Original subtitles

Awesome, we're recording. How's it going?

Yeah, I'm doing good.

Yeah, dying to do some studies again.

Yeah.

So, I just found a few, few photos.

But I kind of like this one.

This one I took a while ago.

This is one I just found on the internet. And this is from a friend of mine who's...

Where is she?

She's, she's visiting Japan, she's sending me some photos that are cool.

I don't know how I'm gonna approach these but I want to just have fun painting.

(no audio)

(no audio)

If you have any, any questions or anything like that, feel free to just ask. I'm just gonna paint and...

Yeah, question on visited portfolios, go for it.

Hey, Zach, what's up?

Hey.

How's it going?

Pretty good, pretty good. How are you this morning?

Um, see question. Currently in the middle of creating a biz dev portfolio, I'm adapting a story, I was wondering if you had any words of advice when seeing entry portfolios for biz dev and animation.

Also, rough explorations.

More preferred than end rendered product. Example for mood painting, established shots.

Yeah, the second part to that you need. You definitely need both. You need to show that you can do these like quick,

quick mood color, color script kind of sketches.

You also need to show that you can like finish something like make something a little bit more rendered or...

Because, yeah, you're gonna have to...

Whether it's like a prop that you have to detail out, or it's like the design of a building or an interior, or like a vehicle you have to show that you can like really pay attention to detail and you can give enough information that modeling and texturing knows how so that they know how to build your,

build your design.

So both of those are important.

And it depends on how much of each you want to do like if you really love getting into the detail and like really figuring stuff out, figuring out all the textures and all that stuff, then do more of that in your portfolio.

If you like doing like the quicker paintings more than, than do more of that.

I was kind of surprised that Lightbox at how, how much people really did want to see like almost anything extra that they could see for a piece, you know, even if it just meant like, you know, showing the line drawing or something.

And you, you know, you almost feel like you showed everything in the painting but, you know, literally just breaking up something and just showing the lines and just showing that little bit of extra information.

Seems like that can make all the difference to a team member, a 3D model or something like that.

Interesting. So, like you show them like a finished painting, but then they'd ask for more involvement.

And then, you know, maybe I painted out some of the lines and stuff, but in that original drawing it's kind of communicating, you know, just additional information, it was almost like any additional legitimate information was always welcome.

Yeah, it's good to know. So like if you do a line drawing for a piece that might not be evident in your final, then you should save that and have it handy.

Yeah, yeah, or even like going back and, you know, like clipping a piece of that line drawing out and just finishing that up, you know, just completing it, and then having that on the side generated more value than I thought.

Yeah, that's great information. Thanks.

Yeah, I think some people, like, like for me, like when I'm looking at portfolios I can, if I see something that's like painted well, then I'm like, okay, I don't need to see like the line drawing underneath.

So I think it's probably depends on what art director, like do they want to see that process?

Or are they, because a lot of people I've worked with they've kind of just trusted the artist. They're like, oh, this person can design, we don't really care what their processes are, if they do lines or anything like that.

You know, I think it was, it was just that it was like, almost, you know, in my case, the line drawings were part of my core process of like I had just started my thinking in the lines.

So, ultimately that was where there was some information to re-expose almost in the project.

But I think that if somebody had begun a piece just painting it directly, then, you know, it wasn't so much about like trying to dig out some line work, it was just showing your work, whatever that happened to be.

I see. Cool, cool.

I think that was actually something I kind of learned about myself over the last couple months was almost just realizing that we all kind of started somewhere in art, and that's almost our, like how our brain works.

You know, I think some people started painting, you know, and we're always into painting like maybe in high school or something, and our thinking in those value terms more fundamentally.

Whereas somebody like myself, like I grew up drawing, and I kind of didn't even really realize that until more recently and I was like, Oh yeah, I do start everything in line and that just kind of the way my brain works, it's, you know, just natural and I think embracing

that natural affect is pretty important for every artist.

Yeah, it's, it's a good point.

I don't know when I, when I teach these classes like I lean heavily into like the painting part because that's what I've kind of trained myself to do but really you can do, like you want to be more line heavy like that's totally fine or there's so many different

ways to create art and create like useful stuff for VisDev.

So I have a feeling like depending on, you know, exploring a mood early on seemed so much faster, just painting directly versus exploring like a design early on for me personally, I started to, you know, I would start to almost wrestle myself if I began

to paint it a little too soon.

Whereas I would, you know, almost be speaking in that mood language while trying to solve a design problem, and then the kind of once I got got it flipped in my mind and was almost using the right tool for the right job.

You know, just in my personal flow that helped things move along a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool.

Hey, Zach, what's up. Hey, first of all, nice to see you again. It's been a long time. Yeah, I hope everything is fine with you.

So, yeah, what I wanted to ask is like you said so it depends on the director like if you are a new artist like breaking into the industry.

It's good to show your process, but then I guess with time when you start getting to be no more, maybe just showing your last pieces or the final product only.

I'm not necessarily.

I think it's case to case.

You probably you should have that stuff handy.

Hey, we want to see more of your process.

Then you've got those, those images handy that you can show them.

Yeah, so my first couple jobs. I literally just got hired from doing these kind of like mood story moment paintings.

That's really all that I had.

So yeah, from, from my experience.

You know, I would say just don't worry about that too much.

I think it's to just paint like striking images and that that can like capture someone like on an emotional level, and that's the, that's the most important thing.

Thank you. Yeah.

Um, is the first part of this question that I kind of missed adapting a story I was wondering if you had any words of advice when seeing entry portfolios for this type of animation.

Yeah, that's, that's the first thing kind of like come up with a little story, it doesn't have to be like super in depth, but, you know, just something original that you can do some paintings.

See, can I add a thought to that last question. Yeah.

In terms of process one thing that was coming up in lightbox that I was almost not surprised they're just made sense. It was the idea that those process things are those assets.

They're things that kind of are created naturally in your own process. And then there was a little bit of artifice and going back and almost like maybe digging some of that stuff back up to like, make sure you're showing it.

But it was, it just kind of struck me like all those things get made naturally by you on the way to making the right kind of thing versus like totally going out of your way to like artificially create a bunch of stuff to like shoehorn in.

That was just my thought.

Yeah.

About, about your creating your first portfolio.

Yes, so you have your, your story to a bunch of moment paintings.

You'll, you'll pick out like a couple of props design.

And then I would say for like style and all that just make sure it's like in the realm of animation what's like being made.

You kind of have to, you can't be so out there that,

you're not you, you're like on fire role at the studios has to like your goal is to like work for like DreamWorks or Disney or Sony you kind of have to fit into that world I guess.

Which is tricky because you also want to stand out you don't want to do the same thing that everyone else is doing.

So, for me, like I was leaning into like the more painterly stuff.

Like you guys know, like my painter inspirations and things.

So I think that's, that's a way you can kind of stand out, you can,

you can have, you know, capturing real light and color but if there's a, there's a sense of something original to your work in terms of like the design like how you're how you're painting something if it's, you have like a few artists that you're inspired

by and you kind of like create your own style based on that.

I'm finding a lot of people were really loving just almost anybody telling a story with their work. I mean, like what you were saying with story moments I feel like that's so spot on, and it was almost crazy the reaction when like,

like I had like seven or eight pieces that were all all linked together by a story, and that was like, I kind of thought that was going to be like almost a baseline in there and people were like oh my god story moments like amazing.

I don't know, something to note that story stuff went a long long way. Yeah, I wonder.

Yeah, it's been like a couple years since I've been like at a studio reviewing portfolio so I don't know like what people are submitting now.

But,

yeah, I'm curious what what people are.

I would think, like for like when I was making a portfolio.

There's always like you come up with a story and then you paint those moments that kind of proves that you can like read a script and then paint those moments, you know,

almost got the sensation that maybe a lot of people are chasing down just like rendering quality, you know, in a bunch of one offs or something, and just there's a lot of like disconnected work out there or something I don't know you know I didn't get

to see that many other people's stuff but the impression I was getting from the people I was talking to was just like, I don't know, it seemed a little exasperated sometimes with like, you know, the sameness of what they were seeing so, you know, the

telling a story and telling a story with color, man, there was just like, maybe they're not teaching that at Art Center these days.

Yeah.

Well, yeah like I've noticed that just from seeing like people stuff online or whatever.

It's,

it's like there's so much, like,

focus on like the rendering.

It's so easy to like kit bash some stuff together, slap some textures on it, do some basic lighting, and then you've got like a, like a detailed image, where you like, do some AI stuff and you like comp it all together.

And you've got something kind of generic.

You know that kind of stuff is so easy to do now to like create these images that are like very detailed.

But what people are are lacking is that storytelling with the light, like the stuff that we do, like day one, like blocking things out into the two simple values, really focusing on how do you tell that story with light and shadow.

Because that's the backbone to your painting right there if you can do that. Like getting that graphic read and getting that early read, like that was attracting a lot of attention as well, you know, almost just like the instant they look at your piece

they can tell what's going on and it's communicating that seemed to totally trump, you know, however many photo textures people want to bash into. Yeah, whatever.

Yeah.

I think it's also kind of like that. It's like people almost might be tempted to push the quality without pushing the control, but the control is what it's all about being able to like take that direction or, you know, just fulfill the story.

Yeah.

So, you, you talked to a bunch of studios or?

Yeah, I talked to a bunch, but I talked to as many people as I could. So I talked to a bunch of studios and then like more on the last day I guess I just talked to a bunch of like individual artists, like more in the artist area.

But, yeah, it was pretty amazing.

Nice.

Anyone, or any studio in particular, like stood out?

Well, probably the coolest. So, I already, like I said, hasn't really run its course yet. The coolest thing that happened early on was the art director Eric, I can't, I forget his last name, at Naughty Dog was really interested in my work, and like was super excited about the storytelling.

And then he asked me to apply for a position there. They decided to not go with me, which I kind of knew was coming in the first place, just, you know, it just felt like a total long shot. The fact that he was even excited was really cool.

And he put me in the, he pointed me in the direction of Rob Rupel.

And so I'm trying to connect with him, but

that was a big one. And, and then there was a guy Dave, Dave Zabowski or something like that, and he was like he's like former Disney animator, he like worked on like Pocahontas and Lion King and stuff.

He's doing some creative freelance startup thing now, but they had like a big booth and speaking with him was really amazing. He gave me some really great feedback at like the very end of the show.

Cool.

And that's, that's awesome.

It was almost a little crazy though because it was like, it was very encouraging almost to the point of needing to recalibrate how I was going to approach the rest of my portfolio of like, it almost kind of like took some of the shackles off of like what I thought

I could attempt to approach but then at the same time kind of made it like a bigger, sort of a bigger effort, like kind of busted the restraints off, which also busted the guide rails off so it's been a little bit of a overwhelming kind of experience

of trying to you know kind of reign that all back in.

Yeah.

Yeah, because you don't want to, you know, shoot too wide.

You don't want to be focused like something manageable. Right.

Yeah. And I think it was kind of like, I had some character work going on that.

It was like, it was kind of my weak point, but with my background it technically should be a stronger point, and in terms of the storytelling and like stuff that was making people excited it was an extremely strong point.

So,

I've almost been trying to like just get some character sensibility, like up to the same level as the environment stuff, and then I just recently had to stop myself from like taking another step which would be doing some sort of like, almost like animation keyframe

like combat moments or something, which I think would be so cool but it just is like, I think I just saw my human limit for like this point in time of just like you know what, I'm already you know, trying to do characters and environment at the same time, but to like

take it that next step. Let's get this stuff done first. Yeah, yeah, you can always branch out later on.

It was kind of like a choice was almost presented to me to either like pull the character stuff back, like for that horse image I know you know what I'm talking about.

Oh yeah, they were like, you know, I got a little bit of feedback from a couple people they're like you know this would be so great if you like took the characters out, you know, and just the background I was like, ooh, but then somebody I spoke to who was like

seemed pretty senior level, they were kind of like, they're like you know you should either like, you know, you can either like pull these back and simplify them so they're not distracting, or, you know, if it's what you want like, maybe you could lean into it and I was like,

I don't want to lean into it. He was like, I think it's a good idea.

Hey, Zach. Hey.

How are you?

Good, how are you?

Yeah, fine. I want to ask you about when you're studying Schmidt. So, Richard Schmidt's main thing is, I think he uses like U variations, more of like value variations.

I think and it makes it makes it harder for me to study it and like to value studies or see value studies.

So I think he mainly focuses on color, more than values or something.

What's your approach to Richard Schmidt?

Yeah, I'll pull one up.

Sometimes that's a tricky thing when we're looking at someone's art that's so good with color.

We, you know, we make the mistake of looking at it in terms of color rather than value but the reason why they're so good at color is because they're actually so good at values.

And not me.

It's very sophisticated.

Okay.

So, you look at this, obviously like the colors like everything that like cool kind of like cloudy overcast, you just feel the, the weight of the clouds and how the atmosphere is affecting all like the top plane so it's like a really nice warm and cool

balance going on in this piece, really got it warms and cools in the, in the grass you can see that atmosphere that kind of touches the top planes of this grass and then where we're, we're seeing like deeper into the shadows it gets a bit warmer.

Same with the barn like these deep reds in those, in those deep shadows, versus the cooler reds that are being affected more by the atmosphere. These trees as they go back they get cooler so it's just a really nice simple warm and cool balance going on here.

And then what I noticed about the color. And then we, when we look at it in terms of value. It's so simple and graphic, actually, like there's a lot of little variations here and there that create interest and lead your eye around.

But if you look at the most basic values, it's

this value,

this value,

this value,

this value, it's really very resource.

Yeah.

I feel like breaking an image down like this is like, it's like the core of like what's going on, you know this like simplification and then like just the moment you take the, like, you use the same value for the ground for the tree.

You know a lot of people they get caught up in the details too quick. Like we don't do this first, then, like how you said, we were matching the ground to the tree.

Keeping those values, the same, like that's going to create like a nice simple.

It's gonna be very pleasing to the eye. When we look at this.

It's very, I guess if you get lost in the colors like you might separate those out.

You know, too soon, also.

So look at it, break it down into these values. I know, like, like I have to like squint my eyes and like stand way back from this.

And then help you to, to see those, those values, I guess we want to add another one we could get. It's like deeper contact shadows.

And then when we look back at the colors, then we can notice like all the different,

the views in here, we've got these, these warmer greens versus these cooler greens, and then he's got like bits of this looks purple it's kind of like a desaturated orange.

If you were to do it like a really simple color comp of that, like, what would you choose for the ground.

Or like almost just like the whole piece you know it's like if it was as simple as the values but colors, curious what your choices would be.

Um, first up I noticed this orange kind of coming through here and there. So I'll do an orange. I'll just tone the board orange.

Because I guess it's like it's almost like the atmosphere is going to like cool that orange down. Okay, yeah, yeah, it's, it's my way of this is what I picked up from doing so many master paintings like a lot of these artists they'll start warmer,

knowing that the more light in a scene, the more times color bounces around, things will get cooler, so it's just, it kind of makes sense in your head you start warm, warmer local colors, and then you know that you can you can always cool them down.

Like that.

So the sky feels kind of purpley gray. So I put that in.

And then, like I put that in and I noticed it's probably more blue, like, adjust the ground.

Ground is going to be tricky so I'm going to play around with it until I get.

So, I'm noticing that the ground I went with like more like a toxic green to start with.

Then I felt like that wasn't correct so I tinted it more like a cool yellow.

And that feels kind of in that zone.

And then we got the red of the barn which feels kind of like this purpley

green.

Yeah, I guess, I would do something like that.

Just for like a quick color blocking.

That's cool.

When you're doing thumbnails, like, of that size, do you usually just do them directly in color.

It depends if I'm, if I want to do purely like a color sketch.

Then I'll, I'll do them straight in color just really fast like something like this.

If it's, if I'm like experimenting for like a moment painting I'm going to do, then I will.

I might do a color sketch. I might do some grayscale.

You know, I'll play around with it more.

I know I've seen you do like almost some line work or like loose line work.

While painting at the same time sort of.

Can you talk a little bit about that.

Yeah.

Let me just finish this one I just want to add in a couple little.

It was really nice that like blending effect at the top of the tree just worked in there.

Pretty like deliberate and pretty nice.

That's a nice little space in there too that little like silhouette.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

You can see that I toned down like the blue in the sky a bit when I did this.

Like as a painter we want to sometimes make those choices.

A bit like finding ways to group the colors, making more of a statement out of it.

If you like it really emphasizes that like fall autumn mood more with the D saturated sky paired with like the more saturated landscape.

So you can tell what it is in the photo but then the photo just takes everything to its, you know, most.

Most saturated or most, you know, it's like that right there's just lacking that painterly awareness when it comes to the camera. Yeah.

Yeah.

Something I'm kind of struggling with right now is thinking about how to approach, like applying color to characters in a way that's beyond just like coloring my value layers you know, and like kind of bringing some of that painterly ness, and some of that looseness in, in like, trying

to figure out if I can bring it in like much earlier.

I feel like right now I'm kind of constrained by feeling like I need really tight line work or really tight like silhouettes before I'm even stepping to the color, but I know from my experience with the environments that bringing that in super early can be,

can be really nice and be a way to just, you know, figure out what you're doing so much faster, but it'd be really curious to see how you treat that on characters, because your stuff always has a really nice vibe and your characters always fit like right in.

Thank you.

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about I think something that I struggled with for years.

I'm scared. Push some of this back.

It was just crazy how you had pushed me to really go kind of wild with my colors, and how positively that was received. I mean it was really wild, like people are so excited with like, like the intensity of all the like the blood and just the wild, you know,

and but then having that in the context of those first images. And I think that was the other thing that you really helped me with, you know, just showing that range, all of a sudden like validated all those crazier choices later in the project, you know with that

like more realistic stuff earlier.

That's, that's awesome to hear. Yeah.

Yeah, because I remember you.

Yeah.

Yeah, and then it was almost like a note for me was like, almost like just continue doing that you know it's like people wanted to see like maybe one or two other you know just just a bit more of like just more diverse scenes or something but like it seemed

like it was right on track.

Cool.

Yeah, so I'll leave it at that for now. I think it's.

I'll probably mess with some of these edges and the design of some of these trees later on.

Okay, so you're asking about painting characters into a scene, something that helped me to get better at that was to, at least for me I was like separating out like I could paint environment.

And then I would like in my brain I would switch to like, okay, I paint the environment, now I'm going to paint the character. And that was my mistake because once I went into like, now I'm going to paint a character.

Then I started to treat the character differently than the environment I would like tighten up and I'd be like oh I get like the anatomy right and all of that.

Yeah, it's like totally what I'm doing.

Yeah. So, none of these have characters in it. I should have picked one with a character maybe.

Well, since we're looking at Richard Schmidt let's.

Here's a great example, like, he's treating the character, the same as the environment.

And he's painting them all together at once you can just tell.

There's like something else to it with like, you know, when I would do environment stuff I would always bear in mind the perspective and then I'd like bring my grid in really early, and then I was noticing like really late in the game like as of just a couple

weeks ago I was like, you know, with my character stuff I'm like never using my grid like what is going on with that. And I just think it reinforces that idea there's this huge separation mental separation.

Just like what you're describing you know all of a sudden it's like oh it's character time time to get like really stiff and forget everything.

So, yeah, even like.

Also, when you were working earlier on your portfolio, and your first book for you.

Did you have like a schedule, like, how to time management, how to do, like, good time management.

Can you share it please.

Yeah.

Interesting.

So what you could do.

Maybe you're working on design you've got these kind of characters these clothing in an environment and a different environment so you could just copy paste

and just create that reference for yourself.

I've been doing that a lot lately. Oh, great.

In fact, I feel like it's almost been like my bread and butter.

Yeah, Pro Photo Dasher. Yeah, just going crazy but then like drawing on top of it and like unifying it with like the foundations.

Then you just adjust the lighting.

I mean that's not perfect but you get the idea.

And then when you go to paint.

You know maybe it's unstable seem of lost video.

Hopefully it's always presumed it just like.

Yeah, okay, you're good. Yeah, usually it's, it's pretty good here so cool.

Yeah, so even if you, if you take this, you photo bash your reference together, flip it upside down like do a sketch that way.

So you, you're really just focused on the light and color.

If you do like a really loose painting, you get everything, all the light and the colors working well together.

And then like your characters are going to be kind of wonky or whatever, then you can you can go back in and like touch them up here and there.

I'm pretty surprised at like how, how quick and how like effortless it is to just like get, get some characters in there.

That's a good idea. So essentially you're like almost kind of like pre preparing like the light color, like the mood side of the character you're kind of pre preparing in this manner.

And then you're kind of diving back in and like finishing designing them or fixing them depending on how it came out.

Yeah, so I would like you.

What if you're just doing raw character design that's not in an environment yet, but you want to work in color earlier, would you approach it in a similar manner.

I have to design a character it's kind of.

It's not, it's not what I'm the best at, but I do, I do like so much, like, I know like the vehicles and stuff too I know that you've designed up like straight up in color, right.

Yeah, sometimes I'll just like blob in some colors.

I guess I'm trying to understand if it's, you know, can you work in color on a characters early enough to like, allow the color to help drive the development of that character.

Yeah, like you could, you could start with like the silhouettes.

To figure out like your proportions and what you're thinking for a character. Or you can

make a shade.

You know this is my favorite brush.

This plastic wrap brushes are the best. Yeah, I don't know where I got that from.

Someone

in fact my whole lightbox experience there's just people being like bro these brushes where do you get them. I was like can't tell you. Sorry.

Should have been like, take sex class.

Yeah, you gotta, you gotta pay Zach he's the only one I'm sorry Naughty Dog sorry I can't tell you. Relax, take sex class face.

You could totally just jump in with color I mean this is how I would approach it, I guess.

And then, like, I wouldn't be afraid to

change the proportions.

I guess it totally depends on the project because I mean I'm sure some things like an artist might come on and all the colors and stuff are already kind of, you know, in a guide for you.

And, you know, you don't need to explore anything, character wise, maybe versus something where you're just, you know, maybe characters that are very like fabric oriented or something something like this could save a lot of time, because you know maybe the silhouettes

aren't.

I guess it just depends on the needs of the project and where it makes sense to start right. Yeah, like I find that switch up my, how I approach something based on like what it is to like.

I'm going to design a monster, and maybe I start more.

It's like I'm designing some monsters for a project now and like I kind of start with these like gestures I get like a big, big shape.

And then I kind of just go like this like kind of like a combo of like drawing and blocking it in.

Yeah, that's cool.

Excuse me. I'm sorry what was someone else had a different question, and we got sidetracked for a minute. If you wouldn't mind repeating.

Yeah, it was, it was about your time management when you were creating your first portfolio.

How did you manage to like dissect it and painting studies or your personal releases.

Yeah. So I had to make a very.

I had to make a time to schedule for myself and like stick, stick to it. And I also had a friend who was was joining me in that process. So it kind of we kind of kept each other accountable.

And so we, so we agreed to get up at 5am every day, I would. He lived close to me so I would drive to his house, and knock on his door 5am. He would like roll out of bed, make some coffee.

And then our, our mornings would be doing studies,

and then we would do like a quick, like just just like what I'm doing now, doing these.

We do this for like four hours.

Probably like an hour. We do, we do studies, and then, then we would take at the time I was taking like schools and classes like like Nathan Fox and stuff so I'd like watch a lesson.

And then I would in the afternoon I would do the rest of the day, I would like depending on what, like the homework was like if I could kind of like apply the homework to like a vis def painting that would that I could use for my portfolio, and I would do that.

Sometimes that would just straight up do the homework sometimes I would not do the class and I would just do, do like a vis def painting.

So like every day it was like a combination of a study, some kind of learning, some kind of class and then the rest of the day, I would spend

working on a portfolio piece.

And I just did that every single day.

And so every day I was doing like multiple paintings and I was like seeing myself like level up.

Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah.

Oh, you're going to Japan.

This December. Awesome. You'll have to have to share some photos with us. I'm always, I'm always curious.

Well I'm in Japan this coming December.

No, not me. I was just reading the chat.

Yeah. Hey, how's it going.

Pretty good. So sorry about that. I couldn't write back your email about like, I might be section.

Oh yeah yeah what so what happened did they turn you down in Japan.

Yeah, I was still in Japan. I went to the boarding. I don't know how easy it is to go to the airport. Each airplane company has a booth.

You go there with ticket, and they didn't have luggage. They said that United States they didn't accept that didn't use the vaccine twice.

Yeah, you need to mix up the second show. I didn't have that.

Yeah, so I became sick. After that, because I was so shocked by that thing.

By the shock of rejection of the fact that I couldn't go to the lightbox. I was about to go with my friends and the rest of my friends went there.

I was the only one didn't go to the car, man. I was planning to going to the lightbox with my friends at the house.

Did you say your, your friends from Tonko house.

There is Japan.

Yeah, so my friends up there.

Yeah, man, I'm so sorry.

Because I was there taking photos, drinking, and I was there.

I'm also like a source of because I lost the money for that. I most of money, most of the money, the amount of money, which I can take the car. I can take you take your class, four times.

So, oh my god I should be spending that money on you.

When you, you messaged me, told you couldn't, you're all set to come and then you can come like that was so sad.

Sorry about that.

Oh, you don't have to have with it, but it's my property I should have it.

Yeah, she always all these rules are ridiculous right now.

That, that I don't have a question, just I'm saying like, yeah.

Are you coming to Japan, you said that you have a plan to be.

And then when lockdown happened it all got canceled. I was gonna like teach some workshops there.

I know, it's like wow paid trip to go there and be amazing. So hopefully, once they

relax on all that then I can, I can come.

Right now is the best time to be here because like I said

Japan is so much cheaper than US dollars.

Yeah, you can get everything is 30% off right now. So, so I'd be rich if I went there.

Pardon? I said I would be rich if I went there. Yeah, you would be rich if everything is cheaper right now.

It just makes me think of eating a ton of amazing food for cheap.

Yeah.

Drink all the broth.

Yeah, it's definitely on my list I need to do that. It looks like such an interesting place.

Which, did you get, who offered you that show?

My friend, Yoriko Ito. Do you know her?

Yeah, Yoriko-san.

Yeah, I guess she would teach there once in a while, and she asked me to come with her.

Yeah, Yoriko-san see in many industries, folks from the scientists, she invited Paul Lucerne and Hermann Selander.

Yeah, I guess that same company.

Yeah, it's that one. She told me. Yeah, that's cool. Did you go to any of those?

I read Paul Lucerne, he was awesome.

Yeah, he's insane.

That workshop is expensive. They charge $300 for a three hour workshop.

Jesus. Yeah, so I would rather take this in your class.

$300 for three hours.

Yeah.

They just hire him for that.

So did anybody else fall in love with Edgerunners when it came out?

Oh, I love Edgerunner.

Such a cool project. Oh my gosh, it was like floored. Studio Trigger is so amazing.

The art director was my ex boss.

Also, he was art director of Greneron.

He worked for Trigger for a long time.

That's so cool.

He worked on all the best stuff.

It was amazing. And it's like, I feel like that all came through so well in that series. I mean, I was just totally amazed with how cool it was and how stylish and just well animated and just like, just felt like a sleeper, like out of nowhere.

But then learning who worked on it, it was like, Oh my gosh, like, you know, I'm familiar with all this work and these people, but I just never would have imagined such a crazy legit team would work on, you know,

like a game inspired animation project. It was just so cool to see that happen.

I think it was like stuff like seeing stuff like that recently and then seeing like amazing stuff at Lightbox really made me just kind of appreciate and realize how much this industry is really all about kind of like doing what you love and the genuine nature of working on stuff that you love comes through and that's what makes for amazing work.

And like there's almost a niche or an audience for anything, you know, just as long as you can get your skills up there, like you can tell whatever story you want in any way you want.

And, yeah, like cyberpunk and you know Edgerunner having that insane opening, you know with everybody getting blown up and stuff. It was just like, wow, like, they're obviously doing what they want.

Yeah. Yeah, do what you want, do it really well and get hired for that.

Some people were telling me they're like, there is an audience for anything.

Absolutely anything. And it's almost like you can't make work with this audience predetermined in mind and you're like catering to them. It's like you make work that you trust is good through your own sensibilities and like there will be a buyer for that.

Yeah.

[silence]

So maybe, I'm sorry, go ahead.

I'm very happy about like industry is mixing, like industry in Japan and America is start mixing because I saw like

in Colombia, I have seen some crazy artists based on US.

So, like,

the industry is starting to get more close. That's a nice thing for me.

Yeah, I agree. We've been doing like the Disney style for so long.

Like we'll still, Disney will always do that but it's nice to see some of these studios breaking out from that a bit.

Also people is like, so,

interchangeable. I don't know that this one makes sense. Like, when I was a student, it's almost 10 years ago, like if you work for Disney stuff, you have to study at US,

or if you're doing fancy art, you sit at something, then I get these stuff but right now, like some of my industry folks works remotely, like a little bit serious stuff.

Yeah, that's crazy. I couldn't imagine that happened.

Oh, Yoh-Yoh Yambe?

I don't think so. Yeah, he had a disc at the time that he was selling his work.

He works at Jibberly and the Cara right now, he works for like a little journal at Netflix. That's crazy.

Oh, yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

I know my main thing is his name is Candy. He used to work at Teter Mouse for the Maoh Maoh stuff.

He also works for Frigga. So, people are so exchanging, so it's nice.

Yeah.

I can't wait to get your next digital trip to class.

Oh yeah.

Once that one starts in the winter.

Dude, you have a knack for haunted houses.

Straight up. I'm just looking at the roof of this thing and how you're pushing into the atmosphere. I know you've done it before because I've seen the Scooby stuff, but man, it's just glowing. It's really nice.

I was going to ask you a question about perspective and then I got distracted by how cool it's coming out.

I also distracted by your story about the productive stuff.

I was meant to work on creepy stuff.

Have you ever been to any really cool haunted house, you know, like a really haunted vibe building?

Yeah, I used to in high school and college, I was really into exploring abandoned subways and factories and stuff.

So I would like sneak around and do that a lot.

I wonder if I can pull up a picture.

Oh, that's cool.

Last year I was in New York and stayed at this Airbnb that was in this brownstone manor or mansion that was converted into individual apartments or something and they were still half renovating it, but it had this great spiral staircase thing in the middle that was just straight out of every horror movie you've ever seen.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, this is a subway I would explore.

Go in here.

Yeah, there's parts where it just gets like completely dark.

That is cool.

That's kind of creepy, but abandoned.

Have you ever been to the Magic Castle here?

No.

What is that?

It's like technically it's like magician's headquarters or something like that for like official like magic. But it's like, it's essentially like a kind of like cocktail bar type experience and they have like a restaurant in there, it's kind of like a little bit of a thing, but it's allegedly some sort of like invite only experience I got to go like one time, and they have this very cool historical building that it is in that has like this wild interior that just kind of like

very like almost like stereotypically like haunted house but the decor is all like authentic from, you know, whatever the 50s or something. But it's a vibe. It's pretty cool.

Cool.

Yeah, this place was close to where I grew up, so I always come here and sneak around take photos and stuff.

Where did you grow up?

Syracuse, New York. Okay, nice.

So if anyone doesn't know where that is.

My friend went to school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

And there was this huge, like now defunct steelworks there, Bethlehem steelworks that was like, you know, straight haunted vibes on that too, but it was like this colossal steelworks that hadn't, you know, seen anybody in there in five decades, and it was pretty creepy.

Wow, that's cool.

I think the East Coast is just very good for all that in general, versus out here west.

Yeah.

Um, awesome. Any, let's do like last, last questions and then I gotta wrap it up, get back to my work day.

Well, I've got a quick question about perspective.

Yes, go for it.

Just like with these studies that you're doing or you know these like color comps that you're doing.

Like obviously like you've internalized a lot of like perspective, but

for less experienced artists like at what point do you think is would be an advisable time to like throw your grid in there.

Yeah, like would you paint them up this far like recommend somebody to try to paint them up this far before tossing a grid on for like a newer, you know, like,

it's probably a little bit too far, I would yeah, maybe at the halfway point.

And you can just

something like this you can be like,

these looser paintings, it can be as simple as that.

Oh nice. Just so

you know I think I've very mistakenly had it in my head that if you're going to do three point you need to have two points on there first, that's actually makes no sense now that I think about it.

Um, yeah, let's see, like,

I feel like that's actually been getting in the way of my character work too, because I keep getting like almost confusing myself and having this like complicated three point grid.

Yeah, I don't. I mean think about it in terms of a painter, not in terms of like an architecture, or like a super technical drawing.

Because at the end of the day you're, you're, you're a painter, like,

like, he's a tipper Nagy has like a perfect perspective great yeah no he would lose, he would lose all the feeling and like where some of these lines, because they don't all line up perfectly but he's got, he's got a couple in there that just reinforce

his perspective.

Right.

Yeah. And then, obviously if you're, you put in a quick grid like this into something like this to get the basics there and then we if you have to take it further if you have to figure out like,

cars making sure that, like, they line up in a certain way, then you can go in and be more detailed about it.

But I tried to avoid, you know, spending too much time doing like those perfect perspective. No, that makes sense but it's like having the, like the way you're kind of demonstrating here is good because it's like it just keeping the perspective

of the grid focused around like how you're using it, like compositionally and stuff, you know, that's it that's what stood out to me when you like did the third point, you know, or like that vertical vanishing point, because

it's almost embracing something that on a certain level is like technically more, but in a way that's just keeping it relevant to what you're working on, you know, because like that architecture is in a very foundational sense is being driven with that

third point, you know, that sense of scale.

And like, I guess being able to play with an idea like that, without going overboard on the perspective and just not wanting to deal with any of it is kind of what I'm taking away from this.

Yeah.

Hi, Zach. Hope you're doing well, and that you regained your creative energy after Lightbox.

Yeah, I did.

I have a question for you. And that is, when creating a big illustration. How do you settle on the final idea after you went through so many like illustration concepts or so many ideas that you feel like all of them work really well for you, what you want to create

them for the concept, but you cannot really pick one because, yeah, you're, yeah, you don't know what to choose.

Yeah, that's a good question because like sometimes you can like second guess yourself, you know, like, you have some, some sketches, and then you're like which one do I pick and you pick one.

Then you start working on that you get like halfway through and then you're you start second guessing you're like, Oh, maybe I should have done the other one.

Do you is, is that kind of like the problem that you have? Yes.

So something that I have done. Yeah, there's two ways to think about it.

If you're on a tighter deadline, say you do like three quick little doodles.

You have.

Then you pick one, and then you give yourself a time limit. Be like, Okay, I am 100% focused on this one.

I'm going to finish it today. And then you can't second guess you can't like go back on anything you have to just focus on that one and get it done, and not put too much pressure on it just finish it up and then just call it done, you know.

The other thing that I've done is if I have.

If I have more time, then that's when I tend to like second guess and stuff more so what I'll do is I'll do a few sketches.

And then I might paint them up a little bit more with value.

And that'll help me to see.

That'll help me to see

where the finished painting will go.

So,

super messy, messy paintings but they're, they're these ideas for these different moments.

Well I feel like I was just going through something like this, like almost getting some images together like, like, into, you know, getting values in there.

Just enough so I could then put them all side by side.

Yeah, it helps you like evaluate choice, easier for yourself or you can like throw some quick color on it like this.

And I guess I didn't really save my, my sketch.

Wow, look at that, I saved all my layers. That's super cool.

That never happens.

Like the sketch took like, like, 20 minutes or something.

But you can, and then the cool thing about like, if you've got a bunch of different ideas you do these really quick like color sketches and might take some practice to like be like that efficient to just like drop colors in and get something that reads.

It'll take some practice.

But the benefit to this is like if you're working for a client, you can show them these like color paintings easily color sketches as well.

And then it's like you've done, like more work.

Oh, that was my ground plane that I think I got all the pieces in here it's great. Yeah.

I just took this and

worked it.

That's actually a very smart approach to textures.

Yeah, I did this like super low res so it got like all pixelated, but it kind of looks cool I guess.

Yeah, I guess.

For me it's all about not being too precious with something.

Okay, now I've got to do like a finished painting.

And I always, I will always mess it up. If I have like that mindset.

So I've got to like, it's almost like tricking my brain somehow, like do a bunch of these like little ones and then like if I really like this one then I'll like, take this one further.

Yeah, thank you very much. I still have a bit of time until the end of the month so I'm going to try to do different quick illustrations and just from there.

Cool. Yeah.

Hey.

Hey.

Thank you.

Who is this. Oh, me, Jonathan.

Deeper voice.

Yeah.

How's it going.

Pretty good. Chilling painting.

Cool.

Nice. Yeah, let's, let's, let's skate by the by the beach.

Yeah.

Or if you come up this way. Let's, let's do it.

Yeah, sounds good.

Yeah.

Are you working on more stuff right now.

Yeah, I'm doing some stuff for skate.

The project.

Cool. Yeah.

I was going to post a painting later today.

Yeah, yeah.

But, yeah.

So,

nice. Yeah, I can't wait to see the new stuff you're doing.

Thanks.

Yeah, like the sketch, the sketch sessions.

Early morning. This is awesome.

Cool. Yeah, like, I'd like to do this once in a while.

Because it kind of forces me to produce sketches and it's good to touch base with everyone again.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Cool. Yeah, really appreciate your time today.

This is great. Yeah, yeah, you're welcome.

Um, yeah, thank you so much for sitting with that.

Yeah.

And this is recorded so I'll put it up on a discord or camera later.

So, yeah, you could probably like scrub through it and see like, like the sped up version of the painting.

Yeah, cool. Thanks for for coming, everyone. And, yeah, have a great Thanksgiving. I don't talk to you. And, yeah, we'll do this again.

Well, thanks, man.

See you.

[BLANK_AUDIO]