Introduction

In this blog, I researched artists on Artstation, analysed their work and messaged them for advice on my project. This was a pretty nerve-wracking task for me. I don’t like to talk to big industry artists in the community, I always feel that I’m not good enough to be talking to them. However, I’ve gained a lot of confidence during this course and plucked up enough courage to message them. The responses were so nice and the advice was incredibly helpful. This has definitely inspired me to communicate with more artists in the future. Although I was nervous, I’m proud of myself for doing it.

Artists

Jacob Claussen – 3D Artist at Ubisoft Stockholm

Jacob Claussen is a 3D artist specialising in prop design for Ubisoft, Stockholm. The man has a wealth of experience within the gaming industry. He co-founded Tarhead studios in which he worked as a 3D artist before taking over as lead artist. Together with his team, they produced the indie game ‘Blast Out’ back in 2017. He’s also worked with big-name studios such as Starbreeze, where he worked as an environment artist for Overkill’s ‘Walking Dead’ in 2018. ​

I discovered him on the website ‘Experience Points.’ A brilliant site packed with articles by artists in the industry all about their process, workflow and techniques used to create environments. Jacob wrote an article centred around stylized hand-painted textures and his approach to the Artstation issued ‘King Arthur Challenge.’ I found his Artstation from there and have been following him since. ​

I love his art style. The simplicity of his asset designs and how everything is smooth and lacks sharp edges. The saturated colour palette brings a sense of fantasy and cartoonishness to his work that screams early 3D animation Disney and Pixar. What I truly love about his work is the composition of his environments. At first glance, his environments seem very complex and detailed, which they are in a sense. However, he doesn’t achieve this by creating tons and tons of assets.​

By analysing his asset lineup in Unreal, I noticed he works in threes. If it’s not a centrepiece or an important item, then it has three variations. This is a clever way to work because by putting different combinations of each asset next to each other with varying sizes and shapes you create new silhouettes and layouts. You could make three variations of a candle next to a book and a scroll and each version will look different thanks to the varying shapes and sizes of each model. Despite all versions being the same setup.​

I can use this knowledge to benefit my environment designs. Rather than making ten or fifteen trees, each slightly different. I could make only three versions of a tree instead. By placing them next to other props and scaling them at different sizes, it should make the illusion of a thick and vast forest filled with a diverse range of foliage. When, in reality, I only had to make three models out of the entire forest.​

Phillip Zhang – Environment Artist at RiotGames

Phillip Zhang is an environment artist at Riot Games, Santa Monica. He’s currently working on League of Legends and TFT alongside other notable artists such as Jeremy Page, Ziwei Pan and Leah Jackson. ​

His use of shadows in his artwork is incredible. The examples I’ve used below are all 3D models! When I first discovered his work, I thought they were illustrations. Phillip cleverly brings his models to life by using light and shadow including bounce light in his work with no added light sources in the engine. Everything is painted into the textures. He incorporates shadows from the world around his models as well. For example, in his house model, you can get a feel for the rest of the environment around it because of the shadows of trees on the roofs of the house. It’s a nice context clue that tells us where this model is without having to show us. ​

His textures are crisp and detailed, from the sunspots on the foliage outside the house model to the minor scratches on the rock. ​

I hope to use his work as inspiration and reference for light and shadows. This is the level of rendering I want to strive for when creating my models and textures. ​

SephirothArt – Lead Artist at Playgendary

SephirothArt, also known as Alexy, is a Russian digital artist specializing in isometric environments as well as character design. I love his artwork; it has a distinct style to it that makes it look both cartoony and simplistic but it’s clear that a lot of skill went into making each piece. ​

His environments are lively and detailed; full of little props and characters that bring everything to life. His environments look lived in.  Alexy uses a very saturated colour palette as well as a glow effect in all of his pieces – which gives everything a very fantasy/magical vibe. As far as I know, I believe he achieves this by using a ‘colour dodge’ layer.  ​

He has a large portion of floating islands in his portfolio which I can use as a reference. Overall, he is a vital artist and inspiration for this project. I hope to recreate how he builds up depth and shape when painting foliage without drawing detailed leaves and branches. I also love how he colours rocks as well.​

He posts speed paints of his work on Artstation. Although they aren’t narrated and he doesn’t go over his process in detail. I plan on analysing these videos and breaking down his process step by step.

Messaging Artists

In my Aims for this project, I said I want to improve my skills and must learn new techniques to do so. One way I can achieve this is by learning from artists in the industry. The artists above are huge inspirations to me and I can learn a lot from referencing their artwork, watching their process videos and by reading their articles. However, I took this a step further and contacted them. ​

This way, I can directly ask them for advice and guidance regarding my project.​

Questions I hope to ask are;​

1. What is your process and how do you achieve the stylized textures in your work? Every artist has a different way of working, but it would be useful to research multiple methods so I can combine and tailor them all to benefit me. This is how many artists develop their own style – by learning and combining others.​
2. For my project, I’m worried that the tight time schedule is going to make it difficult to accomplish my goals. I’d love to ask their opinion on what they think I could do to achieve my vision.​
3. Mistakes are very important to me. You learn a lot from mistakes. So, I’d ask them what kind of problems or bad habits they’ve run into during their artistic journey and how did they overcome them. ​

Responses

Jacob Clausson Reply

Jacob came back with some incredibly helpful answers, especially the one about his setup for creating his renders/textures. I never would have thought to go through Unreal right from the beginning, but it does make sense. Why use the lighting in a different program compared to the program the final project will be displayed in. Originally, I was planning on going back and forth from Maya or using a plugin in photoshop, that lets you import and paint on your model directly.​

Now, I will go back and forth from Unreal to photoshop during texturing. After my initial sketching, I could create mockup models of the island in Maya and transfer them to Unreal. That way, I can get a feel for how everything will look and catch the light. A fully lit mockup will also be useful to use as a reference for my final concept designs as the accurate lighting will help me portray my idea better.

Phillip Zhang Reply

Phil was really nice to talk to and he made some very good points.​

He explained that I needed to get the drawing and painting fundamentals; composition, colour theory, etc.  Under my belt first to achieve a high-quality finish on my textures and artwork. Rendering my artwork has always been difficult for me as I tend to keep to a cell-shaded style or just lay down colours very rough and messily. He recommended ‘Schoolsim(3),’ but it requires a paid subscription – so, I’ll have to make do with the free content available online to teach me the fundamentals. At least this is proof that these skills are cross-compatible and can be used in all mediums such as traditional, digital and 3D modelling. ​

Finally, Phillip made a point on how important 2D concept art is. Reminding me that I should be confident in my environment design and have a plethora of in-depth artwork to reference from before I even think about 3D modelling. Reason being, it’s easier to fix/edit something in 2D than it is in 3D.

Conclusion

Two out of three of my artists responded, which I am extremely grateful for. I didn’t expect any of them to reply – let alone two. Looking back, I should have done more research on Sephiroth Art before messaging them. I later realised that they have a Patreon and Gumtree and are creating tutorials as well as answering questions just like mine on there. Although I didn’t know at the time, it was rude of me to message them and expect the same level of advice for free. Nevertheless, Sephiroth is a huge inspiration to me and I will continue utilising whatever information and videos he has released for free.

In all my replies, I’ve been warned about the potential challenge in creating three different versions of the environment. In hindsight, I should have specified that I was creating a floating island environment, essentially a vertical slice, rather than a full world. Moving forward, I’ll need to keep in mind the number of assets I plan on creating, the size of the environment and I’ve decided to use LUT filters instead of three separate texture set. You can make LUT filters in Photoshop. Meaning I can create and use the same filters in my artwork as well as in my scene. Which will be useful and should give me an accurate example of what my colours will look like in engine when I’m creating concept art.

Overall, organization will be key for this project as well as keeping a tight leash on ideas and making sure I don’t go overboard.