Working on Mesmerizing Concept Art Pieces

Vaik Nay gave a brief talk on concept art and working on the huge forgotten civilization scenes that remind of The Last Guardian.

Introduction

My name is Vaik Nay, I am a Swiss Concept Artist looking for a job in the game/film industry. I graduated with a major in Fine-Arts and started taking my drawing skills seriously ever since. I haven’t been in any concept-art school but I learned a lot from some of my favorite artists in the industry such as Maciej Kuciara, Eytan Zana, John Sweeney, Anthony Eftekhari, and Shaddy Safadi through online platforms such as Learns Squared, Gumroad, and Artstation to name a few.

Inspiration

Team Ico and The Last Guardian are definitely a big inspiration but I think an important share of inspiration equally comes from real-life architecture such as the Kailasa Temple in India, Byzantine and Ancient Greek/Roman architecture. I had to dive deep into the understanding of the design aspects of these architectural styles and try to grasp how something so massive, complex and imposing is even possible to build.

I love everything related to the temples or forgotten civilization. It makes me wonder and dream about what those civilizations could be in my alternative fantasy world filled with mysteries and adventures.

Scale

I usually drop a couple of human models throughout my 3D scene to have a constant reminder of the scale I’m working in. From there, I try to keep the details and the areas of rest nicely distributed throughout the scene not to overcharge the scene with details.

Workflow

I usually like to start my scene in Blender to define the big shapes and the main focus of the painting. Once the main elements and the camera are placed, I then take the scene piece by piece into 3D Coat to give them further detail and just overall erosion and imperfections.

Cameras & Composition

Camera placement and composition are something I take very seriously and have been paying a lot of attention to, lately. Studying movies by some of the best cinematographers in the world helps a lot of course, but just having fun with your camera and your scene is also something I love wasting my time on. It is not unusual for me to have about 20 cameras all around the scene each with their specific settings or even arrangement of models. I am constantly trying to find a better camera placement, focal length, arrangement of elements and lighting that would help illustrate the best composition for the story I want to tell. I try to screenshot each one of them so that I could compare them on my second monitor. Every time I think I have a good one I save it, then try another shot until I run out of possibilities.

2D & 3D

Lately, I try to spend more time in 3D before moving into 2D, because drastic light changes in 2D take up a lot of time and paint-over compared to a couple of seconds spent to move a light around in 3D. That’s why I try to plan as much ahead as possible in 3D before moving into 2D for time, quality and sanity sake.

3D for a Concept Artist

For a concept artist 3D is a no-brainer. I mean you get free perspective, a never-ending amount of possibilities of trying things out with shape, light and camera placement without having to repaint anything. I guess it used to be an optional skill to have in the industry as a professional but nowadays it is definitely a MUST.

Vaik Nay, Concept Artist

Interview conducted by Kirill Tokarev

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