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INTRODUCTION
| Today we got some real eye-candy for you! Some time ago, Mr.Goblin joined the Hive moderation team by taking on the mantle of Art & Graphic Design moderator. Mr.Goblin, known in real life as Vincent Turcot, is an accomplished Concept artist, Illustrator & Art Director. One of his artworks was featured on Blizzard's World of Warcraft community site. Mr.Goblin has made our art section a real attraction! He started doing livestreaming events which Hive members are invited to tune into and participate in. He also participated in Hive's Concept Art Contest #9 and I encourage you to check out the entries! Some time ago I, Archian, had a chance to sit down and talk/chat to Mr.Goblin about his experience with concept artwork, and he was kind enough to give me an insight on the process of making the Starcraft Fan Art, For Auir! |
To see more of Mr.Goblins awesome work, be sure to check out the following links after reading through this article:
THE INTERVIEW
Archian: Hello Mr.Goblin, first of all I want thank you for participating in this. We are really excited about this article, and we hope that this concept art spotlight will inspire other would-be artists to pick up their pencil and ignite their creative juices to start creating unique concept art themselves.
Mr.Goblin: My pleasure! It's a great honor! But quite frankly I'd do anything for the hive and to inspire lovable artists of the hive who are aiming to become professionals in their craft.
Archian: I'm pleased to hear thatFOR THE HIVE! Anyway, your join date says May 26, 2008. Thanks for being part of our community for so long! What made you join the community in the first place?
Mr.Goblin: Really good question, I'm not really sure how I ended up on the hive and when I decided to sign up, but I'm pretty sure it turned out to be something like that = I was a passionate young hobbyist who was in love with the Warcraft universe since the first game came out. I used to reproduce Samwise's and Metzen's drawing all the time trying to draw cool orcs and humans in armours like they did.
When I learned through custom games a side of Warcraft 3 I'd never heard about = modding.
Young Mr.Goblin (I must have been 13 years old or something... Oh boy it's already been 11 years) probably thought to himself = wait, this is really neat! I could do that?! I want to give it a try! and ended up on The Hive Workshop looking for custom models and icons - probably... then history happened...I felt in love with the community and I still think it was one of the smartest move I did in my life.
Archian: So the modding community brought you into concept artwork creation?
Mr.Goblin: Indeed it has! Making textures and icons for other people's project was a great open window towards concept art! By being part of the hive community I learned so much more about video-game making and most importantly = that I could do that as a living.
By my icons and textures I soon caught the attention of a few hivers who were working on their own modding projects, on which, not all of them were made in the Warcraft 3 World Editor... The possibilities were limitless!. I remember, my first ''job'' as a concept artist (note, I must have been 17 back then and I was unpaid) was for a unreal modding project called Dilogus = winds of war. A project that never came to be... But it was a great experience for me because I drew most of the beast concepts of the project, houses concept arts and other various things like that. Some of which can still be found on Deviantart: Dilogus Beast concepts, Jawroz & Plainstrider.
Archian: It's great to be able to make a living doing the things you love. On ArtStation, it says "Concept artist, Illustrator, Art Director". Lovely titles
Mr.Goblin: Yes I do! after drawing became a passion and doing concept art a dream job, I went in fine art in ''cegep'' (in quebec it's the equivalent of your last year of college and your first year of a bachelor degree) in fine art... Then I went to university in 3D animation and digital designs at Centre Nad… and from there a teacher threw me a job application saying = here's your chance, go for it! Since 2014 I have been a concept artist, an illustrator and an art-director for Illogika, an independent studio that works in multimedia. (iLLOGIKA | Montreal-based independent game studio)
Archian: Which tools do you use when creating your artwork?
Mr.Goblin: Depends, most of the time I do sketches in my sketchbook first, I try to breakdown the composition, the overall shape and designs of subjects, I try different paths I could take for my concept-art and soon to become illustrations.
Then I jump into Photoshop. The tablet I use is a Wacom Intuos Pro small = but quite frankly the tool doesn't make the artist. So if you're an aspiring artist, any tablet is a great start!
In Photoshop, I normally do a mash-up of all my ideas and expand on them.
Archian: In your experience, what would you say was the hardest to learn when creating an illustration using Photoshop and a tablet?
Mr.Goblin: Coloring was a really hard step to take (and I'm still learning everyday). My background being more traditional = Black and white drawings made with a pencil.... yeah coloring at first was really hard. I knew how to draw shadows, volumes and highlights ''well'', but adding colour and learning bouncing lights, etc. Is still, to this day, challenging. Even today, I'm trying to bend my head around understanding light and colour properly.
Archian: What art do you most identify with?
Mr.Goblin: Hiveworkshop was one of the main reasons why I got into concept art... The lord of the rings makings of was the other.
Through the years, as an artist I've been far more drawn towards dark gloomy and gritty fantasy pieces... Nowadays (and it's been the case for a few years now) my main inspiration as an artist are = Jeff Simpsons , Arnaud Pheu, Tianhua Xu, Aaron Simpson and Sebastian Larroude. And I have to be honest, beside 3A games, movie concept art is where it's at. The challenges are different and requires specifically skilled and talented artists that are masters in anatomy and understanding lightning.
Archian: Really? I feel honored to be part of a community that has inspired you as much as it has.
Mr.Goblin: The Hive was the spark of my oil tank....HA!
Archian: What work do you most enjoying doing?
What I enjoy most about work is the daunting clean slate and the whole building up process of breaking down and researching the new drawings/projects to be... as a concept artist and an art director, the most FUN part is to build worlds with the game designer.
to find the inspiration, to do the research, to eliminate the possibilities to refine the good tracks to take etc.
Archian: Is the artistic life lonely? What do you do to counteract it?
Mr.Goblin: Truth be told, it is a really lonely path. Doesn't mean it's a bad path to take, but drawing is a really self-centered activity... And just like anything, if you want to be good at it, you have to spend thousands and thousands of hours on your craft, which you'll mostly spend alone... Now that being said, there's a few ways to ease the loneliness of being a socially inept geek.
First would be to join great artistic related forums such as the Hive. Artistic Facebook pages, or Google Hangout live streaming groups.
Also, to remind yourself to take a break from drawing from time to time, go out with your friends! Visit museums, art galleries, get lost in Comic-con! Allow yourself some quality time with your family, etc. Because at the end of the day, you're your main source of happiness.
Archian: Good point
Mr.Goblin: It's something that even today I struggle with as an artist = going out and opening up with the world, haha. Sometimes you need to shake the introvert in you to find the joys of the extroverted. Besides, and that's on a far more personal note, but reading the book Quiet: from Susan Cain, helped me a lot in subtle ways and I would suggest it to anyone who feels like a lone wolf hermit from time to time.
I would also suggest watching this interview the veteran Brad Rigney tackles the question with great humour as well
Archian: I'll be sure to check that out
Mr.Goblin: Everyone else who isn't an artist in the art industry, people take ''doing art'' for granted. You'll face tons and tons of email of people saying they are fans but don't want to give you money for something that took you years to perfect. They don't even want to pay you for the amount of hours it took you to complete that drawing. That's one type of person you'll have to deal with in the industry and it's a bummer. On a different note = working for someone who doesn't know the struggle of drawing is also a bummer, because they have the right to ask you to do something, but they have no idea the struggle and the time their request will take you... good thing drawing is a peaceful activity
For example, someone pointed out on my Thrall fan art piece that ''Thrall's hair didn't look ''wet'' enough...'' And I had to answer = you think it's easy to draw wet hair? how would you tackle it? because I spent 20 hours on his beard and locks and it's the best look I could achieve.
ya know?
Archian: I do! We once had a sticky post on how to give constructive criticism :O
Mr.Goblin: Besides, working for people who have no creativity and are asking you to do generic work for a project that could be so so soo much more. Is also a bummer. As in, for example = ''draw me a knight with a shield with horns on his helmet!''... And you give him a sweet looking Skyrim looking warrior (or something like that, note I know Skyrim is kinda generic nowadays as well) and he'll go = nono, just draw me a full plate armour knight with horns... (and then you die a little on the inside but you do it anyway). Luckily for me, I found a home where this doesn't happen anymore.
Archian: I guess there is a dark side to the otherwise colorful art industry
Mr.Goblin: Yeah and sadly it's something you only learn late in the process of working towards your goal.
Archian: What is your dream project?
Mr.Goblin: My dream project would be to work and finish my personal universe project called Device and to see it turned into an HBO TV series such as Game of Thrones
People like Myazaki, Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson and James Cameron all have a quality I deeply admire... And hopefully if I'm lucky and I put enough hard work, I might achieve it some days... Once I'm old and have a white beard like the rest of them.
Archian: Can you name three artists you’d like to be compared to?
Mr.Goblin: Erm, quite frankly... I wouldn't want anyone to compare myself with. For many reasons. A = there's only one Mr.Goblin, mouhahahah haha I had to say it XD.
Archian: Truly
Mr.Goblin: On a more serious note, I think every artists should be seen as a complex and unique individual... Even if he does hentai. To compare myself to someone who's better then me would be be disrespectful towards someone who clearly put more years and effort into his own craft. Same goes for someone who's ''technically'' as good as I, would still have more ease in certain aspects of drawing... And vice versa. so, i'm sorry but I can't properly answer this question. :S
Archian: Do you have any advice for any new potential concept artists reading this?
Mr.Goblin: Advice number one = dare to suck. It's the only way you'll ever be great at something some days. It's to dare to suck in the first place. Dare to get yourself out of the comfort zone and draw something you've never tried before. Aka dare to suck. Another advice would be = you should spend as much time learning random stuff as you spend drawing if you want to be a good concept artist. Watch movies, documentaries, listen to music, read random Wikipedia pages, watch Ted talks and read books. Be curious about everything. You can't be creative without knowledge. It's by connecting the dots in a unique way that makes things creative. But first you'll need to know these dots exists in the first place... If you get my drift.
Archian: Interesting, you make a valid point
Mr.Goblin: Draw me a horse = it's a horse, nothing creative about that. Draw me a /Charging / Horse / chicken / lizard creature = boom! Now that's creative! And if not, well the usual answer = learn the fundamentals. Learn your anatomy, how light refracts, atmosphere, textures etc.
And last one would be = act like Goku, push against your own limits everyday!
Archian: You've created many great works of art over the years, and I strongly encourage the readers to check out your previous works after reading the rest of the article. You recently had your Warcraft fan art of Thrall featured on Blizzard's community site. Congratulations on that, I guess that's kind of a huge sign of recognition from the company that made the game that inspired you to start making concept art yourself.
Mr.Goblin: First, thanks a lot, the Hive has been extremely supportive with this feature. It was just as warming as the feature by Blizzard was. And yes indeed it was a great highlight of the year and in my new career... Truth be told... It felt weird, still haven't really wrapped my head around it. The piece itself took about 2-3 months to complete. I would work on it 5 hours at a time. The piece itself took about 120 hours to complete... So once I finished it, I was ''Sooo done with it'' if you know what I mean haha!
It's a strange feeling to finally be acknowledged... It's took years of hard work and dedication to get to my level of craft (still much more years ahead to become a master like Feng Zhu or Raphael Lacoste or Dylan Cole or the Jeff simpsons of this world). So to finally be acknowledged it's kind of a bittersweet feeling as if = it's not the burst of joy you'd expect... But like a = damn... It was a bumpy road, but I'm glad I took this road... And thanks gawd It's ''over'' as in... I finally got acknowledged by a company I care for and love.
Archian: Lastly, would you be so kind to give myself and the readers an insight into the drawing proces of making the artwork titled "For Auir!"?
Mr.Goblin: Certainly!
THE DRAWING PROCESS
Click the images for larger versions.
Click the images for larger versions.
Step 1 = Get the idea! The trailer for starcraft2: Legacy of the void came out and I drooled way too much. I must have watched the trailer at least 5 times in a row. I was so blown away! Wanted to draw a protoss right away. Just get that overflow of badassness out from this video. Bamn! in 2 hours I already had my blocking, my stance, the fiercyness of the protoss... But no designs... Just a blured out sketch.
Step 2 = Get inspired = well... The idea and inspiration came from the video in this this case.
Step 3 = Experimentation = As you can see from my animated gif, the design changed a few times along the way and even more so behind the scene (sorry didn't save WIPS of the different designs change this illustration went through when I was doing them). So basically, I tried to break down the overall flow of the armor, the patterns, the structure etc. By the use of my reference, I managed to create some interesting designs that I liked and added my little touch. (Like the war paint... I'm just... I like war paint...).
Step 4 = The solution! = Technically speaking, depending on the project, sometimes you get the ideas out fairly quickly and you just render it out till you are satisfied. In this case the design took longer to break down and I just kept improving the design and pushing the rendering until I hit the sweet spot! I feel like I could technically push forward the rendering even more… and do something like my thrall fan art piece... Maybe in the future.
![A]mun](/data/avatars/m/140/140771.jpg?1674379729){kind=avatar}
