Hi all!
Hope everyone is having a great summer!There's a new video up on my YouTube channel going through my thought process when it comes to sketching ideas for illustration projects. I've also upgraded the production values and finally have proper sound! Check it out below if you are interested :)
-Juhani
Hi all!
This time on my Youtube channel I'm sharing a look inside my new 3d hard surface concepting workflow. I found this amazing add-on that makes hard surface design in Blender fast, fun and flexible. Check out the video in the link below! Hopefully you find it helpful and if you do make sure to like the video and subscribe to my channel for more content like this!
How I Design a Spaceship - Hard Surface Concept Art Process
Have a great week!
Juhani
Hi folks!
Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe!
Just a quick post to let you know I recently started a YouTube channel where I post project breakdowns, tutorials and other stuff I'm interested in. The latest video is about a recent illustration and I'm trying out this format where I break down my process behind different personal pieces in roughly 10-15 minutes. Let me know if you like this format and I'll make more of them! Sometimes it's hard to find the time to go through multi-hour tutorials and I feel these quick videos could be helpful for some people. You can check out my channel in the link below
Have a great weekend!
Juhani
Best Brushes
There's this tendency among more experienced artists online to scoff at beginners asking them about the tools they use and tell them that they should not care about tools but focus on the art instead. This is of course true.. to an extent- no single tool makes anyone a great artist but they do help! Would you like to change a car tire using only a spoon? Me neither, so below I'm listing some of the best brush resources I've found during my career. I've never been big on creating brushes myself but I'm really picky about the ones I use so if you need some new tools in your arsenal the packs below are worth checking out.
I swear I have never met a concept artist who doesn't use at least some of Jaime's legendary set of juicy brushes. If you download just one set, make it this one.
Jama is the friendly neighborhood concept artist who is constantly blowing people's minds left and right with new techniques and tutorials. In addition to his insights I also find his traditional media brushes to be really useful, especially for sketching.
Shaddy's set is an oldie but a goodie full of useful brushes. It's also a more minimalist set in numbers so might be useful if you tend to get overwhelmed with hundreds of brushes in your collection.
Antoine Colligonon Mixerbrush presets
I can't figure out the voodoo behind Photoshop's mixerbrush to save my life so that's where Antoine's set comes in. This one is a paid set but totally worth it to me for providing good presets whenever I need to use the mixerbrush. These tend to be particularly useful when you need to make 3d look more painterly.
Greg's traditional media brushes are some of the best I've found- especially when it comes to mimicking oilpaints in Photoshop. Make sure to check his paid sets as well if you are into the oilpainting-look.
You should be good to go with the great sets listed above but if you want to try the curated collection of brushes I use every day in my work you can download the set here. Most of these brushes I've found in different sets over the years but kept coming back to- So eventually I decided to organize them for easy use.
I'm sure I have missed a ton of awesome brush sets but these should be enough to get you going!
Have a great week!
Juhani
Hi all!
I'm starting this semi-regular series of blogposts to highlight valuable resources that I come across while working. Our industry is evolving so fast in terms of tools and resources but it's sometimes hard to keep up and find all the good stuff. Hopefully you can discover something helpful in these posts.
I've been using Octane for Blender for a while now and it's beyond awesome. However recently OTOY released Octane 2020 update for Blender and it's definitely worth upgrading to. It comes with some solid performance upgrades, new dirt shader, layered materials, new daylight model and much more. Best of all it's completely free if you are using just one GPU.
If you are like me and are tired of scrolling through the slowest websites on the planet to find screencaps of different films for reference, oh boy is this service for you. It's basically just a gallery of hundreds of thousands of well curated shots from different films that are categorized really well. This has quickly become an invaluable asset when hunting for the right reference to help me with my work. It's currently in closed beta but you can request access to a free BETA account.
Often while working I listen to different podcasts or audiobooks but there are those times that I really need to hunker down and concentrate- that's when I fire up BrainFM. I find it great to have this resource of ambient music that really helps me lock in to my work and concentrate for hours without having to change tracks or listen to annoying youtube adds. It has a free trial so I recommend you try it out and see if it works for you.
I've been finding myself using Mixamo more and more often these days. It's extremely convenient when I need to quickly rig a character that I've mocked up in 3D. They also have library of good motion captured animations that save quite a bit of time posing characters. If you need posed characters in your work definitely make sure to give mixamo a try.
Poliigon is a great material library for all artists who need PBR materials for their work. So far I think they have the most variety and the best selection of materials of all the different services. For a reasonable fee you get access to the whole library of materials and you can choose between specular and metalness workflows as well as the resolution you need.
Hope you have great start to your summer!
Juhani
Here's an announcement from my Facebook and Instagram that I thought I'd post here as well.
Big news alert! As many of you already know, In about 2 weeks I'll be moving to Quebec City, Canada, and starting work at Ubisoft Quebec!
For years I've had the idea in the back of my mind that if the right opportunity presented itself I would be thrilled to work abroad for a bit, and last year it finally did. It's been a lot of work to get to this point ( turns out, moving halfway across the world is pretty complicated ) and now as the final pieces are coming together, I thought it was high time to make the announcement.
If you are not familiar with Ubisoft Quebec, they are the folks responsible for Assassin's Creed Odyssey among other great titles. I'll be joining their concept design team and will spend the next few years helping them on whatever they do next. Needless to say that I'm extremely excited to work with and learn from such stellar talent.
However, as excited as I am about this opportunity it's difficult to leave Ubisoft Redlynx, a studio that I've been so happy at for the past 6 years. It's been a rollercoaster ride of new experiences and I'm super grateful for all the great friends I've made and for the studio for believing in me and giving me opportunities to grow both as an artist and as a person. Special thanks goes to Julius for pushing me a bit on taking the leap and helping along the way :)
I'm looking forward to working with all of my Redlynx colleagues again sometime in the future!
All that said, I doubt any of this would have happened without the constant support and love of my wonderful girlfriend Vilma, who always believed in me and supported me while I worked long hours trying to improve my skillset and portfolio. For that I will always be grateful for. Luckily she will be joining me in Canada for an extended period of time in the not too distant future :)
Long story short, I'm going to miss Finland, my family, my friends and Helsinki for sure but I'll be back eventually and will visit as often as I can :)Until then, au revoir!
Hi guys!
As the year is drawing to a close ( and while I'm waiting for my render queue to finish ) I wanted to share the 5 best non-fiction books I read this year that I think are useful, interesting or both for creative people- or just about anyone.
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
I think the best way to describe this book is that it dispels the myth of ''talent'' when it comes to people that manage to find success in business, sports or art. Instead it describes a compelling hypothesis that what really drives success is not “genius” but a unique combination of passion and long-term perseverance. If like me you've ever had to argue with people about the concept of ''talent'' and need some new ammo- you should read this book.
SPARK: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
This book had probably the biggest impact on my personal life out of these five. I've always liked exercise in it's different forms but thought that aerobic exercise is mostly good for your body, heart, lungs etc. Using latest scientific research this book opened my eyes to the fact that instead it's our brains and minds that benefit the most from exercise. This book really helped me take my running regimen to the next level and I think it is worth a read for anyone.
Sapiens: The Brief History of Human Kind
I've always had a huge interest in history and consume tons of literature about history each year. That said, I think this one was the best non-fiction history book I've read in many years. Like the title describes this book spans the entire history of human kind starting at the dawn of our species and ends looking forward where we might be going. Compellingly written and endlessly fascinating it's easy to recommend this one for anyone.
Timely especially now at the start of the new year when many of us are trying to kick bad habits and start new good ones this book is an invaluable tool. Based on an impressive mass of research this book is an entertaining and fascinating look at how habits are formed and how to change them. If you've ever struggled to kick a bad habit this is a worthy read.
The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea, at the Right Time
Out of all these probably the most geared towards creative people this book addresses a lot of the same topics as the first book on this list but from a different angle. Throwing out the myth of the lone creative genius that creates masterpieces out of thin air by harnessing divine inspiration, this book shows that that simply isn't true. Recent research has shown that there is a predictable science behind achieving commercial success in any creative endeavor and as such I think this is worth a read for any creative person.
I recently upgraded to Artstation Pro and figured I'd start blogging a bit more often on here and try to come up with topics that I think would add value to you. I'll cover topics ranging from process breakdowns, my different workflows and experiments, specific tips and tricks, resources and other useful things during the next year. If you have any requests or questions that you'd like me to cover get in touch!
New Website
I had some time on my summer holiday to finally update the design and organisation of my website. There's still a bunch of stuff to do but I'm much happier with it already! Check it out here and let me know what you think!
West Studio Guest Artist Series
I recently had the honor to create an image for West Studio's Guest Artist Series. The great folks there also produced a nice timelapse video of the process which you can view here. This was the first time I tried to record my whole process and found it pretty rewarding so I might do this again in the future.
