CONFERENCE AND FEATURED IN TERITORI STUDIO!

Finally, finally, finally! It's not Square Enix or Blizzard, but at least getting featured in an independent studio from my hometown delivers a certain tumult of joy! It's a pretty bold statement Teritori Studio is making. Setting up such a tertiary-natured company in a community where the people hasn't gone past the bare standard of living? What shot us in the head back then I wonder. Don't get me wrong. Being part of the movement really gets me enraptured. It is the benevolence of my mentor, Mr. Henryca Citra that makes all these possible with the contacts he gathered while working for years in Japan. Still, I was scared at the same time, setting out on a journey with real clients hailing unstoppably from all over the world.

 I went to an AIESEC conference in Adelaide a few days ago. If there is one thing I rediscovered during my 6 days of stay there, is that of courage. I remembered talking to a very interesting girl who changed her major from industrial design to business for the reason of financial security. During a particular drinking circle, I could recall how wearily my comrades, flushed out their emotion to vent away their apathy towards life. Countless times I found myself in awkward encounters, talking to new people above my ranks, with way more passion and zest than me trying to change lives with their eloquence. I saw people succeed, fail, try again, and from the wisest conference clown ever I learnt my lesson:

"Courage is not the absence of fear. It is knowing that fear exist, but still moved on to conquer that fear"

That is indeed true. Many times I felt inadequate being just a member and a designer of such a huge organization. Speeches were made, with hopes of uplifting "small but integral" pieces as part of the team. I don't know about other people but it always comes to no avail in my case. I saw so many lives being changed since day 1. Yet, I was still pessimistic that the vision of "fulfillment of humankind potential" is merely a gimmick. I almost fell to the trap of thinking that designers are just people who "makes things pretty". Being associated as a designer can potentially mean that I'll be judged only by my profession, and not as a person.

But that's exactly the fault. I was too afraid of judgment. If only I could've reached out more and see how people are actually inspired by my resilience to stay in the world of art. If only I have shared more of my stories and not be a wuss sitting at the corner and sipping a late night cup noodle. If only I can convince one more person to believe in what they are truly capable of, to challenge the status quo and have a vision. If only I could see the person and not the position, I'll have more and more stories to blabber about and introversion definitely isn't an excuse.

In any case, what's done is done and there's no use crying over spilt milk. I guess the post conference withdrawal syndrome is over now but as an artist, designer, and an AIESECer , I'd like to challenge myself to have the courage to stay by my stand and do whatever is necessary to move a step closer towards the dream.  That means having a vision and purpose instead of just being a draftsman. That means having the discipline to stay honest and undaunted besides the fear of uncertainty. That means working hard and smart for the projects I am involved in whether it's for profit, volunteer, or social purposes.

Man, that's a huge chunk of lame, cheesy, but necessary rant.

On a side note, teritori studio's portfolio can be seen here at: http://teritoristudio.com/

Laters folks!

LOGO DESIGN AND ECONOMICAL RAMBLINGS

Designing a logo might be one of the simplest but hardest task to do for a designer. It has to capture the client's needs, target audience, feel of the company etc. but most importantly, a good logo has to be recognizably different even at the slightest glance. It's like when you look at Nike's swoosh and "BAM!" it's the essence of Nike captured there, flavorful and full of finesse. 

I receive orders for logo design quite frequently from my friends, family members and sometimes I get lucky with companies. Most of the time they are all unpaid voluntary work, but when a real order comes, it's always hard to set up a price that will satisfy the client's need, especially when they are referred by close acquaintances. Being a novice designer myself, however, I tend to overlook the fact that I am underpaid or even not getting paid at all when doing these works. Why? I see it as a long term investment. I can testify that my work deserves to be pitched at a higher price and I am very open about this. Still, I feel that the good connection with client and an affordable price will keep orders coming in the future, which I believe outweighs the benefit of enjoying a few extra bucks now. (hopefully, *hint hint*) 

Having said that, it will be great to educate people about the economy behind design and artworks. I personally do not have an influence big enough to start giving lectures about why people should pay designers more. One of the things I have always trying to wander upon though, is there absolutely no fixed formula to correlate the visual stimulation produced to the deserved price of the design itself ? Is it legitimate to measure brain activity, popularity amidst the crowd, artist's fame or the time spent to determine the appropriate fee? I tried to look for an answer, but such attempt to put logic into the abstract harbors a fruitless result. Can we quantify that experience, that fame then? By using facebook likes? By winning real life competitions and converting them into virtual points that allows a designer to so-called "level up"? Would that diminish the value of art? What if we can do it, and designs can actually contribute some form of concrete economical impact instead of just "looking nice". I don't know, but I hope to find the answer within this lifetime.

Anyway, I shall stop being all philosophical and douche-y. Planned to post this compilation of logo and suddenly turned into an endless rambling *apologetic bow*. And well, just as a weird tips to fellow novice beginner, the more constraint you are set for a design, the easier it is to come up with ideas. That's why when dealing with clients, ask as many questions about how they want it to look like and do some prototype designs for them. If possible, ask them to fill in a free survey monkey form.  I generally do 2-3 alternatives so that the client will be able to choose and you don't have to redo it later on. It also shows that you are serious and professional about the order, which means you are subjected to even better connection in the future. That's it for now, ja ne and keep the artistic spirit alive!

TUTORIAL 2: INSPIRATION - FROM CHAOS TO ORDER

People often ask me about where to get inspiration from. I don't want to go all Zen but ideas, inspiration, and stuff like that can really be found everywhere! I could be in the most picturesque place in the world and still couldn't give birth to a masterpiece if I am not in the right mind, time, and visual trance. Likewise, you could be walking back from a part time work at 2 am in the morning through your university alone and suddenly that "DING!" finds you in the most common place ever - a CCA stall for orientation week. Anyways, here's the second tutorial inspired by one of Feng Zhu's design cinema episode and hopefully it helps all those out there who haven't got all the time to patiently watch his 40 mins tutorial everyday. This is the end result that we are going to achieve:

Step 1: BASE PICTURE

I do not lie to you. It IS from a CCA booth I came across when walking home at 2 am. Yeah I know right, such a waste of electricity to lit up the place. Anyway, take it with your phone, camera, or whatever, you don't need a high resolution for it. This is going to be a base picture and I chose it because I see some interesting color and perspective going on there. 

Step 2: TWEAK THE PICS AROUND. 

Flip it horizontally, change the hue and saturation, and let yourself loose. At this point I have not had a clear idea what the end result is going to be. For this painting, I simply flip it vertically and added a layer of cyan that has been changed to "screen". It is as simple as that, but the change in color affects the overall mood of the painting too, hence more visual stimulation for you to work with. 

Step 3: DAB THE PAINT

At this point, try to overcome the fear of getting stuck by rules of composition and perspective. Simply let yourself lose by dabbing paint around with your brush tool (press command + B for hotkey) while simultaneously using the eyedropper tool to keep picking color. One advantage of using a photo as the base picture instead of starting from scratch is it already acts like an instant palette. So it's easier to pick up color instead of having to choose one by one again from the color wheel. 

Step 4: TWEAK IT AGAIN

I added more details and decided to flip it horizontally again. In the world of art and entertainment design this chaotic order of work can produce what we often call a happy accident. Again, I am beginning to see stuff here and this should be about 20% done. So it should not have a very finished look at this stage but it contains the major elements that I am going to work with. 

Step 5: START BLOCKING

If you notice, I cropped the picture from step 4 to simply get the long horizontal section that becomes my main focus of attention. Try to zoom in and zoom out to figure out what can you possibly make out of the picture. It is definitely going somewhere, and the elements you add can differ with different types of people. Some might see it as a boat, a seashell, or even completely out of the world stuff! Remember that one of the task of a concept artist is to see what can't be seen by others and help them to visualize it. So in this case, I decided to make it a tree house with various Asian elements in it because Chinese New Year is approaching and I longed to be back in my hometown so badly. 

Step 6: LAYERING

Now that I have set the direction of my painting, I will have to make decision on what elements to put in. What this means is to figure out what shapes can fit in and do research about it. Ergo, if you are planning to put a tree, don't just cook it up from imagination. Try your best to source for texture and the overall look of the branches to give it a more realistic look. In my case here, I looked for coral reef pictures to give it a more surreal look. Remember to put new elements in new layers too so that you can revert back to the original, unless you are really confident in being able to salvage the piece later on. 

Step 7: DETAILS 

It is that important. The little things you put in will help to guide the viewer to see the historical context or other message the concept artist wants to get through to the audience. In my case here, I want it to be a hidden village that offers warmth and protection amidst the coldness of the forest. Don't be afraid to use textures from the internet as long as the finished look differ from the original (for example the orange rooftop there). Adding lights and particles also gives that finished look that contributes further to the depth of your painting. As the saying goes, small things go a long way. 

Step 8: FOREGROUND 

Now that al the background seems to be set, adding a foreground of a man standing on top of a tree bark simply increases the value range of your painting, meaning more depth for the human eye to perceive. Flatten down the image and add more particles using customized brush while also highlighting the bright areas using dodge tool (command + o for hotkey). Your concept is now done and ready for use!

Isn't too bad, is it? It might seem like black magic at first but once you get the hang of it, turning a very chaotic piece into order is really all about handling your brush right. All these takes about 5 hours and very minimal tools were utilized (only brush, dodge, burn, sponge, and simply changing hue and saturation of the layers.). Hopefully this helps to get your inspiration running and ciao for now!

NEW YEAR: NEW BRUSH AND NEW RESOLUTION!

Friend: "What's your New Year resolution?"

Me: "Heh. 300 dpi. "

~awkward silence~

Yup. End of the world is always interesting and awkward at the same time. Anyway, I'm back again this year with a few new artworks at hand! Recently I received orders from Asterisk Studio Japan to do a concept art painting for the level 1 and level 2 background of their new game. They were just painting of a normal cave and a crystal cave, really. Still, I was flabbergasted by the amount of details and specifications that they insist on having on both the artworks I had to render every single rock to look perfect but still has that irregular feeling of a painting to it. Phew. Too bad I cannot post it up because of obvious corporate reasons but once they give me the green light I promise I'll put it in the blog. 

As rigorous as it sounds (nah not really), those cave paintings really get my engine going I decided to do more research and watch more of Feng Zhu's tutorial. Turns out he uses a lot of fancy brushes that gives texture to the stucture to the paintings (the particles floating in the air for example). Obviously that is smart because in the industry that kind of speed is really needed. So I went to look for my own set of digital brush and it's always fun to have new tools at hand. Download them here cghub.com/scripts/view/147/and simply extract them using the unarchiver if you are using Mac or just winrar if you are using windows. Here are the samples of what you can do with that new set of brush:

A vagabond arriving into a village built on a tree top. Chinese elements because I just want to go back home for a while and celebrate Chinese New Year! ><

Highway transport in a fantasy, futuristic city. I don't expect Indonesia to have this kind of railway but at least build a proper functioning where people don't just GTA around town like headless chickens. 

Anyway, if you have spare time, do watch Feng Zhu's free video tutorial in his youtube channel or blog. It really do helps in terms of understanding value, composition and all the fundamentals that you need to produce high quality, industry level painting. As for my new year resolution, I'll try to post up more paintings every 2 weeks if I am not too busy for my part time work and other volunteer design stuff. T^T. So yeah, ciao and keep the artist in you alive!