This
interview is an absolute pleasure. From drag queens to pop culture
icons, Daniel Alexander mixes fashion, gender expression, and comic book
illustration in a skillful and utterly fabulous manner. Sit for a spell
and read about his influences, inspiration, stories about his present
work, and where it's all going.
Daniel, thank you so much for the interview! Let's start from the top: What got you into illustration?
Illustration
is something I have always been interested in for as long as I can
remember. The initial interaction I had with it would be through comic
books and the animated cartoons of the late 80's, leading into the 90's
(predominantly X-Men). I would say exposure to these became intrinsic to
the style of my work and the subject matter or muse upon which it is
sometimes based. In conjunction with comic characters, classic
illustrated movie posters (such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones) were always
sources of inspiration, as well as the films and merchandise itself. Daniel's childhood drawings of Wonder Woman and X-Men characters.
Who or what inspires your work?
I
would credit Jim Lee, Alan Davis, Salvador Larroca, Marc Silvestri,
Patrick Nagel, Thierry Perez and Richard Gray as being influential
illustrators for me.
My work is a derivative mix of Bronze to
Modern Age comic book characters, sci-fi vixens and no-nonsense power
dressers. The subject matter depicted within my work is drawn from the
international Drag/Club Kid scene, "Divas" (icons of television, music,
pop culture) and generally anything else that takes my fancy; from the
Queen of the country to the Queens of nightlife! I like to add a comic
book or a sci-fi edge where possible with the appearance of blank eyes
and occasional drips or otherworldly features. Queen Elizabeth II as you've likely never seen her before.
Are you formally trained?
I
have pursued Art and Design through various forms throughout my
education and I was awarded 1:1 BA (Hons) in Illustration last year.
What is your creative process like?
My
creative process is mostly organic, beginning with initial sketches and
sometimes just the jotting down of ideas. Then, drafting the image and
refining it until I am happy with it. Sometimes the final outcome will
literally be from the efforts of a spontaneous splurge. I
tend to swap between sketchbooking and loose sheets depending on the
final process required for the image, such as digital coloring, hand
rendering, etc. If I can, I like to get one job done at a time and work
my way through each one. Unless I am doing a set of images for the same
collection or client.
Typically, what's your artistic weapon of choice?
My
choice of stationery would be pencil, ball-point pen (biro), fine
liners, felt-tips or markers, and ink. I sometimes use less conventional
media such as bleach and nail varnish. Everything is hand-drawn
regardless of digital coloring; if I am coloring digitally then I do so
using Adobe Photoshop.
For how long have you worked as an illustrator, and is it your day job?
Not
for very long. I have been putting work out for a while but I would
technically only count myself as an illustrator for the last year and a
bit or so. Illustration can be great as a day job but in practice can
come with some instability (financial, frequency of work).
I
haven't worked in-house or contractually yet. It's not something I would
rule out. It's just things haven't gone that way so far.
Have you participated in gallery shows (or do you want to)?
Aside
from my graduate showcase, I have yet to participate in any gallery
shows. This is something I would love to do, but in the future when I
would consider myself to have a greater breadth of work to showcase and
be in a better position to really put on a show.
A great deal of your artwork explores gender expression. What led you to tackling the subject artistically?
Gender
and the expression of it is something that has always been of interest
to me. From a sociological point of view, the inherent view that there
is a masculine and feminine identity that is transcribed and reinforced
from birth, with any decidedly deviant behavior/expression being
labelled as "other" and marginalized from mainstream society. Illustration of Mathu Andersen from the Marco Marco LAFW show.Of
course, this has changed, is changing, is perhaps in a constant state
of flux all over the world. Visually recording and creating
representations based around the idea of gender allows me to express
uncapped creativity; this can be from the makeup, hair and fashion to
even the mood of the image.
I love your exploration of high, fabulous fashion in your work. What designers' lines have you got your eye on lately?
I
have my eye on everyone. However, I would mention the following:
Christian Cowan-Sanluis, Elliot Joseph Rentz and Jay Briggs for their
fabulous fashions. Also, always excited to see what Versace, The Blonds,
Pam Hogg and Moschino are doing.
Have
you ever met any of the subjects of your illustrations (whether pop
stars or drag queens)? If so, have they seen your illustrative work?
Yes!
I have met a number of those depicted within my work (currently, mainly
Drag Queens) and they have seen my work either prior or post meeting.
The
likenesses of your artwork are spot-on. Are faces, poses and such
heavily referenced, or do you use light reference and focus more on
designing a new figure for your purposes?
References are
something I try to use directly less and less. They have their use but
my aim now is to capture a moment and look of my own.
What are your current or future goals as an illustrator?
To
continue with the type of projects I work on currently, like events and
portraiture, as well as build up a solid base of published editorial
work. In the future, I would love to be involved in a major campaign
with a leading cosmetics brand across packaging and advertising, as well
as to debut textile prints in a collaboration with a fashion label. A small selection of products in Daniel's Society6 shop.
Any advice or words of wisdom for readers who wish to engage in the art world as you have?
Go for it! If it doesn't work out then at least you tried.
Things
to remember: confidence in what you are doing rubs off on others, have a
slightly thick skin as sometimes you just can't please everyone, and
enjoy it!
Daniel's fantastic take on a glamazon version of Marge Simpson
Many
thanks to Daniel sharing his work and experiences with us. I really
look forward to seeing where his work goes in the near future and
beyond. For more of Daniel's art, check out the links below:
I recently sat down for an interview with the Creative Lead at one of China’s new-wave design firms.
Design Matters
I
have a friend from the Czech Republic who told me a great story about
going shopping after the country won independence from the USSR. Through
the entirety of her childhood, there had only ever been one brand of
yogurt in the supermarket. Then the country opened up, and one day she
went to the grocery store, and there were two choices. What was the
difference? She spent ages reading every word on both yogurt labels
looking for some way to tell which one was better, and she said that
most of her friends and family were equally baffled. They’d stand in the
store for hours checking the nutrition information, reading packaging,
comparing product weight... I think of that story every time I see
evidence of Chinese consumption habits changing.
I don’t mean to paint a picture of China as some post-Soviet
curiosity: it’s not. Major Chinese cities are as modern as anywhere, and
the Chinese consumer is well past standing in a store poking yogurt.
But I do mean to call attention to the phases that consumer societies go
through as they navigate the process of choice in a market that is
first devoid of it, then full of it, then saturated with it. At some
point in that process, design starts to really, really matter as a
differentiating factor, and as it starts to matter, companies start to
value it and be increasingly willing to pay for it. In China today, it
feels like we’re cresting the apex of that phase, and design companies
here are starting to get a very similar vibe to design firms in, say,
Europe (retaining local design characteristics, naturally).
It’s an amazing evolution to watch, and G’Day
is right on the forefront of that new horizon. G’Day is a design shop
based in Shenzhen, a mainland port city right across the water from Hong
Kong and one of China’s epicenters of trade and industry. Early last
year (2013), G’Day was selected as one of Creative Bloq’s most inspiring Chinese design firms.
I got in touch with JS Chen (陈佳生), G’Day’s Creative Principal and
Design Team Lead, to chat about some of their past projects and get his
take on the Shenzhen industry. JS Chen (陈佳生)
Not only is Chen just a flat-out nice guy whose outlook on Shenzhen’s
design industry will convince you that the rigors of the job are
similar no matter where you are, but also what’s expressed here is
emblematic of what is happening across every major city in China, as the
country moves from a primarily industrial economy to a tertiary-sector
economy.
Interview
So tell us a little bit G’day: how it got started and all that stuff.
I been into design since early on, and I’m super lucky that it’s now
my full-time job. I’m intensely passionate about it, and that passion
drives me to be better. We got kicked off in 2010, and we’ve got five
people right now: three designers, one developer and a project manager.
Our philosophy is that we design to identify problems. Once we do, we
try to table new and creative thinking that gives rise to rational
solutions to those problems, and ideally the final product results in an
actual behavioral change. The G’Day offices in Shenzhen
Thanks for the thumbs-up! Yes, Xingqiyi (STAR KIWI) is a shop selling
fruit-based desserts.
STAR KIWI was founded in 2005 and became famous
for their fruit and cake. Originally, they were your standard
brick-and-mortar store, but as the product line continued to expand and
branch out, the old branding wasn’t adaptable to the direction of brand
development. The new brand incorporates [as visual elements] the updated
products themselves, combined with a “light dining” look-and-feel. We
got this project through a personal recommendation from someone who also
felt how deeply essential it was for this brand to have a more
systematic approach and clearer brand definition. STAR KIWI on Behance
Fruit and kitchens have a lovely relationship, really. You’ll find an
amazing array of interesting tools in any kitchen where cakes are made,
and fruit also comes in such a wonderful variety of fun shapes. When
you array these things together, the consumer can experience the
merriment and joy inherent in the process of creating these desserts,
and at the same time they get an immediate blast of freshness, amusement
and overall tastiness.
And how about the “Shenzhen” city work?
That was made for the CitID project,
where designers from different cities all over the world were invited
to create a unique city symbol based on their own experience living in
that place. I was one of the designers invited to participate, and I
took Shenzhen’s seaside themes, trees, boats, architecture, and put them
in a simple collage of symbols that conveys our local atmosphere of
diversity, youth and dynamism.
In my personal experience in Beijing, I’ve noticed
that recently people have begun to place more value on good design than
they did three or five years ago. What is your experience with the
industry in Shenzhen? Do you find that more clients are willing to
invest in design?
Shenzhen has always been both a forgiving city and a city that dares
to innovate, but recently the value placed on design has really started
escalating. Companies are becoming more aware that their development
strategies and the quality of their brands are closely related. In the
past, businesses only placed value on the product itself, but with the
development of the internet and the ease with which consumers share
products, the inherent qualities that may make a product competitive
take less of a focus, and you can only really penetrate a consumer’s
experience via design - that’s the pathway to more profits.
Are you selective about the clients that you take
on, and if so, what is your selection process? Are there certain kinds
of projects you won’t take?
I don’t like to choose based on the project, actually I enjoy coming
in contact with a wider range of project types, and unusual projects
give us a little taste of something challenging. Instead, we prefer to
choose our clients based on whether or not we can work well with the
people. We thirst for great cooperative relationships: the other party
needs to respect and have some basic understanding for the design
process, and we need to have some confidence in each other. We do really
enjoy taking public service projects, which allow us to both help those
in need and to get our name out there.
You’ve done work for both international and Chinese
clients. What are the major differences you've found doing work for both
Chinese and Western companies?
We typically find that we have a smoother process flow when we deal
with international clients. Projects with local Chinese firms tend to
require more patience.
What is your opinion on the current status of the
web design industry in Shenzhen? Are there many talented designers or
just a few, do you think?
Of course, web design is now a very hot topic and web design
contributes to the development of web commerce, but I think that our
familiarity with the ins and outs of web design over here isn’t quite up
to snuff, and that limits our ability to express ourselves through that
medium. A lot of time and effort is needed to really dig into, for
example, responsive debugging, coming up with innovative design
concepts, [approaching] product photography [online], understanding user
experience, etc. But that said, there are a lot of talented web
designers in Shenzhen, many whose work I love.
Sounds solid!
Thanks for taking the time to do this interview - every time I do
these I feel like I finally have some time to understand myself a bit,
hah.
Quite
recently a close friend of mine and former co-worker of Alex Tornberg's
sent me a link to his portfolio. Deeply impressed, I was pleased as
punch when Alex was game for an interview. Meet Alex Tornberg, a Swedish
concept artist, who has created conceptual designs and storyboard for
companies such as Electronic Arts, Mattel, Funcom and more. We get down
to what inspires him, how he works, and what it takes to wear multiple
hats within the industry: concept artist, asset creator, and even art
director.
Thank you, Alex, for taking the time to do this interview. Let's start at the beginning: What got you into concept art?
My
pleasure! Concept art wasn't really something I grew up wanting to do; I
didn't really know about until I was about 20. As I grew up I wanted to
be a car designer and then later a comic book artist. In my late teens I
got into 3D modelling and thinking about a career in game development
or film. Through that I found the online CG community. Especially a
forum site called Sijun where a lot of young concept artists were sharing their work.
This really opened my eyes and from then on I pursued a career as a concept artist. Later a new forum called Conceptart.org
popped up, this was around 2002–2003, and that would have a huge
influence on my development. It was there I learnt how to build the type
of portfolio art directors at game studios wanted to see. Alex Tornberg himself.
Who or what are your main sources of inspiration?
My
main source of inspiration comes from movies. As a kid I tried to copy
the style of comic book artists like John Byrne, Mike Zeck, Alan Davis
and Marc Silvestri; from them I learned a lot about drawing. I also had a
period where artists from the turn of the century influenced me a lot;
mostly Anders Zorn, Ilya Repin and John Singer Sargent. I think that’s
quite clear if you look at some of my character work from Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer, for example.
But
what’s always been my biggest inspiration is cinematography. Classics
like Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, Alien, Barry Lyndon, John Milius’
Conan the Barbarian, etc. have been big inspirations for me. The
production design, costume design, and lighting of films is what
inspires me the most.
Are
you formally trained? If so, where'd you go, what degree did you
achieve, and what was the experience like? If not, how did you work up
your portfolio for professional work?
No, I’m self taught.
There really weren't any good art schools in Sweden when I grew up.
There're a lot of great design schools but there wasn’t really anything
focusing on honing your art skills and teaching you how to paint and
draw realistic art back then. I studied Information Design for three
years at a University though, but I never graduated. I think I learned
some useful skills that're important for a Concept Artist there, though.
It's more like "how to present your designs in an informative way", and
so on; nothing really about drawing and painting.
What is your creative process like?
My
work flow can vary quite a lot depending on what I’m working on. All
jobs start with finding the mood and tone of the work by finding
suitable references and possible textures I want to use. For most jobs, I
will start with a bunch for quick dirty thumbnail sketches. Then I, or
the art director, will pick one or a couple that I will work a bit more
on. When the basic layout and design is there I will start creating the
actual painting. Setting the mood and gathering resources.Here
and there I will have to do a second round of reference and texture
hunting here if I feel something is missing from what I gathered
earlier. Sometimes there might be something that needs to be created in
3D software; this is when I do that as well, or if I need to, take
photos of something. Sketching and blocking out the design.It’s
just important to get all that done before you start painting. It will
slow you down a lot if you realize you’re missing some important
reference or don’t know how something should look when you’re doing the
actual painting. When painting, I usually start with the basic shapes,
then add details and color as I go. How this is done is very different
depending on the subject matter. Painting, noodling details, and final tweaks.
What
programs and tools do you use in creating your work? Anything you're
especially fond of that you'd like to recommend to readers?
Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom Cintiq are my main tools, but I’ve used other software over the years as well, like ArtRage and Corel Painter. ZBrush is another favorite, but I seldom have the chance to use it. I use SketchUp to set up quick scenes with tricky perspectives. I’ve used both Autodesk 3ds Max and Maya when working for different game studios, but I don’t consider myself a good 3D artist. I want to learn Modo as I don’t enjoy using either Maya or Max, and Modo has left me with a good first impression with its reasonable price tag.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 with Sketchbook Pro
that I use for quick thumbnail sketching. It’s nice not to have to sit
at the desk all the time and I can save the sketches in Dropbox or
Google Drive so I can access them directly on my work computer. And I
always carry a Moleskine sketchbook and some pencils with me; not that I
sketch in it very often, but you never know when you need it. Character concept painting process.
For how long have you worked professionally?
It’s
been my only source of income since 2005. So it’s almost 10 years now. I
did some smaller jobs and other illustration related work, such as
Technical Illustration, for industrial giant ABB as early as 2001, but I
usually count 2005 as the year I went pro.
What's your typical workday like? What's the "day-in-the-life" of a freelance concept artist?
I
usually start the day around 9 am by going through my e-mails and deal
with any business related stuff that needs taking care of. After that I
try and do some quick warm up sketches to get going and then I try and
get as much work as I can done before lunchtime. After lunch I usually
go for a walk to clear my head and get some air. Then I get back to work
and sit glued in front of the Cintiq until about 6 pm, then it’s family
time. If I have a lot of work I will usually go back to work some time
around 9-10 pm and work for as many hours extra I need, but preferably
not later than 1 am (though sometimes it can’t be avoided).
How about your work space? Can you give us an insight into how and where you work?
I
have an office in our apartment. It makes it easier when I have jobs
that require me to pull long shifts. It’s quite large and bright, with
good space for all my reference books, comics and geeky toys. It’s in a
good location in Stockholm and just a couple of subway stops away from
all my local clients. Alex's workspace.
When
working with companies like EA or Stardoll, did you work in-house? What
was the experience like at such different companies?
Yes,
most of my career I have worked in-house. I spent five years employed at
the Oslo-based game developer Funcom, working mostly on the game Age of Conan and
its expansions. After that, my wife and I felt like moving back to
Sweden and Stockholm. I felt a bit disillusioned by the AAA games
industry and wanted to try out new things.
I ended up at Stardoll,
which probably isn’t one the high points in my career. I did some
backgrounds for the dress up game, but most of my time there I was part
of a team that was supposed to take the company into the future with new
products for new platforms. This didn’t really work out and most of the
games we tried to do on ended up in the trashcan. I was never really
happy working there, but I made a lot of good friends.
After a bit
more than 1.5 years I had had enough and moved on. I got an offer from
an old friend to come over to Electronic Arts and work as a art director
for a small team. Sadly the game we worked on got canceled even before
it got revealed, so I can’t even talk about what it was. The team was
disbanded and merged into different departments within EA. I left and
started my freelance career.
Do you have a preference between in-house and remote work?
It’s
hard to say what I prefer. It’s really nice to work in-house as you get
the chance to be a bigger part of the project. You can have a bigger
influence on a multimillion dollar project that way. You also have a
nice steady paycheck; senior concept artists actually have decent
salaries. So you can have a pretty good life that way.
The
downside is that you never know if you’ll have a job if the project runs
out money, misses some milestone, or sells poorly after it’s released.
Chances are you’ll probably end up becoming a work vagabond, having to
move between different cities and countries for work. Which can be great
for a time, as you’re still young and don’t have a lot of baggage. It
gets harder the day you have a family.
So how does freelancing compare?
With
freelancing, you can pretty much decide where you want to be located.
Of course it helps if you’re located in a city where you can have a
client base, but you don’t need to do that. You also might be
getting jobs where you have to go away and work onsite for some months,
but it’s never so long that you have to move. You also get a lot more
time to do your own work and you decide what type of work you want to
do. Working in-house you never know what type of project you’ll end up
doing next. You decide what to do with your time. If you don’t like a
client, you don’t have work with them again.
The downside is that
you can’t be sure when you’ll be getting jobs and if the jobs are the
type of jobs you want to do, and if you’ll be able to pay rent. It can
also become a very lonely job as it can go months between actually
meeting anybody.
At the point where I’m now in my life I’d say I
prefer freelancing. I’ve been lucky and have never really had to worry
about not getting enough work so far. I also recommend any potential
freelancer to save money so you won’t have to worry about not working
for some months here and there.
Do
you enjoy working with a team of artist and designers? Or is your
preference for solo work (possibly touching base with others) to bring a
project to completion?
I don’t know if a concept artist ever
really does real solo work. Most of the time you’re just a part of the
production chain. It’s really great and very inspiring to work within a
team of concept artists. There’s no better way to develop yourself as an
artist. Most of the time when you’re working within a game studio the
concept artists will be sitting in a room or in a corner together and
really not having to deal too much with anybody else than the art
directors. Sure
they’ll be giving pointers about their designs to various 3D artists
and maybe they have to work together with a level designer at times, but
they are usually quite isolated from the rest of the development team.
They will also have a quite different schedule than the rest of the team
as their workload will be heavier towards the beginning of the project
and ease off towards the end when the rest of the team will be
crunching.
Working as a freelance concept artist is sort of
teamwork as well, most of the time visualizing some other person's idea.
I’ll have daily contact with at least an art director or VFX
Supervisor. Some jobs you get more freedom with, but there’s always some
sort of feedback. Illustration work is a bit more solo work, but I
haven’t done any for some years now. I guess what I’m trying to say is
that I like both working within a team or sitting by myself, as long as
the job is fun.
Let's
talk about matte painting. What is your process for sourcing reference
for a matte painting and how much of the content of a finished piece is
stock imagery/photograph/generated versus a full painted portion?
In
a matte painting it’s probably somewhere around 30–40% of the work that
is actual painting. It’s a hard kind of painting though. It almost has
to look more realistic than real life, so there’s a lot of painting with
a 1 pixel brush on images that are usually very high in resolution.
Most of the time you get a lot of HD photography and 3D renders from
your client. Then you have to blend all of this together, paint
everything that’s missing, make the lighting in the scene work all over,
and add details that make it look real. You also have to mind your
layers so the Compositor that’s going to take over after you’re done can
add all of the life and movement the image needs to make it feel real.
So you have to plan your work very well before starting.
You've also worked on TV commercials. How did you get involved with each company that you worked with?
TV
commercials are pretty much like small movies. A lot of the VFX studios
that work on the big movies also work on commercials. For some of them
it’s even their bread and butter. So once you’ve established a relation
with a VFX studio, there’s quite a big chance that the job they call on
you to do is for a TV commercial. I mostly work on more visual
commercials that needs quite a lot of visual development and concept
art, but sometimes I get called upon to do a matte painting or a
storyboard. Concept work for a TV commercial.
Working
as an art director, what do you find to be the most challenging? Do you
enjoy taking on a leadership role, or would it be your preference to
work within the design team rather than as a manager?
I guess
the office politics and dealing with upper management is the most
challenging part of being an art director. I don’t mind the leadership
role but it’s not something I’ve ever really striven for. I like working
with the team and inspiring other artists, but it can be a bit hard
when they’re not achieving what you expect from them.
Can you break down the role of an art director for me?
The
role of the art director can vary quite a lot from game studio to game
studio depending on how many artists are working within the team and
what team set up there is. In bigger teams, the art director won’t have
any managing duties as there is usually a bunch of specific lead artists
doing that and producers and/or development directors keeping each
department running. Then the role is mostly setting the style for the
game overseeing that everything keeps in line with that, which is done
through a lot of review meetings and late nights.
But in a smaller
team the art director might have the role of lead artist as well, and
then you have to plan the workload and tasks for the art team for each
milestone. That ends up being a real time sink and takes a lot of
creativity away from the job. There’s, of course, a lot less art to
review then. In a big team, the whole art team will probably consist of
anything between 50 and 100 artists, a small team might only have about 5
to 10 artists.
What words of advice do you have for aspiring entertainment artists and concept artists?
You
have to work really hard. You have to be among the best to be able to
get the jobs that you want. During your formative years it has to be
your only passion, so no time for other hobbies. Once you’re working in
the industry it can be quite good to do other things from time to time
though. You will always have to learn and keep up to date with trends
in the industry and the latest software; your work will get old fast
otherwise. It’s never going to be a 9 to 5 job.
Your work will be
criticized all the time and you seldom get any praise. Everyone is
expecting you to be good. So I advise you to leave those big artist egos
at home, or else your career will be short. Many
thanks to Alex for taking the time to share his work, experience, and
influences. Getting a peek at how concept artists work within
entertainment art is quite a treat considering how terribly busy they
tend to be and how often projects are under wraps until they're
published. Quite a bit of useful information and inspiration for
consumers, enthusiasts, and artists aspiring to be a part of the
industry.
For more of Alex's work (especially if you want to dive
into the details of his concept art in a larger format), check out the
links below:
Hey Dashi! Thanks so much for the interview. Let's start with what got you into art.
I feel that it’s
necessary to start by thanking you for having me! I consider your interest in
my work an immense honor! My lifelong journey with art doesn't have an exact
starting point that I could remember, but rather, I’m one of those kids who
plopped onto this planet with a pen in hand—or at least that’s what my mom always
told me.
“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. Thousands maybe.”
- Neil Gaiman
I
relate to these words in the sense that I feel like I have a thousand worlds and
stories inside me, and have always had the urge to communicate them to the
outside world. My preferred way of doing that has always been drawing.
Ellinoora Laine, aka Dashiana.
Who or what inspires your work?
Almost every piece
of art I produce outside of my paid work is based on a song, or sometimes even
several, and it has been that way for years. I find myself inspired by lyrics a
lot, both for drawing and for writing. So, I guess it’s no surprise that I get
my share of inspiration from books as well. My inspirational favorites for the
year 2014 are "#GIRLBOSS" from Sophia Amoruso and "These Broken Stars" by Amie
Kaufman & Meagan Spooner, just to name a few.
As far as
inspirational art goes, I’m an avid admirer of Barbara Canepa, Lauren Faust,
Sarah Stone, Rose Bech, Humberto Ramos, Simone Legno and my respected peer at
Rovio, Javier Burgos. I also feel that it’s necessary to mention fashion while discussing things that inspire me! As
Miuccia Prada geniusly said, “What
you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today when human
contacts go so fast. Fashion is instant language.” I love dressing myself and
my characters up in different fashions such as lolita and my current favorite,
pastel goth. I have gigabytes after gigabytes of fashion photography saved on
my hard drives for inspirational purposes.
Tara, the Tracon mascot.
Are you formally
trained? If so, where'd you go, what degree did you achieve, and what was the
experience like? If not, how did you work up your portfolio for professional
work?
I am not formally
trained in my chosen profession, but I do have a Bachelor's Degree in
Interactive Media Design from Tampere University of Applied Sciences. My schooling
covered a variety of things from movies to graphic design and web programming.
While I completed my degree eventually, I was hired by an indie game company
during my second year of University and stuck with learning at work. I’m the
kind of person who learns a lot quicker by doing things rather than talking
about doing them.
But what my
schooling did do for my professional work, was to give me valuable contacts in
the form of amazing friends and acquaintances. If anyone’s entertaining the
thought of attending a school in the field of media and/or art, I’d highly
recommend them to make friends. These people are their weight’s worth in gold—in many aspects of life.
What is your creative process like?
I’ve always been an
“in war and love” kind of a girl when it comes to creating art. My methods tend
to be quick and dirty, especially in the beginning of the process. This usually
means I start off with a very rough, messy sketch, and the clearer idea I have
of what I’m setting out to create, the messier and quicker my sketches are. I
usually just put a gist of an idea on paper, because I still prefer sketching
by hand, snapping a quick photo of it with my iPhone, and draw on the photo in
Photoshop.
What
programs and tools do you use in creating your work? Anything you're especially
fond of that you'd like to recommend
to readers?
At home, my current
weapons of choice are an A5 sized sketch pad, a mechanical pencil, an iPhone
4S, a Wacom Intuos Pro S and Adobe Photoshop CC 2014. At the office, I use the same
type of set up, with the addition of having Wacom Intuos Pro L and Adobe Flash.
While my tools certainly make my job easier, my piece of advice would be not to
stare into the specs of your utilities too much. No tool will ever draw your
pictures for you. You have to choose what you’re comfortable with and what
complements your skill set, which sometimes means disagreeing with trends and
convention.
I've been working
professionally for four years next February [2015].
What's
your typical workday like?
My typical day in
the office consists of Photoshop and a lot of green tea. What I do in Photoshop
depends on what phase the project is in, but the recent trend has been asset
creation. This is essentially recreating the game designer’s ideas in visual
form, and having a constant dialogue with the design team.
Depending on the
phase of the project, as well as the team’s chosen method of working, there
might also be a meeting or two during the day. I've been part of teams where we
started our days by having a meeting where each member of the team described
what they had done for the project in the past 24 hours. I've discovered this
is especially popular amongst open offices, where several teams work in a
shared space. Teams can avoid distracting each other when they take their
business to the meeting rooms. Now that I’m in a team with their own room,
separate meetings are not as necessary; we have a near constant dialogue going
and the team members know what’s happening around the project.
Unsurprisingly, my
time off from my paid work also consists of Photoshop and a lot of green tea,
with the variable of my dog Fontti (his name translates as Type Face/Font)
added into the function. During my personal project days (Saturdays and
Sundays) I usually just sit my behind down in front of my computer and stare
into the vast void of Photoshop, with the occasional food and walking break.
Dashi's at-home workspace. Note the tea, Sailor Moon, and Monster High inspiration pieces.
Currently you work
for Rovio Entertainment (maker of fine video games such as Angry Birds). What
is your role within the company?
I’m currently
credited as the Lead Graphic Artist in Angry Birds Star Wars II. I also have
history with other titles that fall under the Angry Birds brand, such as Angry
Birds: Rio and Angry Birds: Space.
Do you enjoy
working with a team of artist and designers? Or is your preference for solo
work to bring a project to completion?
I am most
definitely a team player. Working solo is not a problem for me, and it was my
preferred method of working for a long time, but for me, there’s no progress
without a team. I’ve discovered I perform better and faster with the right
people in the same room with me. Having the access to constant feedback from
your team is a privilege I’m very happy to exercise.
Mass Effect fanart from Dashi's freetime.
What's the workload like for artists in mobile games? When
designers create assets for a video game, is there a lot of content that's
never used?
The amount of
excess art is usually up to how clearly the game designers, as well as the
decision makers of the project, communicate their needs and ideas to the
artists. If there’s no clear idea of what the team is trying to achieve, which
is often in the beginning of a project, there is almost always piles and piles
of art that goes unused. That’s why I feel it’s important that the idea of
polished concept art is shaken and shed for good.
When designing an environment
for Angry Birds Star Wars II, for example, I often start with compiling a huge
moodboard and a pile of quick ‘n' dirty thumbnails, rather than start to do
something intricate. In a fast and swiftly changing work environment (which
the game industry essentially is), there will absolutely be times when you have
to go back to the beginning, even when you thought you were working on the
final design. However, a good conception phase can help to prevent this to a
certain extent. When applying for this line of work, the ability to “kill your
darlings” is always a good thing to list on your resume.
Projects like mobile games seem absolutely massive when it comes to the art
content. How many people are typically on the team for a game?
The size of the
team in mobile game development depends on the product the team is set out to
make, as well as the company culture. In the beginning of my professional
career I helped produce updates for King of Opera in a team of just three
developers: an artist, a programmer and a producer. However, when the
production values go up, so does the team headcount.
The biggest team I've been
a part of was around 15 people, including 4 artists. These days, the beauty of
mobile game creation is that you can pretty much go as big or as small as you
want, so there’s no set team size. However, during my 4 years in the industry,
the core development team has typically been around 3-10 people at a time,
including 1-3 artists with different responsibilities.
I admire your
Koneko-Chan artwork (character and merchandise). Tell us about the character and what
you're doing with that line of designs.
Koneko-Chan is one
of my absolute favorite things to talk about! Thank you for asking! She started
out as a webcomic character back in my last year in Upper Secondary (the
Finnish equivalent of High School). She was a side character in a story about a
demon hunter hotel, but after I dropped the comic, Koneko-Chan refused to be
dropped. I kept on drawing her in different outfits and discovered that people
enjoyed looking at her as much as I enjoyed drawing her.
To give a quick
summary, Koneko-Chan is a self-proclaimed princess, who loves cutesy stuff with
a side of creepy! She is striving to be the "Barbie" of creepy and
cute, and enjoys sporting all sorts of different fashions and professions. She
adamantly believes you can make your shortcomings into your strong points, and
become anything you aspire to be, so became a princess! She is also a firm
believer in the power of pink and likes to wear all sorts of things, including
(but not limited to) dresses and lingerie to show her fellow monsters that
there’s a lot of power in things that are traditionally considered feminine.
As her creator, I’m an avid believer in her
message and would like to spread it further. So, my long term hope and goal
would be to turn Koneko-Chan into a Tokidoki/Hello Kitty type lifestyle brand
with jewelry, clothing and everyday products.
Koneko-chan logo.
You
did your first convention with the Koneko-Chan line in September. What was the
experience like? When creating merchandise from Koneko-Chan designs, do you
produce hand-made designs or send off pieces to printers and companies for
manufacture?
My first experience
in bringing Koneko-Chan to a convention was amazing, to put it mildly. I was
practically overwhelmed with the warm welcome the character/brand experienced.
While the brand is not profitable yet, I enjoy doing the conventions and
drawings because of the people who come up to me and tell me they like Koneko
or have been inspired by her.
As far as the
merchandise goes, some of it is printed by companies, and some of it I make by
hand.
Dashi's Koneko-Chan display featuring prints and merchandise.
Do you have time
for freelance work?
I don’t do
freelance for other companies since I’ve signed a non-competitive agreement,
but I have done non-profit volunteering for Tracon, the biggest anime/RPG
convention in Finland (with 6K unique visitors annually) for many years. I love
attending conventions and creating graphics for them, and I am still looking to
do this in the future. For Tracon, I’ve done mascot design and illustration
work since 2010.
Tracon mascots for 2014.
What words of
advice do you have for aspiring illustrators/designers?
I always
consider
myself a student rather than a teacher, and still have so much I want to
learn, both in my professional and private art life. So I don’t usually
give out
too much advice, because I’d rather ask for it.
Many
thanks to Dashi for taking the time to answer my long list of questions
and share her work and experience with us. As life-long students
ourselves, here at Tuts+, the mentality of always striving to improve is
shared tenfold and it's fantastic to see professional artists carry
such ideas into their every day work.
For more of Dashiana's work, both personal and professional, check out the links below:
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