13th of January I attended a Live Demo and talk with Henrik Evensen, a concept artist, digital artist and 3d artist. He spoke about his journey learning digital art, and working on the greatly acclaimed 2D movie Klaus as a concept artist and background artist.
The talk was very inspiring and motivating, and Henrik was a very funny guy. He showed us his techniques, and how he thought when he was drawing. It was very different than what I do, which I found interesting.
These are some of his works on the movie Klaus.
He spoke a lot about how he needed someone to tell him what to do, and it would be easier for him to do it. His thoughtprosess and work prosess without having guidelines would take too long, and perhaps because he didnt have an artistic background or had studied anything about art before, he struggled with composition. He said the team in Klaus helped him a lot, and taught him what they knew. He would turn in a sketch, and they would tell him how to improve, and he would send the new sketch, and they would tell him again, and that went on for weeks. But he managed to make these pieces without any artistic background, just by following his dreams and working hard. He is an artist who kind of did art backwards, with learning technique first, and composition, light, depth, perspective, and all of the essensials in art, after.
Some pictures from the talk and demo. I am in the crowd on the second picture, way in the background. I got there 30 minutes before the talk, but it was almost full already !
This is one of the images he showed us when he spoke of his journey. He uses photoshop, and is not shy to admit he uses stamps and brushes that do the work for him. For example all the trees in this image are stamps, and not drawn. The rocks in the background as well are created by stamps. There is a stigma in the digital artist community about stamps, and I don't use them myself, but I dont mind other creators to use them. Artists work in different ways, and tools are to be used.
In general I can relate to a lot of how Henrik worked, except that I cant avoid thinking about design when I create, and he said he had no idea what he was doing when he designed. It is very interesting to follow an artist who works in a different way than you, and I can still appreciate the work he does.