Goro was born in Japan and grew up in Germany. He studied digital production at the German Film School where he learnt a lot about the 2D and 3D film making process, from start to finish. After freelancing as a character animator and visual development in Germany, he moved to Redwood City where he currently works for PDI/Dreamworks.
Goro is a highly skilled craftsman, equally adept in traditional techniques as he is in 3D and digital painting. I particularly like the Iron Giant inspired robots doing very human things. From browsing through his website, you’ll see just how incredibly productive he is! Pop over and have a look…
We will be giving away two sets of these sought-after books, and all you have to do to be in for a chance to win simply RT and follow us on Twitter, or like and share us on Facebook
All entries must be in before the 30th of November 2012. Two winners will be selected at random and announced on the 1st of December 2012.
Good Luck!
The Review:
Elysium – The Art of Daarken
Elysium – The Art of Daarken is the first art book from illustrator and concept artist Daarken. It opens with a personal and rather funny foreword from fellow illustrator and personal friend kekai kotaki. Daarken then takes the helm to explain, in short, his journey to becoming an illustrator. The book is broken up into four main sections—Illustration, Concept Art, Fine Art, and Painting Workshop—and Daarken pops up now and then giving a little background and thought process of certain pieces.
For those of you unfamiliar Daarken’s work, he has illustrated for card games such as Magic: The Gathering and Duel Master, and video games such as Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft. His Professional and personal works are all presented in this book, which creates a wide range genres and styles. To Daarken’s own admission he does not really do speed painting, which does leave an abundance of fully rendered and polished pieces. For those, like myself, who like to see more sketches and workings from an art book there are some great thumb sketches throughout the Concept Art section, as well as section dedicated to his sketches in the Fine Art section.
Daarken has been working professionally since 2004 and in that time has built an extensive portfolio as well as loyal fan base. I feel this book does do a great job collating that history, and pedestalling the skill involved in creating such illustrations. The book is 200 pages of inspiration and testament to Daarken as well as digital art.
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Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop
Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop is comprehensive introduction to digital painting. Aimed at the complete novice it begins with a step-by-step tutorial about working in Photoshop, explaining preferences, workspace, configuring your tablet properties and goes into useful details about creating bushes and setting up your canvas.
Following the set up there are a few pages on art theory—colours, composition, and perspective—which tie in with the Photoshop tutorial, elaborating on certain tools and features. There is a section on “Art Fundamentals” which cover subject like lighting, portraying emotion, and storytelling. This section and some of the tone they employ when explaining certain things is perhaps my only gripe with the format of the book. Assuming you are a practising illustrator wanting to learn about digital painting, it may feel a bit of a waste to have colour theory and portraying emotion explained to you. However, of course I see their relevance for students or people coming from different disciplines.
About half way is where the good stuff begins in a section title “Complete Project”. This section has a process breakdown for creating a digital painting. It includes the thought process, planning as well as techniques to use to get certain effects. It does a good job of explaining the tips and tricks needed to make you image truly impressive.
In all Beginner’s Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop is trove of very useful information and advice. With inspiring examples to learn from. It may take a few reads before you are putting into practice all of the tricks, but it definitely has all you need to feel confident to pick up your interactive pen start digital painting.
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Michal is a 3D animator and designer from the Czech Republic. He has a great sense of style and his 3D work is incredible. Luscious shapes with nice textures and lighting feature in his creations, whether they are blobby cartoon characters, or fully rendered realistic interiors.
This short animation created by Danish CG studio, Lani Pixel, is celebrating the 80th birthday of the most important company of any childhood, LEGO! Narrated by founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen‘s grandson Kjeld, it is 17 minutes of educational an inspirational joy.
Lindsey is a visual development artist based in California. She creates some great background art and her character designs are lovely. I also like her sketches, which are really loose and natural. There is a ton of brilliant work on her blog, so if you like what you see here, go and take a look!
Tanya creates some incredible pixel and isometric art. Full on city scenes, icons, machinery and more can be found on her Dribbble page, or alternatively visit her website.
Teekatas Suwannakrua aka Raindrop Memory is a graphic designer and illustrator from Bangkok, Thailand. There is definitely something different about his work. It’s not the usual over-the-top cute manga style, but it’s still very warm and sweet. The colour palette is often lit by a warm sunny glow and the line-work is gentle, not too sharp. Teekatus also creates some interesting 3D work (to be honest, I can’t tell if they are manipulated photos with added digital media, or all digital media).
