Original subtitles

[Silence]

Hey, good morning everyone.

[Silence]

Hi, Zach.

Hello.

Good morning, Zach.

Hi.

[Silence]

Hey, Zach.

Hey, voices. This is nice.

[Silence]

Uh, yep, I'm recording. I'll post on Gumroad so you can re-watch.

I know some people have like meetings or work stuff so, yeah, it'll always be recorded and...

[Silence]

Um, all right. So if this is your first time joining, it's always like laid back and informal.

You know, I just, I just scatch, I go through my files and everything so you guys can see

everything but, yeah, feel free to unmute and ask me questions or just type questions in the chat.

I'll keep an eye on that and, yeah, we'll get started.

[Silence]

Um, so what, like, what I was thinking would be cool is, like, this is how I, like,

organize all my, like, work files. Um, of all, like, the different locations I worked on.

So I was going to pick one location. Um, and with more time, we can go through some other ones but,

um, yeah, start with one and then,

[Silence]

Okay, um, I'll just go through every, like, every step, like, starting from, like, the launch of

the assignment so you can see, like, kind of exactly, like, what happened to the whole process.

So let's start with, um, yeah, so day one usually has, like, a video call. Um,

they, um, they launch you, they show you, show you artwork and references and all that and then they

send you, like, a write-up. Um, Sony's, like, really good at giving you all the notes and

everything. Um, and then they were showing me, this was, like, early on, we were still trying

to figure out what India was looking like so this, they sent me this. This was, like, an experiment

thing they were doing, you know, with, like, the line work and the dots. Um, this is not my,

my artwork that someone else did. Um, let me do that. Um, and then they sent me references.

Um, and this was for, what was it, yeah, the market.

Um, and then they had, um, they boarded out this section so I, I went through the boards and I

grabbed, um, some of the, some of, like, the coolest, um, frames. I think you might recognize

a couple of these that I painted. Um, so I painted one, um, and this, I didn't really know where to,

where to go with, like, the India style so, like, obviously, it wasn't, like, the, like, the final,

like, look. There's more, this was more kind of like the normal kind of Spider-Verse style.

Um, and then I, I painted this one. Um, and they were like, yeah, we like the moment but it's,

it doesn't, this isn't, like, the, the style we're going for.

Um, this was a sketch I did, um, got, like, the crowd of people below and then all these,

like, shops and stuff. How long do these first sketches take? Um,

I mean, something like this takes, like, 20 minutes, 30 minutes or something, depending.

Um, these, like, color ones, these took a bit of time. Um, let's open this up and see.

You'll see there's, like, tons of versions of these as well.

Words. It's kind of me sketching around, trying to figure stuff. Oh, I forgot that I did that one.

Yeah, I was just trying to figure out, like, what this market could look like.

Um, I forgot that I did these. I think I opened the file. Um,

another idea. Let's see, yeah, I would probably, I probably spent, like, you asked about time,

I'd probably spend, like, a day doing these sketches, maybe two days doing, like,

these sketches and research, something like that. Um,

I wish I painted that one. That one's kind of cool.

Um, okay, so then, then I started working on this painting.

Got, like, the crane back here.

Adding in, like, line art.

Putting in the characters.

All these portals.

Um, all right, we got some questions. Here's a question. Um, so you choose the,

the board that looks most appealing to you, or they designated you the shots. So,

yeah, how it worked. I went through, if they have storyboards, then I'll go through the storyboards

and I'll pick, pick out ones that I like. They might, I don't remember exactly, but they might

be like, hey, paint something in this, this area, and they might paint to some storyboards.

But really, it's up to you to figure out like what what moments you want to paint that represent this

location, the best because at the end of the day, you have to, you have to show your paintings and

be like, this is the feeling the this is what we want. This is my idea for the India marketplace.

So you have to pick the best. The paintings that will show that the best.

Oh, it's full.

Okay, shoot. Um, yeah, give me one second. I apologize about that. Let me, um,

just let me know.

That I mean, people.

All right.

So,

so,

zoom should give you like a like a warning or something.

So, you know, I'm not going to go into too much detail. I'm just going to go ahead and do it.

So, you know, I'm going to go ahead and do it. I'm going to go ahead and do it.

So,

how the heck do I change my settings.

Anyone know where to go.

Change my

number of people.

I don't know, I think that it costs more to have a zoom account that can support,

like more than 100, unless you do a webinar.

Yeah. Or where you can just like up it to like 500.

For like, like a month or something.

I don't know where that was. They like changed.

I think it might be under plans and pricing, because it costs more.

Yeah, because right now, if it's just 100 people.

I can also let them know that it's recorded and they can just watch the recording if you don't

want to. You mind just typing in. Just give me like a minute. I'm gonna, I'm gonna adjust it.

So they should be able to get in. Okay, yeah, sure.

I was gonna show my credit card number.

Hello, can I ask a question?

Yeah, give me one one second.

Oh, we're 101. So I'm gonna message.

Yeah, should.

Let's see.

Okay, yeah. Do you mind telling everyone that I think they can, they can join.

Yeah, 103. Okay, people are joining.

One second.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, I should check that beforehand. Sorry, but we should be good now. And it was all recorded. So if you missed like the first couple minutes, you can just watch that.

Okay, someone, someone said they had a question. Go for it.

Yeah, it's me. How are you planning the composition like focal points or like something?

How are you planning like this?

Well,

first thing I do is ask myself, what is, what is this piece about?

So it's about Miles fighting the spot. That's the number one important thing. So high contrast is going to be like dark Miles against the light right here.

So I want everything to kind of point us there.

So the values, he is highest contrast. And then I've got everything kind of pointing us in this direction.

And then you can have other areas of focus like like like Gwen and our other characters running in.

But they are not as high contrast.

So,

if it's like high contrast then everything else is kind of stepped down from there.

Does that make sense.

Thank you so much. Yeah.

Let me, let me catch up on some of these questions.

When working on these. What's your canvas size, does the studio give you all the preset details.

Let's see image.

Yeah, here's my canvas size so it's not, it's not huge. I think this is kind of like my default, you know, anywhere from like, like 14 inches to 20 inches I'm somewhere in there.

I don't like to work like, like super super high res, because I want my files to be like really fast and want to be able to like flip them around.

But yeah, if I'm working on something where I need the resolution like,

then I will, I'll just up my file size.

Question. How do you decide where to put the accents of black line art, is it random, or is there

some of the random spots of contrast of colors.

Yeah, the line art.

I'll show you what I'm looking at. And a little bit I've got some images of like the, the style inspiration.

And then the spots of color that, like I'm, I'm picking out like bits of

there's a lot of grays in here, but then I'm picking out like saturated bits of color that lead your eye around.

That's generally what I do when I'm painting I'd rather have a painting that's like less saturation and then pick out some specific areas to have saturation so if we look, we just color pick this like that's like straight up gray, like all my, all my hues

are kind of like in this zone. And then, you know, once in a while pick out like a more like saturated color to like draw some interest.

And then obviously in the characters always push the saturation.

Yeah, so it's about like leading the eye around the piece, that's what I'm thinking about.

You work in layers.

Generally I say like I do my whole painting and like one layer one or two layers as minimal layers as possible.

But for these spider hers pieces since there's like line art there's always different variations, then I will.

I'll try to like keep some layers.

Sometimes I, I mess up and I merge everything and then. Yeah, but we'll see.

Question.

Hey Julian.

What was your approach to deal with so many different local colors while maintaining nice harmony.

Um,

I did

what I will do some, sometimes I'll just paint like if I've got like photo references.

I'll kind of just paint a lot of like the local colors I see. And then

sometimes to get like a color harmony I might like de saturate everything a bit.

And then since this is like a very warm image I might take, take everything and then just push some, some, some read into it or some yellow.

You know, I'm obviously like going pretty extreme here to like show the prove the point but it's a way, this is a way to kind of contain your colors together and group things.

So a lot of times I'll start out with like a lot of color and then I'll like de saturate thing and things and just push some, some of like one color into it.

What was the most challenging shot you had to work on, please feel free to answer it on your own time schedule.

Um,

most challenging shot.

All of these were like super hard.

I think there was one.

Put it on my art station.

Just pop down one like this one was was hard I still don't think it was that successful.

I think it's like the angle. I'm trying to figure out, like, kind of like capture this depth.

If I just painted this normally like I could do it but like painting it in this style and trying to figure out how to get the space and everything to read is super difficult.

Thank you. Thank you.

Your spare works work. It seems you play a lot with textures Do you have any tips on mixing the balance of texture in your work.

So they feel cohesive.

Yeah, it's always a balance of, it's kind of like what I was saying with the bits of saturation around the piece.

You've got areas of more gray than areas of more like pushed color.

Same thing with texture you've got areas of just like flat simple texture versus areas of really complex high frequency texture that creates areas of interest areas of rest.

And it keeps the viewers I like moving around your piece and feeling like they have to leave I just put realistic texture everywhere.

Then it's not.

It's.

It's not a word it's you, the viewer doesn't have to like think and interpret things.

So it's, it's not as like appealing.

I would say, because you want you want to look at a piece where you, you have to think a little bit.

You have to be like, oh, here's a bunch of texture and interest, and then here's where there's no interest but my mind can kind of like piece things together and figure out that and kind of fill in the gaps, I guess.

Okay.

What money.

Do these do this concepts on the four color keys lighting keys. Yeah.

And does color keys and lighting keys are the same, or they totally different.

Yeah, it's same, same thing color keys lighting keys.

Different terms for the same thing.

Color script is a different thing.

You usually start the movie like you read the script you watch the storyboards and you start painting all these, these concept pieces.

And then, as things get like built out and everything.

They're in layout, then you start doing the color keys.

You start with

two thirds values always even when starting the storyboard art, move into color. Now I start lots of different ways.

I've talked about this before and some of my classes where it's, it's like if you have like the same process for creating a piece.

You can do your grayscale color blocking detail texture. That's great, you can.

It's like an efficient way kind of like a foolproof process, which is great for working in a pipeline.

The negative to that is your work, you're not going to grow as much you're not taking as much risks.

So you're not going to fail as much, and for me, I like to start my pieces lots of different ways and that means I fail a lot I do a lot of like horrible paintings.

I'm, I see growth in my work I might come up with like some new way of sketching or creating a piece of artwork and to me like that's better in the long run because then I'm always kind of kind of growing.

I haven't seen the art book yet, I guess I have to order one I don't think Sony's gonna send me one.

I'm wondering what you find is a common mistake when coming across early portfolios students who hope to get into environment this stuff.

Some common common mistake.

Some people try to do too much.

They have like all these skills and they're kind of like average at all of them, where it's much better to just pick one hyper focus on that, that one skill and become a master at that one thing.

So that's a common common mistake that I see.

I also like, I want to see something, something original.

There's so many, like,

it's like, you know, you go, you go on like ArtStation you go on like Instagram. There's all the same kind of like compositions that just get repeated. I mean I'm guilty of it too.

So it's something I'm working on as well but you know you see a cool composition that someone else did and then you kind of like repeat that are you seeing, see a cool color scheme and then you repeat that.

So like bringing like forcing yourself to like try something new.

Something original like why would ask yourself why would the studio hire you over someone else.

Yeah, I have a quick question if that's cool. Yeah.

I was wondering what you were saying about how it's better to focus on one thing to have like your hand in multiple different pots. Sometimes I hear artists in the industry mentioned how one presenting a portfolio.

To see a little bit of everything to see that your versatile. I was wondering, is it good to like, have a little bit of knowledge and a lot of focus on one thing, or just focus on one thing.

I'll give you this example.

Like for me.

Let's look at, let's look at this again so I'm a vis dev artists I kind of specialize and like story moments and like color and lighting, so that's like my focus on.

So that's 90% of my portfolio, right.

But then, so, so that's the path that you're going on, and then you can deviate a little bit from that path to show that you have some versatility. So, like here.

I'm like my focus is color, color lighting this dev story moments.

But then here I'm showing like very tight, like designed like props and and stuff.

So that's like, I'm still like on that path but it's like a little bit.

I'm showing like, I can do, I can do this design stuff as well.

And then, like, here, I'm still on the environment path but I showed like, oh, I can block something out to help me sketch in 3d a little bit, so I'm not, I'm not going like super far into 3d and like building everything, but it's showing like.

This is another like little, little skill that I have.

Like my color stuff on. Here's another like little skill that I have where I can kind of like do a simple animation

color keys.

Yeah, so it's all.

So I'm in the design process I'm painting some of these moments.

And then I'll like gather these, these references, and I'll put together like a little map that I can show.

Show my art director production designer and be like this is kind of what I'm thinking about like for the market we could have like this part.

This part and then this part each part has like a different kind of feeling to it. So when miles is like running through your crashing through stuff.

There's this chase scene happening, we get.

We go, we have this variety.

And then this was my black and white sketch for for that painting.

Let me

see all these, all these layers I was trying like a lot of different things.

Starting beginning so that was a storyboard that I based it on.

And I was like what would be cool maybe.

And like an electronics shop.

Okay, have a store owner back there. There are characters, high contrast like nice like simple graphic lighting on them.

Like knocking stuff over.

So, painting this all in black and white helps me to just visualize everything quickly before I get into color.

And then I poster is it so I like simplified it.

So sometimes when you are forced to like adapt to a new style sometimes you could just kind of have to paint, paint it naturally.

And then you can like the painting as a certain like, like at least like sketch it out like how you naturally would sketch, and then you can like kind of figure out how to how to apply that style to it.

So it's like very like simplified like comic style I kind of had to paint it with like textures and everything so I could like visualize it now, now I'm breaking it down and simplifying some things here and there.

So that helps me to do that.

Start throwing in colors.

Start painting.

Computer screens fan.

You can see like, you know, we paint some DVDs and things here, paint some detail here but then like leaving others like very loose.

And our I can kind of like fill in the gaps, like, just like a random scribble, you know, to show like, like a shadow or something.

They love saturation on this, on this movie.

And then, you know, the, the India

style was very.

It was kind of like a crude

printmaking process. So it was like very like limited colors.

So we had to think about the painting in a way like how how would they print this, like maybe they print it with like this orange yellow first, and then they layer on the purple color on top of that.

And then things were like offset a bit, and they might just make this orange here just for like the heck of it just because it makes like a cool shape.

This was Patrick said yeah he's like what if you, what if these are security cameras and you saw like them running from different angles. So, thank you, Patrick.

I do these, these dot patterns, which I have in my brushes here, you can see.

I would just paint these.

Yeah.

When you're placing those dots and stuff, do you place them to suit the composition or just like just where you feel.

Um, I would, I would place them.

So there are some rules for for this that adding dots to something meant, adding light.

So, yeah, I would use it as like atmosphere.

You can see like adding these dots, it's, it's like the light shining through this window. So I'm getting some of that atmosphere and then the light hitting some of these, these objects.

So it wasn't just random, it was purposeful, I would say.

Okay, cool. Thanks. Yeah.

Question two.

Yeah, sorry.

For. Where do you find your half tone brushes.

Google like three half toned brushes.

I downloaded a few sets and like I just, you know, you download a set of brushes you get like 20 brushes or whatever I just like deleted all of them except for the one that I was actually going to use.

I guess I could have asked, like the artists, other artists working on the movie as well.

Sometimes when it's remote, it's like, it's a little difficult so yeah I just found some online for free.

And then I also found this texture, just like paper texture.

That, that gave us feeling of like the printing and like, like, yeah, I just felt like it felt nice so I use that a lot as well.

And then, are you mindful to where you place like the big dots versus the small dots I mentioned for atmosphere.

The dots, the dots get bigger as they go back into space.

I, I think, I think they got bigger as they went back into space and then, which makes sense you know simpler back here. And then when we're closer to the camera then we we'd get like some smaller dots and more like more detail, I'm pretty sure that's what

I was thinking.

Thank you.

And then I'm like drawing on top of this,

breaking the wall there's like comic book effects, painting in the shop owner.

Here I'm using dots as like bounce light, you know like warmth from here bouncing up into him a little bit.

Characters in there.

I'm using the web's just rearranging them getting in the better silhouette.

Well, these webs I would like.

Hey, Mr. Can I ask a question again.

Yeah, well, give me one second.

Thank you. These webs I would do something like this and I would just like work them into space.

Yeah, go ahead with your question.

In concept art drawings for my portfolio, will it be better to make an addition to fan art drawings or should I draw the original characters directly, for example, should I draw additions to Spider Man and evolve into something new, or should I draw Spider Man directly.

Um, sorry, I misunderstood a little bit should you draw like, like, Spider Man characters or your own characters Is that your question.

Yeah.

Which would be better for my portfolio.

Definitely, definitely your own characters would be better.

Because if you just draw like Spider Man stuff, they're going to be like people looking at your portfolio, they'll think, oh he, he only wants to work on on on spider versa.

He can only do this.

This style.

I would say it's better to.

When you're making a portfolio think about, you know, a story and characters that is like personal to you and your life experiences.

Something that will show your unique

something that's unique about you, so you get hired for a project for you, specifically they're like, Oh, this artist he has like a really interesting.

He comes from this part of the world he brings this these like sensibilities to the project. We, we feel something unique and here like that would fit our project, really well, like that's how you want to be hired.

Thank you so much for answer.

Thank you. Yeah.

I have a question. Um, you said that you were primarily in an environment of visual development artists right.

When you design these environments.

I get like one of the problems I'm facing right now is that I, I think too much about like the design aspect.

Is it.

I'm not sure how to work this.

Is it okay to like more like rely on like the reference instead of just trying to like come up with everything from the ground up, I guess.

I think, like how.

Like the way, like not everything has to be like super creative and crazy. Like when you are building these portfolio pieces you could find a couple photo references, a color reference, and, you know, you rely heavily on those references, and that's, that's totally

fine.

Especially like when you're just trying to create a bunch of pieces.

And then like, over time, that it'll be easier for you to have more creativity and like not rely on references as much or like, like, in this case I was looking at like 50 different images.

And all these different like comic book styles like it was a ton of stuff to like take in and try to incorporate it into one piece.

But yeah, does that make sense.

Yeah, yeah, because I'm.

I'm learning to like, as like as someone who like I got brought in to like art, like focusing like most of the videos I watched early on were like speed paint videos where like you never saw their reference or anything so I just kind of picked up the habit

of like, Oh, I should like figure everything out by myself where everything I make should be created from, you know, from the get go, but yeah I'm like learning to like focus more on like using reference.

I would say, like all the work that I do like personally and my personal projects and stuff there.

I'm really based in, in reality and like locations that I've been to, and it's more about painting them in a unique way or like really pushing like the color and the lighting.

So, yeah, yeah, I think it's, it's, it's totally fine to be like heavily based on references.

Thank you. Yeah.

So here like this layers you saw me flipping to just like I do the painting and then I would show them and then they would be like okay try like some color variations try like they call it render script like the different like patterns and like offset,

and all these like different like comic book effects. So here I'm like, I'm trying all these, all these different things.

You'll see, like the CDs I'll paint them flat first and then I'll like work them into space.

Where are these these are like DVD covers and see how like loose and sketchy they are but then I'll like put them into space.

That's my grayscale.

Yeah, and sometimes I'll like posterize my image.

And then so that way I can like select something.

If I want to like simplify an area, I can like

moisturize and then like simplify some things, you know.

See I did it there was like the lights.

Just checking values, perspective.

Yeah, so that was, that was that piece, like the all these paintings took me like, like so long to do like usually I'm like fast and efficient and whatever like I can just like, I can do a sketch in a day or something but like these were like,

a week, a week long, like, do the painting and then I would do all these like variations, and I'd spend like a day doing all these like different,

all these different kind of like, like okay more like patterns, like all these different like options.

Because we were experimenting with like what what India could look like.

Alright, let me catch up on the chat questions.

I'm curious, do you sketch the characters with line art first or do you go straight into blocking their shapes.

Yeah, just blocking their shapes, and then, and then I like put some lines over top of them.

Because like I've trained myself to not be a drawer, to be a painter so I see everything in like shapes of shadow and shapes of light, so I block everything in with that in mind.

So, that, that allows me to create like very like bold,

interesting, like silhouette shapes and the characters and

yeah and and to be like efficient and fast.

In your Spiderverse works it seems like you play a lot with textures, do you have any tips mixing the balance of texture in your work, so they feel cohesive.

Oh yeah, answered that one.

You start with, I answered that one.

Is there a way to up raise your sketches into bigger paintings yeah I literally just image, image size, if I need like double the size of this, I'll just do,

I'll just double it and it'll increase and, you know, things get like a little pixelated or whatever it doesn't matter because I'm, I continue to paint, I'm painting over things.

Yeah, it's generally how I do it.

Cool, straightforward. Thanks.

Yeah.

Do you move from black and white to color, when you paint.

Yeah, you saw, you saw here like this was my sketch I figured everything out here.

And then I went into the color.

I don't always, always do that sometimes I just jump right into color but it was one I did. I worked on the lights and pump for some of your color keys.

Oh, really. Wow, cool.

Um, yeah you guys killed it with the

the lighting job as though lighting like I don't like it was, yeah it was crazy.

Great question on the blender India City, where those block ends same gray, but changed due to lighting, or did you make blocks different grades. Yeah, I used a couple different grades.

I'm getting to that.

Actually, no, no, man.

Yeah, I.

When I build something quickly and blender I'll do like have like a couple different colors so I can easily like select things like in Photoshop.

And will you often do black and white first as you said but then repaint it from scratch and color, or do you paint over it while sticking with the black and white values you establish something like this.

I just hundred percent painted over everything.

But you know I go, I do some other things like sometimes like you can take something and I'll just like push some color into it so I've got like a like a nice under painting to work off of.

Yeah, but generally I like to paint.

I don't want to use like too many like Photoshop tricks and stuff when I'm doing these paintings I want to just like be able to like pick the exact color I want and then like make my brushstroke with that color.

Do you see any cool AI tools that you plan to adopt while still making the creative decision yourself, or like what you do with 3D software painting over AI prompts or feed the AI your computer with your own art style and make it your personal assistant.

You know, I don't know, the industry is gonna change with all this AI stuff happening.

I think

for like this stuff, things are so specific.

There hasn't been like a useful way for me to use it.

And I don't know how, how I feel about, about using it I don't know if it's going to be one of these things we have to use it over out of a job, you know, I don't, I don't know what's going to happen.

But the projects that I'm on.

I haven't, I haven't really used use it I've experimented just to kind of like see what it, what it does but I will say the projects that I'm on.

My directors will do a bunch of like AI art.

And they'll generate a bunch of stuff.

And those become like references for the artists, which I don't know, yeah I don't know exactly how I feel about it.

It's kind of like that just took like,

like on one movie.

Recently my, my director made a bunch of,

he created all these environments that were kind of like in the zone that he wanted something to work.

So, in like 10 minutes or whatever however long it took him to like type in the stuff he did probably like three weeks of work by like a couple artists that would normally have to like do like the vis dev paintings and all of that.

So, yeah, I don't know, I feel like that either took a few people's jobs away, or that's speeding up the filmmaking process.

But, yeah, I mean,

I think in a perfect world we just AI would not be invented, and then we just stay like passionate artists and, you know, but since everything is run by money and efficiency and all that, I mean, I don't, yeah, I don't know what's going to happen.

Yeah, I'm very.

Yeah, I mean I don't, I don't know. I wish it wasn't there, but yeah, we'll see. So yeah, to answer your question, I think like right now the industry is using it more as like references from my experience what I've seen.

You find that mentally messes with your process.

Yeah, I tried to not let things like that affect me like I want to be like a little bit aware of it. I see some people like online just like complaining about AI all day and like taking our jobs and whatever I'm like, you've been on Twitter, all day, posting

about this stuff.

I'm like, like, whatever the AI is going to happen. I'm still, I'm still going to be a painter I'm going to paint everything and, you know, because I love this, like, I don't like even if I don't get paid for it I'm gonna, you know, I'm still gonna like make my own fully

art and everything.

It's difficult like months ago I was, I was on something and the director sent me these like AI images. He was like take these and then like paint something kind of similar.

And then, yeah, I painted something, I was looking at like my painting versus the AI thing as like man this AI thing is like better than my painting.

That like made me sad for a day.

Yeah, so, yeah, well, we'll see what happens.

How do you find it working for yourself versus another versus for another art director projects at another studio like Patrick at Sony. Does it change your process obviously with reviews, but what about the actual creation of the image.

Good question.

Yeah, I'll say like some of the good and bad things working like on a movie like if, when you're not your own boss and you're answering to like a team at Sony or something.

It's the difficult things are like you might not agree with some of the art direction, things that they are telling you to do.

Or you might not like you're like, Oh, I would probably do it a different way, but you, you are you're trusting this this team, like they, they have the big picture in mind.

So sometimes you kind of have to like blindly like trust that.

Like I think that was

like there, there were like little design things I would have done differently I think and inspire her so like some color things I would have done differently.

So sometimes it was hard to like,

hard to paint because I didn't like, I wasn't like fully I didn't like fully see what they were going for.

But I tried my best to like, take all the feedback and go, go with it and yeah so that's always a difficult thing I would say.

Because we're all artists we all have opinions on stuff not saying mine is better there's is better whatever it's just, you know, it's all a preference.

So,

yeah, versus when I'm doing something on my own like right now like my studio is doing like my own little short.

And I'm just painting the environments, exactly how I want them to look like every brushstroke is like, that's, that's my thing like the lighting is exactly how I want like if I want.

If I want everything to be gray, then it's going to be gray, you know, like no one's, no one's telling me what to do.

One of the positives working at a studio is there's always people pushing you, like I would say like working with like Patrick and Dean and the people at Sony they always pushed me to make my paintings, a little bit better, like they would always tell me something

and be like, oh, that's a cool idea, let me, let me do that and we'll make it better.

So yeah, I think that a studio definitely like really like pushes you.

You've been in studio recently like Spider-Verse, or is it all remote?

Yeah, I haven't, I haven't been into a physical studio and like since the lockdowns happened.

So I don't even know like are people even going to studios anymore like.

Should they just sell to all these companies just sell their buildings.

Yeah, so everything's been been remote for me.

Yeah, I mean I miss it. I think I miss like seeing people like getting lunch with friends like that was always nice.

But not working at a studio and just kind of like freelancing for all these, all these different movies and doing running my own thing.

Like I get to work on like a wide variety of projects, instead of just like working on like one movie full time, I can work on like five projects right now, and

you know, that's, that's been like pretty fun for me. It's a lot of work, but

you know you're not putting all your eggs in one basket I guess because like sometimes you get on a movie and it's kind of like a turns into kind of a shitty movie.

And you're like, I spent like a year of my life doing this.

But at least if you if you're on a few things you're like, Oh, this one's not that great but this one's really cool. So, you know,

how do you choose the posing for the frames. Do you work with the story artists or just figure them out yourself.

Yeah, the stage I just figured out myself I.

Yeah, I just, I just do my best.

Yeah, just as a business of artists you know I just paint the paint the characters and, you know, they're like the, this one was inspired by a storyboard.

They're like critiquing like your, your anatomy and everything too too much. They're just like, you know, it's about the environment, the feeling, the textures and all of that.

The lighting.

How long does every key art take you to make.

Well, yeah, I mentioned earlier like these spider was once took me a super long time like I'd spend like a week on like one of these I feel like

as also part time on this movie. So I was like, I was working like half week so sometimes it was a little hard to judge my time.

Like sometimes I felt like I was on like one, one painting for like a month, but maybe there's a like lots of rounds of like sketches that I would do and then like a couple weeks of like just tweaking the image and, you know,

yeah, everything's recording.

Do you mostly design your composition based on Edgar Payne compositions book, or do you invent new ones.

I studied the heck out of Edgar Payne's book, I copied all of his compositions over and over, over again with like a Sharpie marker and my sketchbooks and.

So those compositions are ingrained in my memory. When I'm painting now I don't necessarily think like, oh, this is like this like balance composition, it's more of like, and inventing my own composition but it's like, oh, I might place an element

back here to create like some kind of balance or contrast and shapes.

Are you working closely with a director over the development of an image from sketch final point, or do you get to final before showing a director to get feedback.

Depends every project is different.

I'm on a new movie right now and it's like just me and the director, he just like sends me some prompts and then I, I just paint stuff.

And then we have a video call and then he like, he might draw over something or he might be like hey just extend your might like give me some feedback or whatever.

So it's a very, very close thing like I'll send him sketches and then very like back and forth.

We don't always get that time with the director because they're like they've got lots of stuff going on so I'm like, I'm lucky that I do right now.

Yeah, I think in space. In the case of spider verse, it was more like, I would just work with the art directors and then

once a week or something I would like show them like the finished pieces.

Is that the soft topic, but are you going to light box this year, what are your thoughts on lightbox China side if it's worth flying from East Coast.

Um, yeah I will, I will go like 90% sure I'll go.

I don't live in California anymore so I will make a trip out of it.

I have a couple other things I can do when I'm out there. I think it definitely won't hurt you going.

I remember, like, 10 years ago when I was trying to get into animation. I went to CTN.

And that really helped me.

Just like, get in, get, get some like connections meet some people that a couple of extra people that I could like stay in touch with.

That was very beneficial for me, like, getting into getting into a studio.

So, yeah, even if you go you just like stop at everyone's table like introduce yourself like have a business card like connect on Instagram or something like, I think that would be worth it.

You know, try to reach out to some people to some artists that can maybe like you can show your portfolio to.

Yeah, so I would say if it's like within your budget you can do it, then you know it would, it would help you.

You can network. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah meeting someone.

It's like I meet people online like all the time so meeting someone in person like you will, you'll like. It's like a different, different kind of thing you're like, Oh, I met you in person you're like, you're like a cool person you're like someone I could work

with you know that's I think that's how they kind of like meeting someone person goes a long way.

Can someone asked my question, please my mic got not working.

You also work with story artists, or how do you figure out posing as. Oh, I think we answered that one of this almost never use work stuff, definitely try more sometimes.

Graphic comic stuff like dots and RGB.

I don't know I lost where I was.

So I'm like, comic stuff RGB. Yeah, all those like those like comic book elements I usually add those towards the end, I make the painting work.

That's what we call it.

Oh, sorry it's laggy for you I hope it's hope it's okay.

You have any tips painting abstractly and not getting caught up. What everything is in a scene.

You can do everything vertically and paint your whole image upside down, and that'll help you to focus on the big shapes of light and color and really just like think about shapes, like whenever I paint a portrait or something I always paint it upside

down. So, it really forces me to just look at shapes of color shapes of light and shadow.

I think in there nice.

So, different versions.

Yeah, and then when you, when you're going so usually start with these like like inspirational this that paintings and then you have to design like what is back here because someone has to build that and texture that and all that.

So, that's when we do like these like very design heavy like flats, or, you know, designing out these props and things like that. So,

I guess I can show you.

So the first step for this was finding references I thought about what each

little shop could be, and then I pulled references for each of those.

So that way when I am

drawing for example, I'm looking at looking at all this stuff in here, and then creating something from these references, and then the cell phone store.

You know, looking at looking at all this.

Just inspired by by all this stuff.

So, it all this stuff is very heavily like researched and, you know, I want to be like authentic, like, I didn't.

I didn't take a trip to India so I didn't get to experience this stuff firsthand but

which would be the best way to do the research but since I didn't do that I watched a lot of YouTube videos like people just like walking through these shopping areas and stuff.

So I got like a feel for things that way.

And then, then just like googling things.

Asa. Yes.

How's it going.

I wanted to ask you like on this are like a very like heavy, like in design, but they are like mostly, let's say compositions of like the elements of all the environment that do you have to figure out at some point, I don't know like, like very specific about

the design of the TV or a very specific like a prop, or that will be like the work of someone else.

For these, these are just kind of things that they are.

They're kind of in the background we're not interacting too much with these.

So you don't have to be like super specific with every little thing.

But, for example, say the characters walk in here and they pick up a TV.

And they're interacting with the TV.

Then we would have to do like a, like a call out and we'd have to do like a really specific design of this.

But then like, I don't know for your work that it like always goes into like painterly sometimes you have to go into this like detail for certain elements, like to design an actual prop.

Yeah, um, I'm, I have some props coming up.

Yeah, I'll show, I'll show those in a little bit I think that will. Cool. Awesome, thank you.

Okay, so I started with.

Sometimes I surprise myself like I saved, I saved my sketch.

But yeah, these are my sketches so I figured out kind of the basic shapes at that point.

These my sketches.

You know some of these little shops would have like, like random things like shoes and records, and the same one or like, like, home goods, clothing patterns.

Yeah, Zach sorry I don't want to interrupt just a little question, like very quick question when you, when you start designing the store like you're always keeping in mind the big medium small shapes and stuff like that.

Yeah.

So, like what for me it's most, the most important thing is the value so.

So what I would do is

like these darks. It was.

I'm, I'm designing like really interesting are trying to design really interesting dark shapes in here.

Small.

Big shape here.

Medium shape here. So I was thinking about I was making designing these groups of value and shape.

Well,

yeah, and then I would design some like random props and stuff I think they, they asked me as they were like if you think of anything that could be cool like sitting out in front of the shops like just do like a design so it's like maybe this cart thing could

be cool.

And this was part of like the structure that held these shops together.

So yeah, so I designed these shops and then, then we had to design kind of the rest of this place.

So like the windows the patterns.

And I idea like these are like rough and moose I was just like showing different ideas for for what all this could be.

So I was like, what if there are different levels. Maybe these lanterns hanging painting on different textures and stuff I see.

I was like what if there's many levels.

So this is where I kind of built this in 3d to quickly like

that'll blender. Yeah, just in blender.

So this is like the courtyard area.

And then

like the entrance.

And then these, this is where all those like little shops would be.

So you get. So the smarter man can like fly through here and it's like an interesting kind of location for them to like play around with.

So yeah, that's like the shop area.

And then they would come out the back.

And this could be like another like city, city square.

And I'm just, it's all super simple just placing blocks to kind of get the sense of like the scale and like what what this could be. And then you always have these like you kind of like walls of buildings and like chaos, so I just by placing this stuff back here

it really helps me to like, get a feeling for what all this could could be like.

Hey, Zach, how are you.

Good. How are you.

I'm good. Thank you.

So you'll start the color all over again the value or.

Yeah.

I keep in mind the values.

But then I.

Yeah, I just paint opaque.

I just like drop in the colors and then I'm always just like checking my values.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know.

Yeah, just, that's okay. Thank you. Yeah, sorry.

That's just what I do I don't know.

Yeah, if I ever use like these like these kind of things or whatever.

I never really liked, like the fact that gave me.

And if I do use them it's very sparingly.

I'd much rather just like find the colors that I want the hue I want like here I've got complete control over everything, so then I can, you know, I feel like I'm painting I'm not like doing some like Photoshop stuff.

Let me, let me catch up on some of these questions, how important is the inclusion of different styles, and to show that you can adapt to different styles looks in your portfolio.

I don't think I would say don't focus on style in your portfolio.

I would focus more on amazing color and light, like I'm speaking from

an environment designer color key like story moment person.

So, showing that you have like a strong sense of value structure and color.

And that will, that will tell the, the art directors production designers are retiring you that you can adapt to different styles because you have a really strong foundation.

Like, looking at my stuff before spider verse like you wouldn't think that they would invite me to work on that movie, because it's like very like hard edge graphic and my stuff was very like loose and painterly.

And they wanted me on the first movie because I had really strong sense of light and strong values in my painting so they wanted me for that reason. And then they're like, Oh, he can.

He's got the fundamentals down so then the style is like, you can just adapt to the different style.

How do you keep in mind proportions when you don't sketch the characters.

Yes, I know, I know you like you like to draw. I'm, I'm super intrigued in your ways to keep them in the right size, so dynamic.

Um, I literally just like, you know, I'm working on a piece like this, when I'm in like when I'm working it up like from the beginning I'll just like.

I'll drop in like some characters for scale.

You know, I might like put.

I might just like sketch in my characters like that. And so I get a sense of the scale and then you know as I'm going I might like to use them to be a little bit bigger.

Then I'll start to like refine them as I'm going but I get them in there, get them blocked in quickly.

And then, then from there I can, I can adjust things.

While painting on top of the black and white values, doesn't it get muddy while using blending modes.

Yeah, it does. I think it's part of the reason why I like to just paint opaque.

Question when you're doing more of a design piece, do you start with a loose value painting too, or is it different. Yeah, and those like shops that I was doing I started with like a, like a rough like value sketch, just to kind of get the proportions

get the get everything kind of feeling right and then I can go in and start detailing.

You want to get like the broad picture figured out before you get into the details.

That's scary and sad to hear, oh talking about the AI stuff probably.

My AAD gives me AI refs and it looks, and it feels pretty weird. Like I wonder what the point of my own role is.

Yeah, I totally, totally get that I'm like, well, in a year they can feel make things like even more specific so it's there like less of a less of a need for artists.

I heard something.

Um,

I don't remember it 100% I heard someone talking about AI and there's there like it's, it's going to go, there's going to be two directions people can go people can go like fully on board with AI, you know, wearing your like Apple headset thing and like

just fully in that world becoming like a robot, and then there'll be people who go the opposite direction, who don't do that stuff, and are more.

There, there's like a.

They're focused on like the human made stuff and there will always be a market for, you know, people who want something made by a human,

because that.

I don't know, I'm probably saying this, saying this correctly, there's going to be a there's there's going to be a market for that stuff it's like buying a traditional painting for your house versus someone with like a smart TV and just like images.

You know, flipping by, you know, there's something nice about having like an original piece of art that was made by a human, like.

So yeah, I don't know that kind of made sense to me and gave me like some hope it's like yeah, part of the industry will probably go like full AI and just produce like this generic like shitty looking, whatever.

Um, but then like, then you could go to a theater and you could watch something like made by real humans, where there's so much like thought put into every little piece of the movie, you know,

I don't know, that's someone's prediction kind of made sense to me.

I think I'm definitely going to go into more like made by humans route, you know, rather than becoming a robot sitting in a, in a city somewhere like that doesn't

just like fully plugged into everything, all this technology like that doesn't seem seem good to me. I'd rather be in touch with nature and.

Yeah.

I think AI is somewhat okay to use as a reference only. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, the biggest problem is taking their work without consent. Yeah, exactly.

You have any trick to boost motivation when it runs low.

Um, yeah, something I've.

I've thought about a lot the past couple years was like my end of life goal, like, at the end of my life.

When I'm like, old and some old old artists you know somewhere sitting on a mountain view of nature whatever like and what am I going to be happy, like that I've done in my life.

And I was like, do I want to kind of like go work for the studios and like work my way up through the system and you know whatever tried to like please everyone and all that, or do I want to be at the end of my life just doing the art that makes me the most

happiest and feeling fulfilled in that way, like, you know, having my own studio and make these little animations.

Yeah, so I was like at the end, at the end of the day I want to be an artist.

And I want to be the best painter that I can be. So that's my main goal and everything I do I'm going to be working towards that.

So that like keeps me like motivated and keeps me focused on this thing that I'm trying to do.

Rather than like, you know, I need this, this raise at work I need to get like the next position.

Competing with these other artists like that does not sound fun, you know, I did that for a little bit. And then once I accomplished that goal as like wow this is this is complete hell, like,

yeah, not going to do that anymore.

Question in terms of design, are you always thinking on big, medium, small. Yeah, yeah, I'm always, always thinking about like the relationships of shapes.

Might be an AI generated spider verse out there, and the spider multi verse, and I hope spider punk goes there and blows it up.

Maybe part two, you never know.

Made by human instead descriptions are getting more.

I noted said, yeah, I keep on painting.

Is that in a way that we need to clarify what that we are humans that paint, I mean, oh yeah, yeah, it's like I get messages now like, oh, you, you make that with AI, I'm like no.

I fucking spent like two weeks trying to paint that by hand.

Question This is more of a color theory question when doing something like this, where it's so pushed. Do you focus more on general color relationships.

And this was like, yeah, the color in this movie was the hardest part, I would say, because it's not based in reality like at all.

For example, if a box is blue, do you just make sure that the highlight is generally warmer and temperature, and the shadow cooler, but then you can play with the color within those rules, or do you calculate the color very accurately and manipulated to be

more pushed.

Um, it's just not clear please let me know.

No, that makes sense is something I struggled with the entire movie.

Anywhere I could I kind of like brought in like a little bit of that realism, but like in like there is rules set up for each world so like in India.

The light was yellow. The shadows were blue in everything.

I did this piece before that rule came into place.

But, yeah, it's basically most of the rules go out the window like there are some things like the light coming in

is a little bit more neutral than these like deeper shadows, so you get like a kind of a natural feel of the light, like a cooler cooler shadow cast shadow here.

So there's there's like subtleties that I would try to do with like the realism.

But then when we get into like

the stuff down here it's like we would just put color, like,

it's like all these AC units would just be purple just for just for the heck of it, you know,

color for the purpose of design or not based in reality, it's just like just to show like a shelf full of stuff, you know, rather than thinking about like oh light and shadow cash show all that.

So yeah, it was a difficult thing to kind of like wrap your head around, especially the lighting keys is like super difficult.

There's so many tips on how to start freelance work I've only ever had experience working full time.

Starting freelance, don't I did the opposite, I were, I got freelance work by posting tons of stuff online and kind of like building on my presence that way.

That led me to a full time job. So going the opposite way.

I'm full time to freelance.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I think my recommendation would be to do a bunch of personal work the exact kind of work. The most fun kind of stuff that you like to do, and post that online.

And then the freelance work will will come in. I feel like because you, you're showing that you can do that.

And then, then you will get that, that kind of work.

And since you're already connected in your studio like talk to other employees maybe they've worked other places, you can, you can get some contacts that way you could reach out to some, some places.

Disney requires four days a week and how streamers and Sony will let you work remote. Interesting.

The nine situation was at Marvel for four years and been 100% remote since COVID.

It's positive, but yeah.

I plan to do workshop again in Japan. I'm so sad that I missed it and thank you for asking previous question.

Yeah, your ego. I, yeah, your ego does that I think she wants to do it every year.

She'll probably bring a different artist with her next year. But um, yeah, she said I could, I could tag along and, you know, so hopefully, hopefully that works out because I would love to go back that was an amazing trip.

Yeah, really inspiring that.

Are you working closely with a director over the development of an image from sketch to final paint, or do you get close to final before showing the director to get feedback.

Um, yeah, it's like, I'm not directors and like holding my hand. Like I don't have to like check in with him every like twice a day or anything like that it's like launches me on something.

Sometimes they'll ask to see sketches.

Sometimes it would be like just just paint some stuff and then I just show him like the final paintings, you know.

So it really depends.

Yeah, like bugs.

As a topic, but are you going, yes, yes.

I'm going to start with one of these repeating.

When you reply to the message it pops it back down in the stream.

Okay.

Thank you.

I read that a lot of hours left spider reefs, because of working conditions. Oh yeah. So do you have any thoughts on how that is affecting the future of industry, especially with writers.

Yeah, I've been a little bit like removed from like the in house like working conditions and stuff the past few years.

But that article that that was posted where, like 100 people left spider verse because they were overworked or whatever, as to like redo things.

Um, I think that was more on the animation side, which is done in Canada, and I don't think Canada has the same rules that America does, because in America, you, you can't work more than 40 hours a week.

You have to take a lunch break you have to.

And then if you work any more than 40 hours the studio has to pay you time and a half.

And then if you work on the weekends it's like double pay or like Sundays double pay I forgot exactly it is, but it's something like that so you get you get paid for overtime.

And my experience working in house on the first movie.

I would say it's the best Sony treated their, their artists, the best out of any studio I've worked at.

Like if they saw me working like during lunch, or like, like, like past dinner or something like a production person would come over and like asked me what I want for dinner and they would buy me, they would like order me food free.

At the end of the week they would always come by and ask, it'd be like hey do you work any overtime this week, and be like yeah I did two hours on Monday to be like okay cool, and then you get paid for that.

And they would always ask like they would ask the team there be like hey there's some extra work. If anyone wants to work on the weekend.

You know, let us know if you want to make some extra money.

So, like, it was like there was a lot of stuff to do but they always paid you for it they're always like really really great about that.

So,

yeah, I think that might be.

That might be the animation side where things got crazy.

And part of that is every animator I've talked to people who've worked on spiders and everything they're like, yeah, it's part of the job you.

You work like crazy for like five months you work like at our weeks and then, and then after that you get all your you get paid a lot for that and then, then you take your vacation.

And then after that so it's, and then, because like animations at the end of the pipeline. So everything gets smushed into that.

Yeah, that's not the kind of job for everyone. So, yeah.

What do you do when you artist block.

I get artists block.

Every once in a while.

So yeah, I've got kind of like a list of things I'll do.

One thing is, take a break, go outside go for a walk sometimes you need a vacation, away from your computer screen so you take like a, like a weekend off

get out do something completely different.

Do sketch outside paint outside.

Another thing I'll do is I'll just do like a bunch of photo studies.

That'll kind of like get things going again.

Get me like doing like some low stress paintings, you know, something that's where I'm just like copying something.

It's a good way to

kind of like get push yourself through that funk, I guess.

Another thing you could do is spend some time learning something related to your focus and art, but slightly different. So,

maybe start drawing a little bit more. Take a take a drawing class, or just go outside and like sketch, or learn a little bit of 3D stuff, or learn like some character design, you know something that's related but like slightly different that can improve

your paintings.

So that's, those are kind of the things that I do and I'm artists block or feeling like I'm not progressing.

How tight are deadlines.

Again, it depends.

Yeah, it's a tough question to answer. How tight are deadlines. Yeah, it totally depends like I've rarely been in a spot where I'm like,

like I'm like, and not paint this in time. You know, I think I've only the past like few years I've only like pulled like a couple all nighters, and that was probably because my fault like I was trying to do too much or something.

But generally like they launch you on a painting. You've got, you've got a couple days to do it.

You feel that you have achieved some or all of your art goals.

I said, like in the beginning of my, in my early 20s I set some goals for myself I was like I want to get into animation.

And I would like to art direct.

You know, at some point, I kind of like had goals like that.

So yeah, I accomplished all those goals.

And then,

and now I kind of have.

Yeah, I've got different goals like I want to make this short, that I'm doing.

I want to continue my studio, making like cool fun stuff.

And overarching goals, just to always be growing as a painter and be the best painter that I can.

So it's kind of like, it's kind of just keep doing what I'm doing.

I don't get what I should do next for my portfolio. Try painting environment story, including props.

Yeah, I can't do that right now but you could always post on Discord and I could take a look.

I read that a lot of artists left, did that one.

What's your day to day work schedule and how do you try to limit yourself to stay focused?

My work schedule.

Get up at 4, 4.30.

I have a good chunk of time before 9am where I can get up, make my coffee, start painting without any distractions, get a lot of work done, and then, and then 9am like that's when I might have a meeting for a project or something.

I've got like good notes for this that's kind of like when the workday starts, you know, and there's all these distractions.

So it's hard to get work done from then on.

What time you go to bed if you get up at 4.30.

9.30 to 10. I go to bed.

So yeah I make sure I get enough sleep, because you know you want to be healthy.

Like,

you need enough sleep, especially if you if you work out if you're getting exercise your body needs to recover.

After my work day I go directly to the gym, and that's like I look, I look forward to going to the gym because you know you're just like standing or sitting all day so you go and you can just like get sweaty get, you know, go intense at the gym, and come

home shower, eat some dinner watch, watch an episode of something. Read, pet the cats, go for a walk at night.

You know something like that. They're just like chill, and then, and then go to go to bed.

So my.

Yeah, my week is pretty busy I'm pretty like I'm like I pushed myself pretty hard during the week.

And then weekend I might do like a half day or like a day of work.

And then, but I make sure I get like a full day of just like, you know, getting outside going for a bike ride doing something totally different to refresh for the next week.

And I think as I go, I want to start to end my day earlier so like maybe I start ending my day at like 3pm.

And then I've had more time for some other things like plein air painting or, you know, just, just other things.

I have people don't like.

Yeah.

I have a question. What is the thing in your life that represented a breakthrough in your learning art, like something that completely changed your vision about art.

Thank you thank you for your class, very inspiring. Cool.

Now your English is perfect.

A breakthrough.

When I learned

about a breakthrough in value, understanding value with Nathan Foxes pictorial composition class.

I remember that just like, I felt like my eyes got like switched on for the first time, because I always loved like color and and everything.

And I always wanted to understand like why colors were good. And then just understanding how to group light and shadow.

That gave me.

Yeah, that was just like, oh, I design very graphic light and shadow shapes, and then it almost doesn't matter what colors I'm putting.

You know it has that, that feeling that feeling of real life.

Would you ever consider doing a gum road or demo where you take something from sketch black and white to final concept painting,

talking over your thoughts and process to the whole thing.

Yeah, the only, the only issue with that is like all my demos like in my classes it's like a, like a portion, it's, it's like a 30 minute, kind of like demo where I go from black and white to color.

Because I don't, the difficult thing with that is like doing like a fully finished like this death piece it's like, what am I going to do record like two days of process and like I guess I could do that and then like speed it up.

I don't know.

Yeah, because it's like I'm not doing anything differently than I, and like the 30 minute sketches just.

I'm just still like painting.

But I do know what you mean I'm thinking about it and I'm going to work on it.

Yes, please record.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll see.

You do. Yeah, I do. I do traditional stuff I like sketching outside and and stuff I want to do more.

What was the process like starting your own studio Did you already have in mind exactly what you want to do with it.

Basically what happened I was at DreamWorks.

And he was like, we became good friends were working closely together because he was like building all of my stuff and do do a painting and then he would build it and he'd like animate a camera through it and it was like, like incredible stuff.

And he was like, Zach I get all these projects from like these other studios doing like short films and like, like CG work and all this was like you want to quit and start a studio.

I was like, heck yeah, let's do it.

Um, so we did that, and

yeah, our first first couple shorts we have a lot of stuff that hasn't been released yet.

But our first couple we kind of tried to do all on our own. But now we we hire like a production team to like we take the project we do the vis dev.

We do the storyboards and all that and then we give the project to a production team to like build everything and like finish it up.

Um, and yeah, which isn't, which is pretty good because I get to like just be an artist and like kind of like check in on how things are looking here in there.

Do your cats ever make you pet them or play with them in the middle of work. Mine must be petted no matter what she meows bumps my head until I get up. Aww cute.

Yeah, my, my cats are very well behaved, they usually just come over and sit by my feet and I give them some head scratches scratches, or if I'm like walking around like making lunch or something, they'll like follow me around.

They want some attention. So, yeah, it's good. Take some break and take some breaks throughout the day.

Taking Nathan Fox design lane color color theory stuff with unity and variety really stuck a chord with me. Yeah, yeah, that was a class I had to take a couple times, because I took it too early.

Um, in my art journey. I didn't understand it. And then I took it again like later on I was like, Oh, okay.

It's pretty easy like say the atmosphere down here is

green or something.

Pale green.

So you just layer in that that green as things get further away from camera.

Things will get cooler as they get.

I shouldn't say that because sunset sunset when the sun is lowering the sky, things get warmer as they go back. So you have to, in this case, things are getting cooler as they go back and then they get warmer as they come, come forward.

So you have to think about that relationship.

Crunching the values as they go back there's less contrast and values as things go back into space.

Look at

your pain.

I would study his, his paintings, because you can just feel the atmosphere like the sky color affecting the shadows.

You know just study study these

really pay attention to the color temperatures like, but it's this is the same rock as this one but as it goes back into space, it's taking on much more of that sky color as it comes forward, we get more of the local colors.

I have some sketches to get to the final piece, and how is your procedure. Thanks a lot.

Um, well, I think you saw my sketches some of those other pieces.

This is my sketch, you know, so I'm just working it up this way.

Um, that answers your question.

What is the latest painting tip that you've learned.

Good question. Let me think.

What am I doing lately.

I don't know.

I think I've been like a little bit more experimental with some of my work.

Like, so I'll do, I'll do like weird, weird stuff.

image,

like unrelated sometimes.

Maybe I'll like.

If you take this you put it in like that.

So left similar you select like something like the color of it or something.

And you kind of like, there's some stuff in, and then we get all these different kind of like shapes in here that maybe we wouldn't have come up with.

So I don't know I've been trying to be like more experimental with my stuff trying to push myself, you know that end goal of mine just how do I become the greatest painter that I possibly can so yeah I'm just like trying all this new stuff and seeing what,

what can come of it.

Like how I'm making my shapes how I'm designing things.

I've got no legal issues yet. I'm lucky that my business partner he.

He doesn't want to be a 3d artist anymore he wants to be the producer the business person, he's got all the business ideas so he handles all of that.

I handle all the art stuff.

So it's a good.

It's a good mix.

Good question you mentioned Nathan Fox material composition. It's awesome. Do you ever work thinking purely and value composition and then just fill in the composition with content that suits the comp rather than this is a person.

This is a character, etc.

Yeah, that's, that's a great point, actually like if you think purely like abstract kind of like with with this idea like you could like create some like abstract thing and then like create something out of it.

It's definitely a way to do it.

Yeah, it's kind of like when I'm, when I'm painting something, even when I'm painting something like really specific.

I cannot trick my brain into thinking about just like light and shadows kind of like what I mentioned like painting a portrait, you want to paint it upside down, so you're not focused on like rendering the eye.

You know you want to think about how the light hits the eye, how the light hits this form.

Like, you don't think of it as an eye you think about the material quality of the, of the form of the shape and how light is hitting it and how shadows, hitting it.

If you can switch your brain into that kind of thinking, that's how you become a great painter.

Cheers for that. I just wanted to mention quickly that the reason I asked is because I'm not sure if you've read the book Framed Ink.

Yes.

I was just wondering because it's like, I know you've mentioned that previous in your class but I was just wondering if you ever incorporate that stuff into your paintings because it kind of blew my mind when he was breaking down all those compositions into like

super simple blocks, but then just filling them with the subject matter that he needed, kind of thing.

Yeah, I guess I haven't thought about it's been a while since I read that book I should definitely go back to it but I'll do something like this, where I break it down into the most simplest form.

And then I fill it with the information.

Okay, so you're just making sure that no matter what like your, your value composition isn't broken like that's the golden rule kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.

Is there a render pass or a poster is filter that great.

Poster is so this was like the blender. And then I just like poster is that.

Cool.

Yeah, he's poster is a lot.

It helps to kind of like simplify things.

Is the good old whack.

Of course, I love the.

My original was probably like over 12 years old. Like, maybe, yeah 12 year old welcome.

I hope it never breaks because it's perfect I don't want anything, anything different.

My, my, my very first tablet was like the bamboo, like the little, little tiny bamboo welcome.

And I, I gave that to my brother to use and I don't think he's able to download like the software for it anymore or something so that one is no good, but that one was great too.

So if someone ever breaks I'm just going to get like the cheapest like bamboo one, I think, because, you know, smaller simpler tools, the better, I feel like.

Thank you.

It's cool way of experimenting.

I think we're getting to the bottom of the question that a lot of questions, but that was great.

See what else is here.

Okay.

Let's see what file it looks like.

So this is this is me trying to figure, figure this place out, you know, looking at all these references, you can see how these things would take a long time because doing all this research figuring out like the scale and how all this can work out.

So this is me.

This part here.

The perspective isn't like crazy or anything in this but since I was designing, like the whole this whole location like the inside the exterior like the buildings outside is just helpful to build it in 3d.

That's my background.

About my foreground put it in my drop in some crazy colors.

You can see how like most of this piece comes together with like the line art, I guess.

This is so pretty one of my favorite pieces.

And then I would do like this offset stuff.

And then I spent some time drawing.

And like, did you have variations on this or

the colors, like, compared to each other I guess like it's very subtle I think.

Yeah, the palette was kind of decided for me. This was when we decided on this blue and yellow color scheme for the whole India.

So I knew that my shadows were blue highlights for yellow and then I would just put in some variations in there so like oh shift some a little bit more green, some a little bit more purple.

And then in the yellows I would have like, like, line greens, orange some pinks.

And Dean, Dean was the one who did like some loose color keys and stuff.

So, I was like looking at what he was doing and I was basically just trying to keep this in line with that.

Thanks. Yeah.

I also have a question.

Yeah.

For your line art, what is your process, do you kind of just base it, how you would approach line art from drawing from life, or do you like thinking simple values.

What process you use.

And then when I'm doing, doing the lines. Let me see.

This was my research for for this building back here.

So for for the line work I was looking at these India comics.

So I was trying to replicate this kind of quality.

So I was like, okay.

These loose lines that aren't filling in the characters perfectly. Then you've got like areas where they're just like inking it in, and then you've got areas of like hash hash marks, kind of show shadows.

So I did my version of that I was like okay less important, like shadow areas I'm just going to fill in, then it have areas of like hash marking.

And then I'm going to do like black characters, simple lines.

I remember like painting this, and they were like, Oh, like, pull the lines away from the characters more. And so I was always like, kind of doing.

And luckily this is kind of similar to how I like draw like if I'm like sketching outside or something it's very kind of like loose and like it's kind of like how I paint, so it wasn't too far of a step for me.

And that's why they just kept me on India stuff for a while because, like my messy kind of painterly style fit with this.

I know you mentioned earlier you also said that you like aren't much of a drawer, but I mean like looking at your work I'm kind of like, dude, you draw super well. So like, where do you find the balance, I guess, and like not spending too much or too much time

in focusing on the lines, but also trying to capture that.

Yes, I definitely, this is my file just like full of research.

Let's see I did like research.

Like phone calls or something that were cool.

These were like the paint overs they gave me, so they were like I'll make some taller buildings back here.

Have some of this yellow come into here.

At a phone pole thing.

So those are the kind of like notes and painters I did like, Patrick was, it was great he'd always like in the meetings he'd always just like bring them up and Photoshop and like put his notes over him.

So, question for seem like that with a city. How much do you base it on like an actual block and like an actual city or you just like, let's just go for anything because like you know when you're representing New York.

You want it to look like New York, and then if someone looked at Manhattan they'd be like, oh, that doesn't look like Manhattan, but at the same time it kind of does so like some, some locations they wanted to be like kind of similar like pretty similar to the

actual location if it's like kind of iconic for the movie or whatever.

But then other ones like this is just like a generic kind of like square in the city.

So I would look at India.

These like market squares, and I would just kind of like take my favorite elements from all of them and like put them together into one.

And then a lot of times, I don't know, I don't know if copyright is the right word but like you can't use an exact building, all the time so you have to change it like a certain like percentage.

So I'll find one building that's cool.

That's like my main reference and then I'll find a couple of other references that I can kind of combine. So I might use like the doorway of one building, the roof of a different building windows of a different one.

So we don't get in trouble.

Cool, cool. Thank you, man. Yeah.

I didn't really answer your question about the lines.

But, um, yeah, like looking at this it might look kind of like effortless and like loose and quick, but it really took a lot of time.

Like I would, I don't know, I would paint. I would draw lines in this wall, and then I would like zoom out and be like, it's not looking good so I would like lasso selection lasso areas and just like delete them and like redraw it.

I would paint some of them like flat and then like work them into space.

So yeah, there's a lot of a lot of trial and error.

Someone raised their hand, Josh. Yeah, I just wanted to ask, in this in this piece like like the colors are like insane.

Like did you use like a lot of like did you just paint all this manually or did you like go in randomly and then kind of use the Photoshop tools to get to that or

background.

Yeah, I think sometimes

I don't remember exactly what I did but I would do.

Let me, let me quickly go through this let me see if I have Dean's

I want to see if I have Dean's like color key thing that I was like basing these on.

You go through a lot of iterations before you

are not necessarily.

Yeah, for this stuff is a lot of iterations. So, to get these colors I like I said I knew the role was yellow light blue shadows, so to get like those color variations I might do something like this where I can, it gives me some few different colors that I can

play with.

So I would create a palette like that.

And then that gave me some like color variations and then from there I would be like, okay, this one's feeling kind of purple maybe I'll like push that purple.

And I would do, yeah, I would do all this with just like the square brush and I'm just like layering in like some of this texture.

Where's that texture.

You can see, yeah, I would just do that.

That's an interesting way of making palettes and I've thought that.

Yeah.

Let's see.

So like if you're painting something in atmosphere, you lay down that brush and that will give you some nice like colors to play with in the atmosphere or it will give you variations on that color that you want.

Yeah, exactly.

I don't always do that but like in this case I would, I would do that.

Yeah, because you can't. It's not like you can think about like realistic, I guess like that atmosphere perspective is fairly realistic like if you have like yellow things are being affected by those layers of like yellow atmosphere.

But you just get all these like weird like funky colors.

So this kind of process I guess work, work for that, just like letting Photoshop just like give me some, some colors that could play with.

Yes, cool man thanks. Yeah.

Do you use posterize to better understand the shapes in your reference.

Yeah, I'm always like posterizing things like my references.

Many deaths of star that are similar vibe. Oh, cool.

How long do you spend on 3d model like this, do you find it takes a lot of time out of your process to be able to do use 3d.

I try to spend as little time 3d as possible.

Like I said, I'm a painter, not a 3d artists 3d is just like a sketching tool for me.

If this saves me time and gives me a cool camera angle.

It saves me having to like plot out my perspective and figure all that out this just gives it to me and gives me like many options then it's, it's worth it.

Yeah, it's hard to give like a time because like I would build like a little piece of this I'd spend like an hour in 3d. And then I would paint design and then like the next day I'd get some feedback and then they'd be like oh make it like five stories

tall and then, and then I would spend like an hour in 3d playing with it and then I get back to painting, you know, so it's just, that's the best I can answer that.

These other questions. Yeah, after these questions will kind of will kind of wrap up.

How much time last the shot in the movie.

Like five seconds, or is it being used many times throughout the sequence. Honestly I need to watch the movie again because like

it, I feel like the whole thing happened so fast.

Like I would spend like a month designing like the interior exterior all this stuff and then like in the movie I saw it for like, like a second, I was like, like I need to like pause this and like see what they made.

So yeah, I want, I want to watch it again on my own TV and where I can like pause, so I can like see like what they actually did, because, yes movie was just like crazy intensity like all the time, like tons of color everything.

So it's like, like I really wanted to like, kind of like slow it down and take it in at times.

I don't know the work you did it fits more on a key frame or an environment design.

So these paintings they wanted it to answer all the questions, so they were like, do this painting.

It's a story moment painting, and it's the final environment design, and it's the final colors of the movie.

This is the exact frame of the movie.

So they could take this, give it to the lighting department, the modeling department, texture and department, they could use this one painting and then they would just build everything from there,

which is not always the case sometimes you do you paint something, and it's, you know, more for the design of something and then you do color keys like later on. And of course we did color keys for like the specific shots but they could take this and like

pretty much build this one to one.

Question your opinion for portfolio stuff are things that you really need for concept art business portfolios to be included.

I've heard other others say like

characters need to see you think, and should be visible in your work. Do you elaborate on that question is unclear. I think I understand what you say they want to see like a bit of your process, I think it's a good idea to have like one page in your portfolio

where you show like,

here's, here's some sketches, here's like a color, but here's some black and white sketches here's like a color sketch and then here's like the final painting and then here like some prop designs where you can really see

like how you created that image, I think that's, that's important. You don't need to overdo that stuff.

It's just like one page of that is great.

Sorry to elaborate a little bit on that. What I remember was more of that they want to know how you think like how you think creatively and come up with a concept.

And in a way, so I think it's more like your creative thinking process which is maybe a little bit different than just the solution part.

Yeah, I don't know how you'd show that maybe you show it through a series of paintings like you. I mean everyone explores something differently like for me like I get a portion of the script and then I start painting some of those moments, playing with like

the size of like the shapes the scale.

The colors. So,

yeah, I think that's it. I think everyone has a little different process what you said I think that makes sense. Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

Posterize that's just right down here the circle, the half moon cookie thing. You go down to posterize, and then you can you can do like your different layers of posterization.

It passed too fast we definitely need way more of these movies.

Yeah, I think that was like my biggest critique of the movie it was just so much all the time, so much color so much like craziness.

But that's a lot of animated movies now like people have shorter attention spans.

Like I was like my eyes glued to the movie the whole time like I did not get bored. So, yeah.

I wonder if this is true. I've heard that there's different variations in each cinema about the spider first. Do you know anything about this. Yeah, I heard that I didn't.

I didn't know. That's crazy.

I go to the movie theater for like the retirement home. The slow down like less crazy version.

Everything everywhere all at once. Yeah.

Short attention spans I'm waiting for TikTok, the movie.

Yeah, that's what I call new animated movies just TikTok movies, because it's just like a little clip of something next funny thing happens next action, next thing.

Oh, no.

Yeah, I've been hearing about that.

I'd love to watch that. Maybe it's a rumor to get people to go see it even more.

We see it in different locations.

Small minor changes in dialogue, not much difference.

And spider version, spider versions. Okay, cool. So just different dialogue.

Netflix today.

Cool.

I prefer slower paced movies but this movie was amazing still, it did have more slower paced scenes. Yeah, there was a couple really great slow scenes.

I miss like the Miyazaki kind of kind of movies where there's like a slow part, like in the middle.

It's kind of, it's kind of nice.

But sometimes I do fall asleep. So

I did NSC, it was incredible.

Nimona, cool. I noticed a few people saw it in different cinemas but the opening 15 minutes was like super quiet.

It was strange as I saw it happening for multiple people.

How do you choose to build your perspective in painting, or in 3D?

I would always rather do it in painting in 2D.

Something like a complex city like this with like a lot of architecture.

I think I'd rather do it in 3D.

Just because it's so easy to have multiple, find like different camera angles and, you know, you get different perspectives like very easily without having to like draw everything.

I don't think I've ever fallen asleep on a movie only if it's late at night.

It was interesting, Glenn's world with the emotions in quarter color that would shift to different moods.

Yeah, that was that was pretty, pretty crazy.

I have to jump off. Yep, we're, we're ending.

Thank you so much for your time. Yeah.

Cool, thank you guys so much.

I know you mentioned you spend a few weeks on projects like this. Do you balance multiple projects at once.

Yeah, I'm always balancing a few projects at once. Right now, I just finished two projects, this week, so I was like oh I can do this like workshop now, that's cool.

I finished two projects, this week so now

I'm on only two projects now. So, yeah, that's, that's good.

Yeah, like, I like to like to stay busy.

Yeah, thank you.

One project might take up more of your time.

Like how do you get on both or do.

Yeah, it's, it's difficult sometimes I'll be like okay mornings I'm going to spend on on this Netflix movie and then afternoons I'm going to spend on this other movie so I kind of like portion my days.

So I can, like, so I can like switch my brain from one to the next.

Some people, some people can't do that sometimes I can't do that too well, like, like it was difficult. I was working on like a really like loose painterly movie.

And then, and then I would have to switch to this like spider verse stuff, where is like very like hard edge and like line tool and all that.

So that was very difficult.

Yeah.

Um,

well yeah keep in touch on the discord.

I will.

We're finishing up the six week painting class.

Next week.

And then I have no more classes scheduled but I will, I will think about like my schedule for the rest of the summer and I'll do. I don't know what's next because that one or two but

yeah I'll do another feedback version of those. And,

yeah, and thank you guys so much for coming. Thanks for all the great questions.

Sorry about the issue in the beginning but you can you can go back and and watch that.

Oh yeah, I do want to do like a, like an intense like design class at some point but I'll, I'll figure that out.

Yeah, this recording it'll go up later today I'll let you all know on discord so you can rewatch or whatever.

Awesome. Thank you guys.

Thank you. It was always very informative.

Always amazing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let me, let me grab a cat quick.

Thank you. Bye.

Is it cat sharing time. Yeah, I found a cat.

Oh, that's big.

Yeah, I think she's like Russian or something, Russian, or else cat.

Yeah. Is this my baby.

Oh, just like that. That's so cute.

So pretty.

Wait, I gotta get going to.

Kingsley. Oh my gosh.

We should do a do like a meetup where we just like show our speed up. Yeah.

Yes.

That is a beautiful white dog.

So little fox.

It's a palm, I'm Iranian. Yeah.

Looks incredibly cute but bites.

I want to get a palm, because I would babysit or dogs that my friends palm and is like the sweetest dog ever.

Yeah, it is. And I think I like the, like the, like talking about like a PC but like the portability factor is really good like you can take him like anywhere to travel, just like put in a small bag and you can like fly in the cabin so it's very good.

That's great. Very practical.

Zach, where can we find the information for Discord.

Which, which class did you buy.

I got the, I guess probably we're all different but I got the two day color workshop.

Okay, yeah, if it's not in the, the, the content in gum road just send me an email or a message or something somewhere, and I'll give you the link. Cool, thanks. Yeah, so if anyone has any like issue with with any links or anything just message me and I'll send it to you.

Yeah, should be in the join info stuff on on government, but if it's hard to find a room.

I'll take another look. Yeah.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Bye, bye!