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Dinosaurs in post-apo world is always fun to paint

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Simon Stålenhag studies

Focused mostly on values and color :D This dude is a master...

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Sketches sketches //

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Sketches sketches//

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Figure sketchiiiiinnnggg

Yo! So I’m not really following the plan I made up. But do try to practice everyday. I think to not get confused too much it’s maybe better to focus on what subject at the time. And the time of the characters is now! So you already so my fighting scene. I wanted to do a bit more static and focused on gesture. I know this is something I don’t do well enough and that all the rest depend of that! So here is a bunch of stuff, done every morning or night:  

Nothing fancy here.. I also want to work on Emiko’s character for my BANGKOK XXIII project, so I started to do some sketches from photo first to get some inspiration:

Then since I’m not sure where to start for Emiko herself, I just did that:

Emiko is a Japanese windup girl.

A windup girl is a human, genetically modified and grown in a lab in Japan. A Japanese businessman once owned Emiko but at some point she was left in Bangkok by him, or possibly sold. She has become the property of a sex club owner named Raleigh and is used as a popular attraction at the club.

Emiko is supposed to be very beautiful. She is engineered to have very thin hairs, long legs, and a perfect skin. Her skin is so smooth that there is not enough pores for the heat to escape, so she overheat a lot, especially in Bangkok. She has also a motion issue. To remind that she is not truly human, she can’t move properly. That’s where the windup name comes from. But it’s a genetic choice. I want to show this in the design but it’s easy.. She is kinda of an immigrant so she also has to hide her disability. Big clothes can do that.

More to come!

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Recently I was reading a compilation of post from Craig Mullins on Sijun, back in the day. Most of the images are missing and it’s hard to understand the context of what he is talking sometimes. But very often there is interesting information. For instance, he talks about a series of exercise that can help us to improve. Starting with something very simple : 2 Whites cubes on a white surface with one light source. Then we slowly add difficulty. For instance the second exercise is to make one of the cube bigger and black. It wasn’t as easy as I thought... The next steps will be to change the shapes to a cylinder and a sphere, then combine them and add colors to create objects. Add texture, atmosphere, etc. I think it’s good sometimes to go back to some basic and forget 3D softwares..

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I also decided to improve my figure sketching skill! I’ve found a while ago some photo reference from a Japanese book showing some action poses. They are very useful and show the different steps of the movements. So I think it’s a good exercise because sometimes the poses are very extreme and not common. Each drawing took more or less 2 minutes. Then I was curious to see how it looks when you put them together to create these gifs. Actually I think the result is quite interesting but we can clearly see that I’m not that consistent in the quality haha. Keep in mind that they are made to be animated. There is no thoughts about timing, spacing, etc. etc. I just drew the frames one by one separately then see how it looks once animated. Example of references I used:

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Hello!!! So basically, just after writing all this super motivated text about how I’m going to be a better artist, I failed! I had to work on some freelance projects that took a lot of my time. As well as finishing these tutorial videos for Octane. My good resolutions about practicing everyday was quickly forgotten haha! But I won’t give up and will try again! It doesn’t mean I did nothing so here is a few of the sketches I did from Clyde Aspevig‘s painting and photos. I tried to study from this artist and used what I learnt in the photo studies. But it’s quite hard to interpret the photos and imagine how it feels like to be in front of these big and beautiful mountains. Simplify then interpret and exaggerate colors and values. It’s a good exercise that I will continue to do from time to time!

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https://gumroad.com/l/IlJuV

Video preview here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHAydeWg0wk

Hello! Please check out my tutorial if you are interested in learning more advanced aspect of Octane. I use it for most of my concept arts nowadays. :)

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https://gumroad.com/l/MSMRt

Video preview here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Ki5yd3EPw

Hello! Please check out my tutorial if you are interested in learning Octane from scratch. I use it for most of my concept arts nowadays. :)

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Planning ahead

Before starting this training. I need to plan ahead what I’m going to do. I think people tend to lose motivation easily if they are not sure what to do next. I had this experience a lot in the past and I want to avoid that. It also requires a lot of self-discipline. So it’s better to have a clear objectives and to follow the right path, one step at the time. Of course the plan will change depending of what you want to be able to achieve in a long term. You have to first write down, what you want to achieve. And work on them constantly.

For me, these are the points I want to work on :

Sketch (Color/Composition/Painting technique )

Figures

Bangkok XXIII project

So since today, every single day, I will work on at least one of those points. I believe the repetition and the habit of practicing everyday will have a huge impact. The best advantage is that, since you work on something everyday, if there is a fail (and there will be a lot), you don’t have to care. You can try again the day after, and the day after. And you will have less emotional attachment to your work.

Now, for each point, I need to have a strategy. Everyday I will be working on one of these points, but how? Obviously it depends on how much time you have everyday. Since it will be my first week, there will be probably change and adjustments after some times. This is how I decided to organize my week.

Every morning I’ll spend 30/45min doing some Black and White Sketching (Figures, Photography studies, Movie studies etc.) before going to work.

Then every night of the week I will work on something different. Let’s try something like this first:

Monday : Master painting study / photo study

Tuesday : Master painting study / photo study

Wednesday : Movie study / Sketch for Bangkok XXIII

Thursday : Movie study / Sketch for Bangkok XXIII

Friday : Sketch for Bangkok XXIII concept

Saturday : Bangkok XXIII concept

Sunday : Bangkok XXIII concept

I will try to keep all the studies very quick, learning what I want to learn in priority. Focusing in what I find interesting in the image I’m studying.And the sketch that will follow will apply what I learn in the study. Let’s see in one week if I kept my motivation this long haha!

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BANGKOK XXIII - A Path To Concept Art

I was studying in a 3D/Animation school when I first read The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi. The writing style, the universe and the story itself was not simple to approach, but it was fascinating. I was amazed by the universe the author was depicting. Thousands of ideas were put together to create this universe post- apocalyptic and at the same time so realistic. At that time I was just drawing for fun and for myself and the book really gave me the will to do it more and more. I wanted to express and put on paper all the images that was in my mind.

  Sadly, because of the school and the lack of time, I kind of stopped doing that. I graduated with my short movie Monkey Symphony then started to work as a Lighter in a VFX company. I really liked 3D in all its aspects and Lighting was the most obvious for me at that time. It was a good mix between the technique and the art of the medium. But after seeing the reel world of film making from the inside, I realized I was frustrated. The Lighting was not made for me, it was not creative enough. I wanted to be uphill. This is when I discovered the concept artist job.  I wanted to be the one who create the look of the movie. I wanted to design it and influence it much more than with a Lighting position.

  So I started learning how to use art to make concepts. I watched a lot of videos tutorials on the subject, read interviews and articles, watch making of, and then tried to see what I could do. At first, it was horrible. (And sometimes it still is haha) Some spiky mountains with a dude in foreground holding a stick. You see what I mean. Such wow, so much originality! But I guess it’s normal. I think it’s always good to start with simple things, and not try to re-invent the wheel. At that time I discovered the Daily Spitpainting and use it to train myself. It was hard to paint everyday but I really felt the influence. I stopped after some time, I lost the interest? I was frustrated? I didn’t like what I was creating? I don’t know. I stopped painting for a while but my mind was still open. You start to be more aware of what to look for in others people work, if you want to improve. All the things that you were struggling with have an answer somewhere. There is so much to learn that it’s impossible to get everything right quickly. I could feel that my eyes were improving, without even practicing, just because I failed many times. So I decided to give another try and continue to fail. However, I didn’t really know where to go. How to find inspiration? Have you ever notice that you work better if someone is telling you what to do? It’s less scary when you have constraints, a subject, something to do, than just a white page. So I decided to choose a project. Concept artist don’t paint what they want, they paint what the director or the client want. That’s when The Windup Girl came back in my mind. I really liked the universe and I would love to see a movie out of it. So why not imagine that I’m someone approach me and ask me to illustrate this movie?

I started to do images based on the book and thanks to that, I slowly went out of my comfort zone. I was thinking, I have no art experience, if I want to get hired by a company, I need to create a fake company experience. So I looked at existing concept arts, for reel movies. It was a really good exercise and my portfolio was slowly building up and gaining in quality. One day I decided to stop Lighting definitively to focus on my concept art skills full time. That’s when I get hired by ILM London (when I abandoned this tumblr). I was very lucky that they were looking for a Junior at that time. It's an amazing experience to be with other artists, so talented. Jason Horley, Jama Jurabaev, Stephen Tappin, Kevin Jenkins, Luis Guggenberger , Timothy Rodriguez and everybody. I can’t express how lucky I was to meet these people.

I really feel I improved a lot since I started, almost 2 years ago. But at the same time I realize more and more how much I still need to learn. I really want to become better and more confident in what I do. That’s why I’m writing this post. I will use this tumblr to restart from scratch. To reset. And I will work with the Bangkok XXIII project as a guide.

After this time spent in an art department, I have a better knowledge of what is required to be an accomplished concept artist. I’m thinking that writing down my thoughts, showing my progress, having people finding interest in it (maybe), will be a big push to motivate me in this adventure. I know that I already have some knowledge and skills. But we will all me continually be learning during our entire life. I hope some people will find some interesting things to take my posts. And most importantly, I hope it will inspire people. :)

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Mavis : " Draw me a Dinosaur at Shibuya !! "

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GUDETATO *w* A lazy potato. Because of reasons.

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Some sketches. When I was young, during long road trip in car with my parents, I used to imagine clouds as giant Spacecrafts floating in the sky. I still like thinking of this...

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