Artist Study: Joe Madureira
I wanted to learn his style so I chose to draw his sabertooth and his Thor arm.
Artist Study: Tim Burton
This was my study to learn his style so it would help me create the chupacabra in his style.
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Artist Study: Mike Lim
Mike Lim
He is a cocept artist and illustrator, he works in videogames, card games, board games and even commercials. He has had a lot of clients, some of them were Blizzard Entertainment, Honda, and Bioware Mythic. He has worked on some very popular games such as World of Warcraft, WarhammerOnline: Age of Reckoning, and Dungeons and Dragons.
One technique that hes uses is Creating form with planes. With this technique you simplify complex forms down to shapes, so you can see and understand how each plane creates form. Once you learn this technique, and understand planes, this can help you create paintings out of your imagination.
Here is the link to the tutorial:
http://enliighten.com/blog/717/
Artist Study: Markus Lovadina
Markus Lovadina is a concept artist from Germany, he is both a character and environment designer. He has been in the industry for over 16 years, right now he is a creative art director and freelances as well.
When he started his painting called God of War he blocked out his painting with some rough shapes and colors, so he could establish the main colors and composition. He then started adding some details to his god of war, and he also started painting the army with the round brush to get a sense of scale.
He than takes some time away from his work and does something else. Then he comes back and looks at his work with refreshed eyes. He then starts to change his whole piece, he makes the canvas wider and the army smaller. Then he started to paint the armor of the God and the army, by using the paint and erase technique with the round brush. When he paints something new he does it on a separate layer so he doesn’t affect the whole painting.
Then he slowly tries to paint the mood of the painting using his cloud brush to paint clouds and fog. He continues to paint more details, such as the opposing army, he also gets rid of hard edges with the smudge. He continues to add details, but then reworks the gods face, no matter what stage he is in he is always ready to rework his projects as much as possible.
He adds details with a round brush with a lowered opacity, he makes soft edges with the smudge tool, and makes hard edges using the lasso tool. He then uses separate layers so he can play around with the colors, mood and values of the whole painting. Once he is done he merges all the layers and uses the color balance layer effect and uses the dodge and burn tool to create the light rays. Here is the final result:
here is the link for the tutorial:
http://www.3dtotal.com/index_tutorial_detailed.php?id=1387&page=1#.Tub-6nbUB-c
Artist Study: Eric Deschamps
Eric Deschamps is a concept artist and illustrator. He has worked with a lot of companies such as Activision, Breakaway Games, and Wizards of the Coast. Some of his clients are even from industries outside of video games like publishing and advertising. Also his illustrations have been recognized in Spectrum, Expose, and the Society of illustrators of Los Angeles.
I saw a short tutorial he has about digital painting. When he starts off painting digitally, he starts out by creating the basic shape with grays. He paints his entire painting in grayscale before he even starts painting in color. One he has the character painted in grayscale, he starts to add color to finish his paintingoff. He also uses a grid to make sure his painting has the correct perspective. When he adjusts the character in his painting he uses the grid to make sure his characters head is in the correct perspective. This is a very useful tecniue, especially for artist that struggle with perspective.
Here is the link to the video where he shows the different stage he went through when painting the Grand Abolisher:
http://www.ericdeschamps.com/videos/Grand-Abolisher.mov
Artist Study: Bobby Chiu
Bobby Chiu is anindependent artist, he illustrates books, films, and teaches digital painting online at schoolism.com. Before he was an independent artist he worked at Thinkway Toys designing toys for Disney, Warner Bros.,and Star Wars. He has been in the Industry since he was seventeen.
This is the website of his school:
http://www.imaginismstudios.com/ourArt.php
This is his CG Society Portfolio:
http://digital-bobert.cgsociety.org/gallery/
Two Window Technique
One technique he uses when painting in Photoshop is that he uses two windows of the same painting. He makes one o the window small so it look like a bigger Navigator. When artists paint they constantly zoom in and out, this technique allows you to work zoomed in and out at the same time. In order to do this you will have to have two windows of the same painting. To do this you go to the Window tab, then select Arrange, and then choose New Window. This allows you to paint from far away and up close at the same time, without ruining your flow. Everything you paint in one window will automatically update in the other window.
In this technique the smaller window is more important, if your painting doesn’t look good from far it is not a good painting. If a small section looks good from up close but bad in the small window, that means you have good pocket of detail that does not help your overall painting. Once your painting works as a whole, you can then concentrate in the larger window and work in your details. This is the link for the video:
This is the painting he did in the video:
Artist Study: Scott Vigil
Scott Vigil also uses textures when painting. His philosophy of using textures is that it is very dangerous, and it can cause you to get lazy when creating details. He believes you should do as much detail as you can with just painting and don’t rely on the textures to create details. Once you add the textures in photoshop, you change the blending modes. Then after adding the textures you paint over it and add more details. In this illustration he uses a squid texture for the skin of the monster and rusted metal for the armor of the monster.
He says water is not a simple task to paint, water always looks different in different environments. Water is affected by light, wind, pollutants and size. That is why you must study the type of water you want to paint. When painting water he uses a rake like brush with a smeary quality, and when you paint you do moon crescent like strokes. Then he uses the smudge tool to add motion to the water.
When creating the chrome effect of the hero he used the Liquify effect in photoshop and then he painted more details over it. Just like textures he believes you should not stop after you apply them, you must paint details over them with a brush. All of this information is displayed in the painting below.
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Artist study: Neville Page
One program I like to use, and I am still learning is Zbrush. I mainly use it to add high resolution details to my 3D characters. Zbrush has other uses besides sculpting, one of them is polypainting. Neville page uses Zbrush’s poly painting to design creatures. He starts off a plane with a low subdivision level and a simple material. Then he turns off the Zadd and turns on RGB so he will paint and not sculpt. He starts to get a rough form of the character. By staying at a low subdivision level he cant do any details all he can do is focus on getting a a good form. He also turns on symmetry so his character will be symmetrical on both sides. Once he is happy with his form he goes up another subdivision level and paints. He continues going up in levels until he thinks he is done.
Artist Study: Stanley Von Medvey
Another tip I learned from Stanley is that the one thing that separates amateur artists from professional artists is lighting. Good lighting is what helps make a material look realistic, and is what makes a piece of art look good. When painting you should use the light and shadows to create the shapes and details. When he paints in photoshop he does not use outlines to define the shape of what he is painting, and he does not use the airbrush to create the transitions of light. He uses the colors to make the transitions, he does not rely on blurs or the air brush. This was my first attempt to paint like him, it was a light study of my hard drive
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Artist Study: Scott Vigil
Scott Vigil is a concept Artist, digital sculptor, 2D/3D illustrator and animator. He has worked with several companies such as Artifex, Guppy games and Forest Prizan Creative. He has also been a instructor at Lake Washington Technical College. One technique that I would like to take from him is the use of 3d programs in illustrations. He does parts of his illustrations in 3d programs like 3ds Max and Zbrush and makes them blend in with his illustration. In his Illustration of the Wizard of Oz he made the Yellow Brick road in 3ds Max and the Tin Man in Zbrush. Everything else was done in Painter and Photoshop.
Artist Study: Stanley Von Medvey
Another artist I chose to follow is Stanley Von Medvey, he is a concept artist for a company called Hemogoblin. I asked him what does he use for inspiration when he concepts. He says he uses nature, and science. He believes an artist is also a scientist, he believes an artist should study nature, anatomy, machines, pretty much everything. An artist should study how light hit different materials in order to capture realism when painting. An artist should constantly do studies of different things so they can use the knowledge gained in their art. He does a lot of studies, he also talks to his friends that are in the military when he is trying to create weapon or military vehicles, and he uses the knowledge he gained when he worked at NASA in his art.
This is his website:
Artist study: Neville Page
Neville Page is a creature concept artist that works in the film industry. Some of the films he has worked in include Avatar, Cloverfield, and Watchmen. One thing I have learned from him is that when it comes to creating a creature you must know physics and anatomy. The creature should have an anatomy that makes sense and must be able to move. A creature should not just look cool but it should also make sense. When he creates creatures he always takes into account the animators he is working with. He makes sure his creatures are able to move properly so the animators wont have a problem animating.
Pedro Hurtado Blog 