Inspiration: The Art of John Harris - Beyond the horizon

Aloa Jungle,

as active painting is not happening from my side at the moment - still - I realized that many other creative things are happening in my brain. Of course, some, related to miniature painting. I decided to let spring also hit home in the Massive Voodoo jungle and will hit the jungle with different ideas of blog posts.

If I am not painting much these days does not mean the jungle has to be silent as the jungle in my head ain't quiet itself.

FYI: You find me writing posts these days under my personal account on Massive Voodoo, not the MV Team account. Through all the upcoming Kong Fu I am going through in the next couple of weeks I did not see it would fit writing in the words of the team. Official MV announcements and such will drop in from my side by using the MV team account.

With these book reviews I want to share the inspiration behind the reason why I bought myself one of these and how it - maybe - will influance my future miniature projects. Also what kind of projects I already did who fit to the topic.

You will find future book reviews also linked up to MV's Miniature Unpacked area. 

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A book review of
The Art of John Harris 
- Beyond the horizon

publised by Titan books.

Somehow I found myself into some space movies last winter. "Gravity", "The Martian" and some more of this kind really made my mind drift out to space. New worlds. New thoughts.

Then - as a big Mass Effect series fan - the computer game Mass Effect, Andromeda caught my attention for a while and the visuals made my journey continue.


I found myself searching google for some space art and I found the art of "John Harris".

I love how he plays with color, I love how he plays with atmosphere and I enjoy how he plays with vast space and scale differences. I did some research about his work online and decided rather quickly to get myself his Artbook for inspirational purposes on many fields.

Opening up this book takes you on a far journey ...

Love this one ...

The book is a high quality printed hardcover with excellent images and interesting texts to give insight to the artist's work and his visions. I just open up the book for you a little more.

Everything is big in space. That is what I feel when looking at this.

Colorwise for me this is a pure joy to observe and draw inspiration from ...

The following is actual my favourite painting by him and I also see it as my desktop background right now. It is called "Ascent" and was done in 2009.

It is so lovely to observe brushstrokes and color choices in John Harris' work. I am amazed.

In many works he combines traditional views we might understand as humans. This look like Tuscany in Italy but well the architecture tells you different.

The full side artworks are just magnificant:

I see some visions coming in my brain that need to be fullfilled in the future. Mass Effect and John Harris inspired. This book has a pretty heavy impact on me and I open it up once in a while when I dream myself into the far future.

I can only recommend this artbook to everyone interested in painting. No matter if you enjoy spaceships and the vast unknown, it will take you away colorwise.

This book, combined with Mass Effect did heat some ideas of mine up. Let's see when I bring them to a miniature :) - So far it made me draw on paper again what I did not do for a long time, I call it:

 'Here I go again, going down the only road I know'

Mixed Media, text marker, white edding, Alpha design marker, kuretake pens on paper.

DIN A4

If somebody is seriously interested the original is for sale.
Feel free to contact me anytime. See the original on the table after finishing it.


Keep on happy painting!
- Roman