Neo-gothic surrealism

Neo-gothic surrealism is a supplementary art style most commonly used in conjunction with anime, manga and stop-motion animation.
Description
Taking its roots from a combination of gothic fashion and surrealism, neo-gothic surrealism is a contemporary style of art that appears in many different forms of media. The style of neo-gothic surrealism is predominantly applied in works of supernatural fiction that focuses on themes of melancholy, fantasy (often that of sword and sorcery) and off-color humor.
Elements
The style of neo-gothic surrealism applies many of the same properties of typical surrealism, but carries with it many more specific and distinctive characteristics. All works of neo-gothic surrealism use some number of these elements, though which ones and how many depend on the individual work.
Exaggeration
In neo-gothic surrealistic works, a key element that most commonly appears is what can only be described as exaggeration. Buildings and the character's various other surroundings tend to appear tilted or disproportionate (despite the generally realistic proportions of the characters themselves), sometimes as if looking through that of a fish-eye lens. Whether or not the buildings are as they seem vary depending on the work.
In some cases, the embellishment is merely your perspective and the surroundings when close up take on a more practical shape, allowing characters to use it realistically. In other cases the distortion is simply the way the object was designed and is interacted with as though it were not really "flawed".
*In Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, all normal structures were in someway deformed or subject to awkward proportions.
Surrealistic personification
Personification is a rampant theme is most cases of Neo-Gothic Surrealism, in which case, normally inanimate objects are in some way, shape or form alive. Alternatively, but not necessarily as a substitute, normal everyday objects might appear in "improper" places and act as a form of decoration, though to the characters it’s merely part of the landscape.
*Jing, King of Bandits heavily implemented this idea. At times, large archways might take a moment to brush their stalagtite teeth and large oversized bowling balls might be found resting along valleys.
*Soul Eater also employed this tactic to great extent giving the sun and moon faces and moods. A hallway consisting entirely of guillotines is another example.
Simplicity and color scheme
In nearly all instances of neo-gothic surrealism, its appearance is initially quite plain. Instead of adding texture like that of most western style art, neo-gothic surrealism relies on its exaggeration and surrealistic personification techniques to give it real organic depth. While no one particular usage is embraced, most cases are usually simplistic and limited to a select few colors depending on the content.
Black and orange (or maroon or purple alternatively) are common color combinations.
Halloween themes
Though maintaining deep-rooted gothic themes, like Halloween, Neo-Gothic Surrealism is largely secular and as such often shares many of the now familiar secular themes prevalent in Halloween decoration. Pumpkins and witches appear to be the most frequent Halloween references in this style, so much in fact that it is no surprise that a large portion of Neo-Gothic Surrealistic works involve Halloween or, more specifically, witches.
*Such works that involve witchcraft and magic alone include Soul Eater, , and A Witch's Tale.
Steampunk undertones
Another noticeably common, but not entirely prominent theme in Neo-Gothic Surrealism is the application of steampunk elements in order to either further the material's surreal depth or to give it texture.
*As such an abundance of these elements including gears and seemingly autonomous machinery can be found in various works including, but not limited to Jing, King of Bandits, Soul Eater, Kingdom Hearts and .
Jagged clothing and swirls
A noticeably common trend among artists of Neo-Gothic Surrealism is their tendency to draw (more commonly) clothing or iconic designs as appearing “jagged”, causing their art to retain a rough and loose quality that embellishes it’s exaggerated characteristics. Things like brush strokes or clothing that would usually bend and move fluidly in nature, might appear to bend at perpendicular angles and move in a dragging sort of fashion.
The "jagged" (or "blocky:) swirl is a common icon that appears in many Neo-Gothic Surrealistic works. The jagged swirl is best described as a normally fluid, circular swirl composed of (sometimes slightly rounded) segmented lines of gradually decreasing widths. This icon appears in all sorts of places:
*The character, Jing, from Jing, King of Bandits wears an orange jacket adorned with the black jagged swirl on it’s left shoulder. The jagged swirl also appears in place of the eyes of the series’ grinning cat icon.
*The point of Blair's witch hat from Soul Eater is also composed of a jagged swirl. Death the Kid is also occasionally seen wearing a cloak, the folds of which billow behind him in the form of jagged curls.
*The jagged swirl replaces the left eye of the Mayor character in Nightmare Before Christmas. A similar, though far more iconic and recognizable swirl (though not really “jagged”) appears as part of the movie’s famous ‘Curly Hill’.
*Many of the Heartless enemy characters in the Kingdom Hearts series retained usage of the jagged swirl in their designs.
Examples
*American McGee's Alice
*B. Ichi
*Hollow Fields
*Invader Zim
*Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Notable artists and designers
The following names are a collection of artists and production designers that have contributed work in this field.
*
*Barry E. Jackson
*Jhonen Vasquez

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See Also

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