Lily's Art Blog

Senior Concept artist at Ubisoft Montréal --- Personal Works, Character Design, Fan Arts, doodles and such INSTAGRAM: lily.vonk   ARTSTATION: lilyvonk.artstation.com

[lilyvonk]

A handful of concept art I've done for my current project, For Honor. Still undecided on which things to post, but these are some of my favourites ♥

(Art direction by Andrew Jangwoon Im and Anastasia Ovchinnikova)

[lilyvonk]

A boreal dancer for my friend the dark souls king. I tried blending black pastel with ink for the background, I think it created an interesting texture/intensity 🔥

[lilyvonk]

Finally got around to finishing these little colour studies last weekend, my excuse to revisit BCS a year after the finale 😢 I refuse to get over it

Turns out acrylic works pretty great as a sketchbook medium! The colours stay so vivid and there's almost no warping, so I'll continue experimenting adding lil pops of paint here and there

[lilyvonk]

Cancelled sci fi project - Creature concepts pt. 2

The idea with these was a self sustaining alien ecosystem had adapted itself to an abandoned cargo ship, interconnected like a reef

[lilyvonk]

Cancelled sci fi project - Creatures concepts pt. 1

I don't get to design creatures at work too much, but I do enjoy it a lot. In space anatomy can be whatever you want it to be 💫

[lilyvonk]

Cancelled sci fi project - Character concepts pt. 2

Thumbnails are a big part of the process, and often the most fun

[lilyvonk]

Cancelled sci fi project - Character concepts pt. 1

Worked on this one years ago, but there's a lot I still enjoy about it. I don't do a lot of sci fi so adapting my shape language was tough!

[lilyvonk]

Lost girl

[lilyvonk]

Long time no post- I have to admit I've been feeling pretty alienated from most social media platforms, more than used to be normal for me anyway. I do miss sharing my art with friends and the few people who stumble on it, so I scanned a few things I had laying around. Hope you're all holding up ok out there ❤️

[lilyvonk]

A couple design sketches I've done for my characters in different ttrpg campaigns 🎲

[lilyvonk]

Places I drew

[lilyvonk]

More fan art painting. Listen the last season is coming out in less than two weeks and I am Stressed

[lilyvonk]

Do you know when you see a better artist that you like their stuff and want to ask questions, but when you start writing turns out you already know everything that you need to study , practice etc and you don't even know what you have to ask... yet it feels like something is missing and you get lost day after day. That's where I am... stuck in limbo

That's a tough place to be. I think so much of the work an artist has to reckon with is really much more to do with our progression mentally and emotionally in art, rather than the demonstrable skill progression which usually gets the spotlight.

Of course there are so many reasons we can feel stuck; there's paralysis, where you can be so overwhelmed with everything you feel needs to be done at once that you experience executive dysfunction. It can be a fear of failure. The most common one I see is usually perfectionism stopping artists before they even begin to try. Whatever is at the heart of it is something only you can know, and it requires deep vulnerability and honesty with oneself.

I guess all I can say is, the 'rise and grind' burnout mindset around art is incredibly overrated. Your relationship to art is never going to be as 2 dimensional as just building skill- your mental health, what your self-talk sounds like and what you expect of yourself are all vital and complex aspects nobody sees. I find that when I feel lost, those are the aspects that need my attention to find clarity again.

I hope maybe something here touches on what you're going through, and wish you all the best ❤

[lilyvonk]

Determined to keep giving myself time for personal painting/mess making. I've been reading the Southern Reach books and I think it jumped out a little on this one

[lilyvonk]

At work there's always a lot of pressure to make my art clear and polished and comprehensible to everyone. It's good to step out of that sometimes and just make a mess 💀

[lilyvonk]

Messing around mostly

[lilyvonk]

The unfit