If you haven’t heard of this guy, you’ve been living in the dark!

Many have cited him as “one of the most influential artists of all time.”  But instead of regurgitating his story and what people say about him, I’ll shorten it to “his iconic work for The Face magazine has influenced so many image makers, it has almost become a school of illustration in itself.“  This I can testify to, and refer you to his own biography on his webpage.

What I really love about his work is not just how intensely creative some of his ideas are, but is how simple the picture is; and because of it being so simple and often colorless, you can’t tell what’s happening until you stare at it for a while.  For instance, here is “Bad Bambi” from his Poster Girl collection:

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t realize that it’s a picture of a real girl holding up a poster until about the fifth time I viewed it.  I love that!

Here’s another monotone design that shows a good example of extreme simplicity and contrast in the center montage:

The dark side to exaggerated beauty is that a lot of Goodall’s works to be found online are erotic or very suggestive and objectifying of girls.  I don’t agree with this exploitation, but I still find his drawings to be such perfected mastery of the figure that they shouldn’t be avoided just for that reason.

My favorites by this artist fall in the category of simplicity splashed with color:

Jaspergoodall.com is where you can find his own blog and abbreviated portfolio with his own captions.

At bigactive.com you can order prints of his work and see even more images by him.

Here is some of my own imitative “fanart,” if you may call it, that I did for a friend’s birthday – referencing his interest in video games and penguins.

“penguin chix: pwning owning pros.”