Vector Portraits

For Russian designer, illustrator and vector artist Ruslan Khasanov, feelings and dreams are key to his artworks. With a steady hand and lots of patience, he translates expressions of happiness, laughter, fear or anger into powerful illustrations. Here you can see a series of amazing vector portraits: James Dean, Laura Palmer, Audrey Hepburn and Alfred Hitchcock. Be ready to be surprised by an extraordinary artist.

To understand the art of Ruslan Khasanov, it’s key to understand where he comes from and how it all started. Ruslan grew up in a small Russian town without cinemas or museums, so the only art he hand at hand were books. Being a kid, a copy of the Old Testament with large engravings of landscapes and human figures fascinated him, and he wanted to learn to create images like this. At the age of 9, he started to copy these illustrations, giving his best effort to redraw every line with precision and passion.

Once Ruslan achieved mastery in drawing skills, he expanded his universe by pushing the boundaries of his own world – a world driven by curiosity, tumultuous feelings and new experiences. Today, Khasanov takes inspiration of movie classics, TV series, classical music, jazz sounds, dreams, long walks, crazy people, performance groups, street art and new technology and mixes and matches the influences to create amazing artworks, both digital or analogue.

As an artist, Khasanov is interested in the unusual, even the ugly sides of reality. “Beauty is simple and clear, but ugliness attracts mystery. A face with wrinkles, heavy eyes and even scars is intriguing”. He loves to take on a variety of styles, materials and techniques and tries to make them his own. For Ruslan, the line is everything – a primary tool to express motion, leave a hint of shape, and make the artwork simple and free. Sometimes he redraws simple lines over and over again, only to decide that he does not like it and completely remove them. Ruslan is very severe when it concerns his own artworks, and if he doesn’t like the result he just erases and rewind.

Khasanov’s favorite artists include Russian symbolist painter Mikhail Vrubel for the way he masterfully destroys objectivity and shows the soul of his subjects. He also admires English illustrator Aubrey Beardsley for his clean, linear graphics done in black ink and the fantasy universe of Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor and movie set designer H.R. Giger. As you can guess, Ruslan is a big fan of theater and movies. At one point he even wanted to become a stage actor. Always loving new experiences, he is fascinated by the magic of the scene and dramatic situations: “You are standing on the stage, blinded by the spotlights, you can’t see the audience but you become a different person. That’s the kind of new experiences and areas I like to explore”. As cinema is his passion, it will not surprise you that Khasanov hopes to make a movie one day. In the meantime we hope that he will continue to surprise us with his amazing illustrations and vector artworks.

Website: RusKhasanov.com

James Dean

Laura Palmer

Twin Peaks

Audrey Hepburn

Alfred Hitchcock

Anatomy of a Jedi

Dream Girl

Dreaming Girl

Expressive

Impression