Concept Artist – Stuff to Read, Stuff to Get 1

Hi all!

I seriously want to get this book!!!!



It's from Balistic Publishings, so that makes it pretty expensive... but really, I don't care! It's good!

It features work and interviews from a few top guns in the concept art industry.
My favorite entry would have to be George Hull's work, the man behind the MATRIX movies eye-candy The dude also did concept design for other movies like "V for Vendetta" (both movie and graphic novels are a fave) ‘Finding Nemo’, ‘Mission: Impossible’, ‘Constantine’, ‘Jurassic Park: The Lost World’, the special editions of ‘Star Wars’, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, and ‘Return of the Jedi’, ‘Twister’, ‘Star Trek Generations’ and the Oscarwinning ‘Forest Gump’.

I didn't even know of the guy til I found this book, now I'm going to call him "sifu" XD



Here's an Easter Egg for you:

A Kickass origami of V's Mask!

And another good site for all things about illustration - LinesAndColors.com

Concept Artist – Random Links

I’m feeling generous, so here’s some blogs I go to for some gossip about the video game industries:

Kotaku.com – I go here for the free Concept Art leaks this guy posts. Loooove the images <3>

That Video Game Blog – this site’s got good scoop on the industry too. I usually check this site for info mainstream game sites don't publish first.

Concept Artist – Employment Part 3/3

Did my research and found out that Lucas Arts - George Lucas’s company, which produced the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” movies – have a base in Singapore! Lucasfilm Animation is right next door!

Why does Singapore have so many good studios?

Here’s the man himself on moving to the Lion City (extracted from here)

"I've been a fan of Asian animation and illustration all my life. Asian cinema has had a particularly big impact on a lot of my work. When we began thinking about developing new ways to explore the craft of animation, it seemed a natural step to combine the two."

–George Lucas-

It’s obvious I would need the best of my art skills to qualify working here – I’d have to work at a level that would continue to impress and inspire generations that have already seen the amazing works that this line has already put out.

Also, I would need good story telling skills. This legendary household brand has always been associated to good, if not revolutionary storytelling, since its beginnings in 1971.

…and considering it’s Singapore, I can expect to have to fight tooth and claw to get somewhere in this company.

Concept Artist – Employment Part 2/3

I would probably start a career in concept art here – with this small studio called Imaginary Friends.

This Singaporean studio does illustrations for comics, trading cards, board games and video games. They also take on the occasional illustrations jobs from the local advertising firms in Lion City.

They have gotten some work done for big names like DC Comics (owns Superman, Batman); Upper Deck Entertainment, a company printing and distributing popular card games such as the English version of Yu-Gi-Oh and World of Warcraft trading cards ; and Viz Media which handles the English translation and international distribution of Japanese Manga.

Also, they produce really good art books (portfolios, obviously) from time to time. Check out their Pepper Project and Imagine books! (Click on the images to head to their site)

(Image - Pepper Project, click image to head to the site)

(Image - Imaginary Friends - Imagine Artbook, the annually released collection of works from this group, click image to head to the site)

They seem to have a tight bunch of creatives there in Imaginary Friends, and they are passionate about anything they do. It would be awesome to work with a bunch like that.

I guess to make it with this company, I’d need to get my skills up to their level, and be just as madly happy about doing work for the game and comic industries. I might need to pick up some basic web design skills as most of their best work is accessed by the general public online (that’s how I found out about them anyway).

Concept Artist – Employment Part 1/3

My first obvious step would be to post my portfolio (after a good brushing up that is) on this website – CGSociety.(click the banner to go to site)

I would be showcasing an unlimited number of my works among some of the best in the industry in this website, for a small annual fee of USD 29.95. This website would be a good place for me to start building connections with industry giants, and maybe even gain a mentor.

This online portfolio archive also has some HUGE contests – such as this year’s CG Challenge

An excerpt from the site explaining this contest:

“The CG Challenges are the largest online art contests of their kind, with huge amounts of sponsorship and publicity for each challenge. Working within guidelines and software limitations, artists are challenged to create outstanding artworks based upon set themes while showing their work-in-progress to the community.”

I suppose getting an award from this community would be a good career advancement - and I've seen some entries that won top honors were not very polished in an artistic sense, but were chosen for having a good story behind it. I'd like t to produce work like that.

Concept Artist – Brushing Up Part 2/2

My second option – second only because of the inconvenience of higher living costs of living in a country with a higher-valued currency – is Gnomon.

This institute is in Canada – which according to a few knowledgeable acquaintances of mine – is one of the best places in the world to learn about the film and games industry. This academy is more focused on 3D, but they also offer courses for Concept Design Illustration – Great 2D works are the foundation of great 3D productions after all.

I’ll probably be enrolling in their 10 Week Analog programme. This programme gets students to master the basics of illustrations and then gets them to learn how to apply everything they know into capturing their mind’s images and the stories behind them in sketches, illustrations and even sculptures. There’s even a class called Acting for Artists – to get the artist to realize the way their characters move relating to the characters emotions, environment and reality.

They’re really serious about their craft here in Gnomon.

And this just in, they have online courses and training dvds as well, so I might just start with those. (click images to view more)

Image - Chet Zar's digital creature drawing - quick and easy tips and tricks to for character design.

Image - Speedpainting to Concept Art - David Levy shows how to turn sketches into full fledged concept drawings. Just Amazing.

Concept Artist – Brushing Up Part 1/2

In the concept design industry, artists need to capture EXACTLY what amazing new worlds and their inhabitants they see in their heads on to a tangible canvas. How else can they engage their audience enough to transport them into this new world of theirs?

Right now, I’m quite stuck at drawing manga styled visuals in black and white, so I’m thinking of enrolling in some professional training courses that can get me creating some believably realistic images.

First place that comes to mind would be The One Academy.

(Image - Mixed media by Liw Chek Kee, One Academy)

This local institute is famed for its Illustration programme. Its students have proven this college’s effectiveness and through testimonials from friends (happy la y’all, I’ve got one more year in a Certain Somewhere…) who have graduated from there, this college has a very strong creative community spirit, everyone’s so motivated to produce great work. I need a bit of that in my life again.

Concept Artist – Further Self Analysis

I love stories. Stories move me. Stories have this way in making reality more real to me. Stories distill the true essence of life for me and allow me to experience. They open up new worlds for me, they allow me to walk different lives and learn from them so I may enrich my own.

And that is why I’ve also fallen in love with concept art. Concept Art is the first tangible stage of story-telling in the video game, movie and other similar industries. Whatever new worlds, new realities story tellers would need to share are made REAL in concept drawings.

Words can form images in your head, but seeing these images fleshed out in living detail in front of you is mind blowing.

Concept Artist

If I ever were to reach my fullest potential as a designer and an artist, this would be the job for
me - A concept artist.

A concept artist draws out imagined scenes, characters, objects etc - mainly for the video game, movie and the comic industries. Concept Artists need superb art skills in order to communicate their vision for completely (awesome) imaginary worlds and characters.

They are the creme-de-la-creme of today's artists.

And they get paid very well, or so I've heard.

We're talking seriously lofty aspirations here as it'll take me yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaarssssss to be even remotely worthy to post my work along side the masters on this site:

Click on the image and head to a more captivating world beyond our own...
(Artwork by Linda Bergvist. I did not create this or own it.)