on the story she wants to tell. This flexible approach helps her capture different feelings and interpretations.
  2. When dealing with creative burnout, she takes time to pause and reflect, engages in unrelated activities, and practices self-compassion. This process helps her recharge and reconnect with her creativity.
  3. Djeneba believes staying true to herself is the most important part of her art. Rather than following trends or fitting into categories, she focuses on creating work that reflects her unique experiences.

The comfort of drawing Batman

Austin Kleon • 2018 implied HN points • 20 Aug 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Drawing Creativity Comics Cultural Commentary Personal Reflection
  1. Drawing can be a comforting activity, especially during times of boredom or stress. For some, like the author, drawing familiar characters like Batman brings joy.
  2. Airplane mode can enhance productivity because it eliminates distractions. This can turn a flight into a great opportunity to focus and create.
  3. Comfort work is any creative task you do when you don't know what else to tackle. It's nice to have simple activities, like drawing, to fall back on.

The Next in Line

Animation Obsessive • 1435 implied HN points • 30 Jan 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Art history Education Artists Awards
  1. When the USSR collapsed, state studios and funding for animation fell apart, causing a big loss of skilled artists and a real fear that the craft’s generational knowledge would disappear.
  2. Veteran animators set up School‑Studio Shar and other teaching efforts to pass on techniques to younger artists, and that training helped Russian animation slowly rebuild over decades.
  3. Anton Dyakov, a Shar graduate, earned an Oscar nomination for BoxBallet, proving the mentorship pipeline can produce world‑class work, but his rise also highlights how fragile the succession and revival remain.

Animating the World Around You

Animation Obsessive • 2242 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Visual Arts Cultural Identity
  1. Many young animators borrow Western character designs and tones, and that can make their work lose the distinct flavors of their own cultures.
  2. Local languages, rituals, colors and emotions are rich storytelling resources that can give animations a unique and authentic voice.
  3. Stop motion can put regional materials and traditions directly on screen, helping films feel rooted, tactile, and original.

Skeletons and Noses

Animation Obsessive • 1704 implied HN points • 23 Jan 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Music Sound design Film History
  1. Mickey Mousing pairs music tightly with movement so the score mirrors every on‑screen action, a technique Disney perfected in films like The Skeleton Dance.
  2. The Nose goes the opposite way: its music often clashes with the animation, and its metal‑pin animation and wild score create a strange, unsettling effect.
  3. Comparing the two shows that music can either reinforce visuals for clarity and charm or oppose them to provoke and expand what animation can express.

The Seydou KeĂŻta Edition

Why is this interesting? • 1206 implied HN points • 29 Jan 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Photography Portraiture Museums Fashion Visual Culture Identity Cultural History
  1. KeĂŻta ran a Bamako portrait studio where sitters picked fabrics and props and worked with him to stage poses, so each photo became a deliberate act of self-fashioning.
  2. His portraits show that style can be a form of self-determination and that cultural influence often comes from the margins, not just from major art centers.
  3. Although his negatives were nearly lost, his work was rediscovered and is now in major museums, and it has reshaped contemporary portrait and fashion photography around the world.

An Illustrated Guide for Unhinged Times

OK Doomer • 216 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Illustration Design Digital Art Print Publishing Licensing
  1. An illustrated survival guide is now available as a printed beta and downloadable PDF, released under a Creative Commons license so anyone can print or adapt it.
  2. Small independent publishers are invited to access the source files to create internationalized versions, with the simple request that they give due credit.
  3. The project is sustained by reader support and grants, and ongoing development relies on donations, subscriptions, and community backing.

Hanging out with Lenny Kaye

Patti Smith • 14996 implied HN points • 26 Jan 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Movies Poetry Friendship
  1. Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye enjoyed a day together in the city, reminiscing about past performances and exploring the neighborhood.
  2. They watched the movie Poor Things in an old-fashioned theater, appreciating the cinematography and performances.
  3. Their friendship spans over half a century, highlighting the value of long-lasting friendships.

Drawing Eno

Austin Kleon • 1778 implied HN points • 23 Jul 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Visual art Film Creativity Generative Art Documentary
  1. The documentary about Brian Eno is exciting and unique because it creates a different version every time it's shown. This encourages viewers to watch it in theaters for a fresh experience.
  2. It uses a special system called Brain One to generate the film. This system combines new interviews and personal clips from Eno’s archive, making each showing feel like a new story.
  3. The movie has interesting marketing advantages. Since every version is different, it gives people a reason to see it on the big screen instead of waiting for it to stream.

Christmas and Hope and Home

Animation Obsessive • 1973 implied HN points • 12 Dec 25
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film History Illustration Biography Music
  1. Bethlehem was Jiří Trnka’s first puppet film and the moment he found a poetic stop-motion language that emphasized space, light, stillness, and cinematic camera moves.
  2. The short transplants the nativity into Czech rural life, mixing folk customs with personal and wartime memories to express home, hope, and the darker echoes of occupation.
  3. Made quickly with limited equipment, the team improvised new puppet-film techniques and a choir-based musical approach, and the film paved the way for Trnka’s later influential feature work.

The Film and Studio That 'Should Not Exist'

Animation Obsessive • 13095 implied HN points • 13 Jun 25
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Design Creativity Production
  1. Cinema Fantasma, a unique stop-motion studio in Mexico, created the first Mexican stop-motion feature film called 'I Am Frankelda.' Their work shows how creativity can thrive even with tight budgets.
  2. The film has a fun, imaginative storyline with memorable characters and songs that resonate with audiences. Its premiere at the Annecy Festival was met with excitement and applause.
  3. The Ambriz brothers, who run Cinema Fantasma, faced many challenges but remained determined to bring their vision to life. They hope their success inspires more stop-motion projects in Mexico in the future.

Writing on the wall of heaven

Patti Smith • 10554 implied HN points • 24 Jan 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Writing Handwriting Art
  1. The author reflects on the joy of learning penmanship and practicing handwriting with dipping pens and ink in school.
  2. The author's dream was to write like the authors of the Declaration of Independence and copied it line by line at different points in their life.
  3. The post celebrates National Handwriting Day and mentions a meditation on the importance and beauty of handwriting.

'The Silence of the Good People'

Animation Obsessive • 10315 implied HN points • 23 Jun 25
🎨 Art & Illustration Animation Film Visual Arts Cultural critique Media
  1. Not all animated films get proper recognition, but some like 'Hangman' from 1964 are powerful and carry important messages. This film adapts a haunting poem that critiques the silence of those who allow injustice to happen.
  2. Les Goldman, the creator of 'Hangman,' worked tirelessly to bring the project to life, showing how passion drives art. His efforts highlight the importance of standing against oppression in society.
  3. Today, 'Hangman' remains relevant, sparking discussions about how silence can enable evil. It's been used in classrooms to teach valuable lessons about morality and social responsibility.

An Ocean of Pain and Death

Looking Through the Past • 178 implied HN points • 06 Oct 24
🎨 Art & Illustration Art history Visual Culture Cultural Commentary
  1. Ernst Friedrich's book 'War Against War!' aimed to show the harsh realities of war, pushing people to rethink their views on conflict. He believed that by confronting the true impacts of war, society could work towards lasting peace.
  2. Artists throughout history, like Goya and Picasso, have used their work to express the horrors of war, presenting it not as glorious but as tragic. Their art serves as a reminder of the suffering that war brings to individuals and communities.
  3. The anti-war art movement highlights the need to see the brutal consequences of conflict, encouraging people to think critically about war and its effects on humanity. Recognizing these realities can help prevent future wars.

A love Supreme

Patti Smith • 18121 implied HN points • 23 Sep 23
🎨 Art & Illustration Music
  1. John Coltrane's music was a powerful force of love and creativity.
  2. For many, Coltrane symbolized spiritual seeking and artistic freedom in the 1960s.
  3. The impact of John Coltrane's music on individuals and their relationships is profound and lasting.