Thrown into Oblivion: WAR Artist Andrée Wallin

The World Famous Wall Art Rockers are proud to showcase some of their artists, starting with Andrée Wallin:

Andrée has collaborated with Universal on the artwork for the recently released film Oblivion. A futuristic film, set in 2037, following an invasion by alien scavengers who destroyed the moon and nearly destroyed the Earth. It stars Tom Cruise as Jack Harper, one of the last humans left, who is tasked with extracting the last of earth's resources, especially water. His life unexpectedly changes after a space ship crashes......

The visuals of this stunning film and Andrée's work on the trailer poster give you a good idea of what we produce here at WAR.

Andrée had a love of drawing from an early age, he was the boy always huddled over his desk with a pencil and paper in his hand letting full reign to his vivid imagination. At 19 he stumbled across photoshop and found a medium he could explore, as he himself states he's lazy, not wanting to get into all the colour mixing and stuff. One of his artworks usually takes 2-3 days to complete, depending on the detail required.

Andrée (29) started his digital concept art career with RealtimeUK in 2008 and currently works for Radical Thinking. He freelances from his native Sweden, though he has also worked in house for companies. He has worked on major big name projects like Napoleon: Total War, Dirt 3 and Halo 4. This shows you the high calibre of his work and why we are proud to have him as a featured artist. 

He was first approached by WAR in 2010 with regards to him working with us, bringing his style to something other than canvas. His detailed digital artwork lends itself perfectly to being used on our giant widescreen acrylic pictures. He had never taken up any offers before but after seeing our product he quickly changed his mind.

His style is unequaled in detail and this isn't lost in anyway when we reproduce our giant wall art, keeping the integrity of the original design intact. One of our best selling pieces 'You and Me' is a perfect example of the clarity we can achieve, along with the emotion Andrée creates in his art.

You will find other examples of his work in our gallery, from 'Swamp Fever', a rather eery bayou picture, to the very Mass Effect looking 'Down Town' which would be a great addition to any gaming household or business..

For more info on Andrée check out www.andrewallin.com

3DTotal rocked by the Rockers!

When one of the worlds most prominent CG Art websites required some CG inspired wall art, they didn't have to look too far. A simple phone call was all it took and the World Famous Wall Art Rockers did the rest.

UK based 3DTotal is one of the leading brands when it comes championing CG and Digital Art. The website offers a variety of training products, an inspirational gallery, a free texture library and hundreds of free tutorials with over 1.5 million visitors per month.

After an initial chat with 3DTotal team they decided to choose two pieces of work (You and Me and Deep Impact) both by the legendary concept artists Andrée Wallin.
3DTotal have featured Andrée in several of their publications and were already huge fans of his work.

A week later the World Famous Wall Art Rockers personally delivered the wall arts themselves as they were keen to meet 3DTotal team in person and get their views on product itself.
As they were unwrapped in front of the whole team a chorus of gasps could be heard when they were fully unveiled for the first time.

The next ten minutes involved an enjoyable question and answer session as the team wanted to learn more about how so much detail and sharpness could be retained in the images despite their huge scale.

Tom Greenway (3DTotal Editor/Owner) was particularly impressed "They looked fantastic on the website but in real life they are simply astonishing." He continued "The gloss of the acrylic really makes the colours so vibrant and I love the contemporary look of the finished frame. They really do look like huge computer screens".

Receiving an overwhelming endorsement of quality by some of the industries leading CG and Digital Art professionals made the long journey back up North to WAR HQ that little bit easier.

The 8-bit art revival - will it last?

On our Wall Art Rockers site you will run into a lot of artwork that wouldn't look out of place during the production of a videogame. 

In fact, you can view the work we did for Just Add Water, who helped bring Odd World: Stranger's Wrath back into being for a modernised re-release. However, a lot of game art these days, especially in the indie space, is trending towards a resolution that's not been seen on consoles much for decades: 8-bit. 

Low-resolution, it might seem at first to be extremely ugly or primitive. But when you look at the art seen in games like Superbrothers: Swords and Sworcery EP, you know that despite the lack of pixels, some of the art can really be mindblowing. But is it going to stick around, or is it just a passing thing? 

Realistically, it'll be around for decades, at least, and that's from this point forwards, not from its genesis point. Whether you were a gamer or you simply recognise someone's Pac-Man username, you'll know that retro art is a big thing. People like the art of yore, as it still has a sense of clean-cut simplicity to it that some multi-layered, more complex art does not. Here at WAR, we're into all sorts, and focus on progressive, incredibly detailed pieces, but low-res work certainly has its place. 

Whether it'll still be popular within certain mediums in time - not only in games, but even retro chip-tune music (music produced with old gaming hardware) - is something we'll have to wait for, as predicting the tastes of the world is simply impossible. But as society becomes more and more digitised, that appeal may actually just keep on growing. So don't worry about the Super Mario Bros. 3 art on your wall - it'll still be a worthy centrepiece in the years to come, we think.

Stranger's Wrath - Bespoke Digital Wall Art

Recently, we teamed up with our friends at Just Add Water (the developers of the legendary Oddworld Series) to produce a stunning large format wall art immortalising one of their most celebrated tittles - Stranger's Wrath.
The wall art is to take pride of place in the very studio where the JAW team create and develop their games therefore they required something truly inspirational!

After seeing a couple of our printed samples. Stewart Gillray (CEO of JAW Ltd) was left in no doubt that our unique and innovative "wide-screen" perspex wall art was the only way to present their artwork.
The very next day the talented JAW crew emailed over the image they wanted reproducing and the Wall Art Rockers did the rest.

Upon receiving the Stranger's Wrath wall art Stewart commented "Utterly amazing! The overall size is impressive enough but the quality of the print and the colours are simply breathtaking." He continued "We especially love the glossiness of the perspex which really does make it look like a huge computer monitor!"



We printed and delivered the Stranger's Wrath wall art within 7 working days.
We are now on the look out for other video game / software / CG related companies to WOW with our unique wall art for a digital generation!

We're Exhibiting in Leeds Jan 2012

From 9th January 2012 The World Famous Wall Art Rockers are exhibiting a selection of our unique concept, video game, sci-fi, fantasy and digital inspired wall arts at Café 164 in our home town of Leeds, West Yorkshire. 

Café 164 has established a strong following with the local art community by serving good food/drink in a relaxing environment surrounded by inspiring art.
It is also ideally situated for art lovers as they are right next door to the Leeds Art Gallery.

We are exhibiting several pieces of our work including the stunning Down Town by the legendary concept artist Andrée Wallin, Minimal Valley by Dr Franken and our very own vinyl masterpiece Dub Flow.
All will be displayed in our huge 1400 x 675mm "widescreen" format with the artwork printed directly onto 8mm thick acrylic. They really have to be seen to be believed!

A special mention must go to our super star guest artist Phil Wall Art. We have collaborated with Phil to produce an awesome "one off" original wall art that will be exclusive to Café 164!
It's called Leeds vs Monsters and features three cartoon monsters using a Leeds cityscape as a playground. We'll even sign and date it for the lucky purchaser!

If you happen to be in Leeds during January please call in and shows us your support.

Address is: Café 164, Unit 2 Munro House, Duke Street, Leeds LS9 8AG
Opposite the Bus Station

We look forward to seeing you!

Back to School for the Rockers

So last week the World Famous Wall Art Rockers went back to school. In fact we went back to the very classroom where our artistic big ideas first began! 

We were invited in to our former school (Sherburn High School) to talk to groups of year 5 Art students about the highs and lows of being involved in the art/design industry and also running your own business.

Personally, I vividly remember a similar moment happening to me over 25 years ago.
A former student gate crashed my beloved double art lesson claiming to be a "graphic designer" and wanted to show us her portfolio of work. I didn't have a clue what a graphic designer was (or did), so I sat politely and listened and looked.

From that moment on I have been forever in her debt as I have worked as a graphic designer/artists ever since. Therefore I felt duty bound that we would return to our old "stomping ground" and hopefully inspire other students in the same way.

We waxed lyrical about all things creative including social media, brand awareness, the importance of standing out "from the crowd" and everything in between. To be fair the students sat and listened very patiently and even asked the odd question or two.

Fortunately we brought a couple of our huge acrylic wall arts with us and when we showed these they really caught their attention! The were interested in not only the art styles but also how they were printed, produced and sold.

This also led to a discussion about the thriving video game industry and how art plays a pivotal role in the production of any AAA or Indie game title.
We were very surprised to learn that one of the students was in fact a budding concept artists himself and his end of year project featured several manga and concept inspired art pieces.

It was great to talk about our business journey and spread the love for digital art.
Hopefully we have inspired a few budding artists who will go on to enjoy a rewarding and profitable artistic career.

We would like to end with a big thank you to all the students for listening to us, Mrs Landon for inviting us in and Sherburn High School for letting us share our vision.

Aperture's Requiem - Portal 2 Wall Art

The World Famous Wall Art Rockers are proud to announce that we have teamed up with our friends at Steel Series and Valve to produce an exclusive Portal 2 wall art titled Aperture's Requiem.

As I'm sure you are aware the Portal Series from Valve/EA is one the most highly regarded video games of recent years and has received numerous well deserved awards and accolades.
The iconic series has a huge following among the video gaming community with legions of fans eager to discuss, write, draw and share all things Portal.
Therefore we had to create something truly spectacular that the fans would really engage with and get excited about.

Working closely with Steel Series and the artists at Valve we have produced a jaw dropping wall art that focuses on GLaDOS (who also appeared in the legendary Half Life series) inside the decaying Aperture Science Facility.
Chell also features silhouetted against the light beam cast down by GLaDOS. Completely dwarfed by her surroundings.

The muted colour palette really compliments the stark use of light and shadows to create suitably sombre atmosphere.

This stunning Portal 2 concept art is reverse printed direct to a gigantic 1400 x 675mm (8mm thick) acrylic panel. The reflective gloss of the acrylic makes the whole wall art look like a huge HD TV screen and brings every detail to life.

A special mention must go out to our friends at Steel Series who made all this possible.

DJ Woody and the Wall Art Rockers

We recently supplied the 2 x DJ World Champion and legendary superstar turntablist DJ Woody (aka Lee Woodvine) an awesome wall art for his brand new purpose built studio!

For those of you that don't know who DJ Woody is (shame on you), he is described as “One of the most creative forces in DJing the UK scene has ever produced”. His unrivalled visual performance show ‘Turntables in Technicolor’ has taken the world by storm.

DJ Woody has recently appeared at the US DMC finals in NYC as the first ever non-US artist to be invited to showcase. His current tour schedule includes long awaited appearances across Brazil, Asia, Europe and the US, as well as regular shows in his native UK.

Check out his website here.

So why did DJ Woody hook up with The World Famous Wall Art Rockers when he required a piece of wall art? The answer is very simple. He wanted a piece of wall art that visually expresses his love of technology, modernism and innovation as these are the three key influencing factors in the creation of his music. The same values that we incorporate into the creation of our wall art.

The wall art he chose was the typographical themed Type Bot 2023 (by Lukas Bischoff), which is available to buy exclusively from www.wallartrockers.com

Traditional Art vs Digital Art

On Saturday 30th July we attended the Open Exhibition held at Bar Lane Studios in York. We had submitted two of our digital wall arts, both of which had been selected for exhibition. As strange as this may sound, our inclusion came as a bit of a surprise!

When I initially submitted our entries (the previous week), I couldn't help but notice the other artists work. As you would expect the overall standard was exceptionally high. However this didn't phase me as I knew our artwork was up there with the best of them. The thing that really struck me was that ours were the only "digital art" entries. All the other 2D submissions were created using traditional media ie. paint, pen, pencil or photograph.

Slightly perturbed I continued to unwrap our artwork under the watchful gaze of the event staff. Once the wall arts were fully revealed in all there shiny high gloss glory they were greeted with quizzical interest and a couple of muffled "wows".
There then followed an impromptu "Q & A" session regarding how they were produced which also included several members of the public who had wondered into the gallery for a better look!

Maybe my initial preconceptions were wrong. Could digital art really be accepted by the "traditional" art world!

My question was partially answered at the Open Exhibition preview event. We turned up at the studios only to discover our wall arts taking prime position in the studio windows. This was received with mixed feelings. On one hand it was fantastic statement by the exhibition organisers who obviously thought they would catch the eye of the general public and also act as "front of house" showcase for the rest of the art within.
On the negative side the wall arts were facing away from the throng of art critics and visitors inside. I couldn't help but feel this was partially intended.

To conclude, I felt Bar Lane Studios made a brave and astute decision to exhibit our work. They may not of entirely understood our concept (or medium) but they certainly new our work would attract a new breed of visitor.

Shortly after releasing our first Press Release we were contacted by a very well known Leeds based newspaper. After an initial telephone discussion the journalist we spoke to promised to feature us in their weekly business section. All he required from us was a couple of hi-res images to include in the finished article. We promptly emailed over 6 images that best encapsulated our unique and innovative style of contemporary themed acrylic wall art.

I excitedly called the journalist a couple of hours later to ensure he had received the email OK and if he required any further information. He confirmed he had indeed received the images but his next question left me absolutely flabbergasted!

"Do you have any normal images you can send send through?"

I was left speechless! Surely he had read the press release properly as he contacted us for a follow up story. He must at some point visited the website prior to calling us to have a look at the wall art. The only reply I could offer was that "we don't do normal".

I tried to explain that the large format acrylic wall art we produce is a very design led product and will only appeal to a very defined but dedicated audience. Our inspiration is taken from cutting edge graphic design, well executed typography, video / arcade game themed 3D digital art and urban pop art.

I could tell with his tone that all I was saying was falling on deaf ears. He did not understand the concept at all and as he quite rightly said "I don't really understand art, that's someone else's department". As you may have gathered, the article never got published.

Our vision is firmly focused on innovation, not normality.

Quality not Quantity

Recently, I was asked the question "why did you choose to print your wall arts on acrylic rather than canvas?" before I could reply they also followed up with "surely this would also reduce the overall cost and make the wall art more accessible to your customers".

These are perfectly valid points which I strongly considered prior to starting the company. Do I go for the standard (cheaper) production method and hopefully sell lots. Or do I opt for the expensive (high quality) route which will instantly reduce the number of potential customers.

To help me decide I had to start at the beginning and recollect why I felt so passionately about producing that very first piece of wall art. That reason was I wanted something unique that engaged with me and reflected my individuality. I didn't want something with a "normal" theme, printed in a "normal" way, hung on my wall in the "normal" fashion.

From that moment on I new everything about our wall arts was going to be different and innovative!

• The graphic, typographic and digital art subject matter
• The huge "widescreen" format
• The choice of "high gloss" 8mm thick acrylic
• The hanging of the wall art via aluminium wall studs
• The way it stands off the wall by 30mm once mounted
• Even the name/brand itself

All these factors contribute to the uniqueness of our acrylic wall art and helped develop our company ethos:

"Our vision is to constantly challenge the ordinary, develop engaging visual experiences and push ourselves to innovate beyond all expectations."

We firmly believe our customers will share very similar values to us and fully appreciate what The World Famous Wall Art Rockers concept is trying to achieve.

To conclude, yes, our contemporary acrylic wall art may be a bit more expensive than standard canvas prints but we know this is easily offset by their exclusivity and overall "WOW factor" they create once on the wall!

Quality not quantity will always win through.

Image is You and Me by Andrée Wallin

Hooligan - Acrylic Wall Art

One of our more controversial acrylic wall arts is simply titled "Hooligan". If you haven't seen this artwork yet (and you would like to) it can be viewed on our website here. It is mostly a typographical piece that features the word Hooligan (set in the über NB Form font created by Stefan Gandl) with the subtitle "Casual Subculture".

Underneath this there is a complete list of all the active football hooligan firms in England, Wales and Scotland (approx 120+). All the major firms have been included such as:

Chelsea Headhunters, Leeds Service Crew, Man United's Red Army, West Hams ICF, Cardiff City's Soul Crew right through to lesser known firms such as Barnsley's Five-O, Bolton's Tonge Moor Slashers and Montrose's Portland Bill Seaside Squad!

The only imagery that appears on wall art is a graphic/minimalist illustration of 2 geezers scrapping. Complete with standard hooligan issue Stone Island top and Adidas kicks.

For those of you who have viewed the artwork you will notice that the focus isn't on the violence. It's an encapsulation and expression of the hooligan spirit. The fantastic and often outrageous names of the hooligan firms (Burnley Suicide Squad), the adrenaline fueled Saturday afternoons and the hyper cool designer clothes that helped define a generation of terrace casuals. 

Love it or loath it. You've got to admit it looks pretty damn cool!

How the WAR* began

Today we were interviewed (over the phone) by the York Press newspaper. One of the first questions asked by the journalist was "why did you set up this company?" I have been asked this same question by friends and colleagues on several occasions and have always given a similar answer:

About two years ago I wanted to buy a large wall art for our living room in the family home. Being a creative sort of chap (I am a graphic designer after all) I wanted something a bit different from the norm. Something über contemporary that reflected my taste in design and art. 

After several weeks of trawling around the internet, visiting home-ware shops and poking around in galleries I finally gave up looking as I couldn't find a single thing that really engaged with me. All these places seemed to offer the same old cheap looking box canvas prints displaying generic cityscapes (London or New York), nature inspired compositions, bland abstracts and poor quality "Banksy" rip-offs.

It just so happened that week we had started a new project for one of our regular clients York Art Gallery. This involved designing several display panels for a forthcoming exhibition. Once the artwork had been created we decided to reverse mount them to acrylic (for protection) and then hang them from the wall via four chrome wall studs which made the artwork stand off the wall by 30mm. The finished result was spectacular and they looked super modern.

This set the cogs in motion and I immediately set to work on creating my own piece of wall art that would be mounted in the same way. I wanted to produce something really graphic, fresh and would add a blast of colour to our white walls. The finished piece, titled "The North Will Rise Again" developed the acrylic concept further as the graphic itself is cut from day-glo pink vinyl (not printed).

From that day onwards, The World Famous Wall Art Rockers was born!

We Are The World Famous Wall Art Rockers!

Welcome to the very first blog by The World Famous Wall Art Rockers!
We are a UK based company that design and produce contemporary, graphic and typographic large format acrylic wall art for modern interiors.

Inspired by the very best in graphic design, typography, illustration and all other forms of visual communication. Our aim is to develop a unique and stylish collection of über cool acrylic wall art that dares to be different.

Over the coming weeks/months/years we want to give you a real insight into our artistic inspirations, influences and aspirations. We will keep you up to date with any new work, collaborative artists and latest developments.