Art Culture in Japan & Stylized Characters

Adam Esat talked about Japanese art and meetups for artists, his stylized character sculpts, coloring, posing, presentation, and more.

Introduction

Firstly I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Adam Esat, and I’m a Character Artist who has been working in the games industry for 8 years, and recently, the animation industry.

Way into Industry

I was very much into art from a very young age, like most other artists, but that path meandered for most of my childhood. I wasn’t able to really focus until my mid-teens after having been influenced by games such as Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, and Pokémon, as well as, movies I grew up with, like Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings. I knew I wanted to get involved in games or movies as a career. However, I didn’t really know exactly what role I would do, as, at that time, I had very little information on what kind of jobs were available.

During my later years of education, I took the graphic design and media studies route, and when I attended London Met University, I took a Multimedia Technology and Applications course, which was the closest thing to a games course they had at the time. That was when I was first able to use programs such as Maya. I did animation and 3D modeling courses, and I enjoyed both, but I fell in love with 3D Modeling and decided to stick with that. The problem was, while I was receiving good grades at the university for the 3D work I was doing, the course was fairly new and didn’t really teach a lot of the up-to-date skills required for working in games. As a result, when I graduated, it was impossible for me to find a job.

University was a bit of a bubble for me at the time. I didn’t really know what was expected of junior artists upon graduation. So a year later I attended Escape Studios in London, which is very similar to The Gnomon Workshop. I did the game course, and it was there that I learned to be a 3D artist at a junior professional level, thanks to their intensive course that was taught by a veteran Games Environment Artist. The course was mostly focused on environment art, as those jobs were more widely available. After I completed the three-month course, I spent a few more months perfecting my portfolio, and after applying to a few studios, I successfully attained employment at TT Games as a Junior Character Artist. Deep down I wanted to do characters more than anything, so this ended up being an amazing way to start my career.

Moving to Japan

My career at TT Games ended up spanning over a dozen LEGO games. Unfortunately, I managed to get myself into somewhat of a comfort zone, and I remained in that situation for quite a while. After working there for 7 years, however, I desperately needed a change. A friend of mine suggested that I go to Japan, which had felt like a distant dream of mine. Then, I was reminded that I was still eligible for a working holiday visa, which allows people from certain countries between the ages of 18-30 to live and work overseas for up to a year.

Therefore, I decided to take the big step and move in November 2017. I wanted to see if I could make it as a freelancer while continuing to learn and improving my portfolio.

It has been a tough journey as I was struggling to get work, but I had enough savings. I just continued working away on my portfolio, going to game dev and art meetups, and focusing on developing relationships.

I must admit that I am incredibly lucky to still be here in Japan. I was reaching the end of my savings, so I thought I may have to do some teaching or just go home. There was one meetup that I went to which was organized by Trojan Horse was a Unicorn. It’s normally an annual week-long gathering of artists, previously hosted in Portugal. As of last year, it’s hosted in Malta. They were doing these small gatherings in various cities around the world throughout the course of the year. As a result of going to the main event over the last two years, I was able to attend one in Tokyo. I had a bit of trouble though because my Japanese was still at a very basic level, so I struggled to find people to chat to, as most of the attendees were Japanese. However, I managed to find a small group of people speaking English and joined them. After chatting, we exchanged business cards and enjoyed the rest of the event. The next day I got an email from one of the individuals I met at the gathering, who happened to be an employee at Polygon Pictures (Blame!, Knights of Sidonia – The Movie, Godzilla: The Planet Eater). I was asked if I wanted to come in for an interview, as many of the artists liked my work. Of course, I went, and after my interview, they decided to employ me, which is where I’m working now! My current goal is to make figures and have a dealers table at Wonder Festival. Being here in Japan will increase the chances of me achieving that!

I do encourage any artist out there to try and find similar gatherings or meetups and just try and meet people. There isn’t a guarantee that by going you will land a job nor should it be treated as such, but if you go with the intention of meeting other artists and developing genuine relationships with them, the chances that you might be recommended to someone becomes higher.  

Art in Japan

I’ve been exposed to so much Japanese art and other works all throughout my life, and most of my art is heavily influenced by what gets created there.

One of the primary reasons for me wanting to live and work here in Japan is how much reverence the Japanese have for art. So many of my favorite artists are Japanese so whilst I was still living in the UK, I would always get frustrated that I was never able to attend the many galleries and exhibits celebrating these artists in Japan. There are also various conventions that celebrate art. Comiket and Comitia are huge conventions for illustrators and 2D artists. Then we have the Wonder Festival, which is a bi-annual convention for figures and statues. The amount of artists out there displaying their work, plus the quality level, is staggering! This means that I am always able to have access to this constant source of inspiration.

As many people know, anime and manga are everywhere in Japan, and that broad style is what you often see. There are many instances where the art style does fall outside of the norm. Aggretsuko, Panty and Stocking, Mob Psycho 100, and Flowers of Evil are examples of mainstream anime that have found a large audience. Just having a unique visual design isn’t enough for a character to become quite popular with the audiences here. I would say that their character’s personality has to feel like a real person.

I am personally a huge fan of Yoji Shinkawa, Hirohiko Araki, and Ayami Kojima, to name a few. They’ve been enormously influential because they each have had some influences from western art, but have managed to fuse that with what is traditional in Japan. They also make very beautiful characters, and that is what ultimately attracts me the most.

Character Art: Primary Shapes Importance

For me, it’s all about nailing down the primary shapes. When I first started, and I think many artists have done this as beginners, I focused way too much on details. It’s probably the most common mistake. I’ve learned to spend the time to really focus on blocking out and getting the forms right, so I can maximize appeal.

It takes some time but for instance, after practicing sculpting heads for a while, and getting used to it, I started developing an instinct for what looks nice. I found myself really enjoying the simpler, stylised characters because it was always the major shapes that I found most enjoyable.

I always try and look at the character that I’m working on from every angle by making small refinements, making sure there are minimal or no flat areas, and polishing any round or curvy shapes.

Taking the time to make these adjustments and refining the shape really makes a huge difference.

Coloring

I’ve mainly been focusing on sculpted characters that are based on characters from animation or manga, so I usually have a good base to start off with when it comes to coloring the characters. I generally don’t veer too far from the original reference because I have a really good foundation.

I start off by color dropping from the references I use and apply them to the sculpt. The kind of adjustments I make is generally how saturated the colors are and making sure they don’t overwhelming other parts of the sculpt. By making careful changes, the overall colors of the sculpt feel more balanced.

My priority for the future is to be a bit more ambitious regarding texturing as it’s an aspect of my skill-set that I definitely feel needs a bit more improvement. This way, I’ll have the versatility to experiment more and maybe try my own styles.

Poses

The way I work on the postures is entirely dependent on what my goal is for each project. Sometimes, I will see a concept that I fall in love with, and I just want to try to recreate it sculpturally. Although, most of the time, I will try to create a pose that really captures the attitude of the character. Jolyne, from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, for instance, was a tough one to crack. The funny thing is she was originally meant to be just a bust, but part way through the project, I became inspired and wanted some sort of pose from the waist upwards. There’s a huge variety of Jojo poses to choose from, however, I wanted to come up with my own pose for her that captures her attitude of a no-nonsense badass whilst performing something that looked like a signature Jojo pose. Making her fairly muscular was a priority as well, and that needed to be evident in the final sculpt. I was very much keen on her pointing down at the camera, after all, it is the signature pose of Jotaro, her father. Her other arm was very tough to nail down, and I tried a few different poses. One was of her biting her finger in a suggestive manner, but it didn’t really sit right with me. The other was clenching her fist, which was a bit too on the nose. I felt her pointing was threatening enough and decided to make her other hand sort of angled with two fingers pointing at her face in a more flamboyant fashion.

It was honestly really tough, and I definitely hope that I achieved the goal I had in mind. Admittedly, posing is one of my current weaknesses that I’m focusing more on in future projects. It requires a lot of planning and time to get right. No matter how good a sculpt you have, a bad pose will completely ruin it.

Presentation

I mostly try and go for something simple with whatever final presentation I do as I want my sculpt to be the sole focus without any other distractions. I use Arnold for the renderer, and, more specifically, I use the render scene that is sold by Flipped Normals. It’s a very versatile renderer, and the scene is a perfect starting point for whatever sculpt you want to display as there are over a dozen render settings and lighting setups to choose from.

Also, my main focus is making sure the details are well presented, so multiple lights are ideal. I always like to have a rim light as it makes the sculpt pop, and I always like to place a small light pointing at what I want the eye to be drawn to first. This is usually the face.

It’s always a good idea to check the values and make sure there isn’t any harshness.

Honestly, I still feel like I have a lot to learn, so my advice on the subject may seem very obvious and basic, but it’s worked quite successfully for me so far.

Rendering and presentation is a skill in and of itself, and perhaps one of the most important steps when it comes to presenting your work. Much like posing, a really bad render can make even the best sculpts look awful. Thus, it’s very important to take your time, and not rush it even if it’s tempting to just get an image out there. You’ll thank yourself later.

Learning Character Art

There isn’t one correct way for learning how to be a character artist, but, you do have some core fundamentals that will be very useful in the long run. Some of the following points are what helped me get to where I am thus far.

First and foremost – study anatomy! It was by far the most valuable course of action I took. I participated in some of the courses that Scott Eaton provided and was fortunate enough to attend one of his workshops. Moreover, I would recommend his Bodies in Motion website as it has an incredible library of poses, including ones from different sports professions. Otherwise, see if you can find life drawing classes, so you can get used to seeing people and deconstructing them in your mind’s eye. Even the most stylised characters follow the basic rules of anatomy. One book I would recommend is Anatomy for Sculptors by Uldis Zarins. I refer to it all the time. Gumroad also has a host of tutorials and tools that many veteran artists provide.

Another recommendation would be to buy some clay, such as Super Sculpey, and practice blocking out forms and creating simple characters. Doing things digitally is all well and good, but spending some time practicing with physical mediums is an incredibly valuable learning experience.

Second, surround yourself with art. Put up pictures on your wall of art that inspires you. Follow artists on social media. It’s almost like a language. When you expose yourself to so much art, you develop an internal library for things that you like. Even if it doesn’t develop your skills, you’re less likely to get lost with creative ideas. Then you can start to learn a bit about art through osmosis. This, of course, applies to real life as well. Study the outdoors; look at people and their body language. Nothing really beats the real thing.

Finally, join a community forum such as Polycount or ZBrushCentral. You need to get feedback from somewhere, and these forums, in particular, are found to be very valuable. Also, social networks can also be very useful. I primarily use Twitter and have found a lot of success using it. I often get a lot of feedback when I post art there. Facebook groups are also very useful. The most prominent one being Ten Thousand Hours. Lastly, Artstation is probably the most vital website to visit and join. It is the most popular gallery where hundreds of world-class professionals post up their artwork.

The final mention I’d make is the value in making connections with other artists. Art can often be an isolating experience, but making connections, wherever you may find them, and being able to bounce ideas, give and receive feedback, and even collaborating with one another is one of the most exhilarating advantages of being in this profession.

I am always happy to help and answer any questions I may not have answered here, so please don’t hesitate in giving me a shout on Twitter @adamesat.

Thank you!

Adam Esat, Character Artist

Interview conducted by Kirill Tokarev

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