What does an artist specializing in digital painting need?

Creativity & Hobbies

Become a professional CG artist

I have loved the world of CG since childhood, and recently drawing has become my life.

I am already 24 years old, I have a higher education in non-art and several years of working as an office hamster behind me. At one point, I decided that this life didn’t suit me and I needed to change something. I gathered all my will into a fist and entered college to become an animator. Now a year has passed. While training was going on, I began to study what professions there are in the world of artists. I realized that the profession of an animator does not really attract me, just like the cartoons themselves. I prefer to draw and look at static pictures. I prefer sci-fi, military, I like it too cartoon style in the drawing.

I want to develop, educate myself and gain skills. I would like to come up with concepts and different objects for games.

Goal Accomplishment Criteria

Draw in such a way that you won’t be ashamed of your drawings. Receive orders for drawings.

Personal resources

Two years left, a great desire, a personal computer, video tutorials, books, an initial level of drawing and the support of my husband.

Goal ecological compatibility

I want to make a living by drawing because it's the only thing that really brings me pleasure. In addition, I want to see how the gaming industry is developing in the country, I want to see this process from the inside.

Anatomy

Study of human anatomy in theory and practice.

Make 300 sketches: figure, head, hands, feet.

And 100 sketches each: a person in clothes and shoes, complex poses.
2. difficult poses
Composition and perspective

Study of theory and practice. Reading books on composition and perspective. Doing exercises.
Drawing in tone and color.
Exploring the styles of different artists
Development of imagination, inventing your own.

Duration: 8 lessons, 2-3 hours each

Cost: 3900 rub.

An extensive course in computer drawing, from which you will learn the principles of digital drawing and gain the necessary skills to create 2D graphics and implement ideas for computer games. During the training, you will draw your own original character, game space, objects, etc.

For whom:
The course will be useful for aspiring CG artists, graphic designers and traditional artists who are looking to expand their skills and explore new possibilities in drawing. In other words, this course will be useful to artists in any field of digital drawing.

Peculiarities:
Similar courses in drawing studios in Moscow and St. Petersburg cost 20-30 thousand rubles. plus train tickets, accommodation and meals. Not everyone can afford such a pleasure, plus you need to carve out a few days for the trip.

With our course, you will receive the same amount of knowledge, but at a minimal price and in a schedule convenient for you.

Advantages:
- the lowest price;
- video recordings of all lessons;
- step-by-step system training;
- Feedback from the teacher;
- analysis of homework;
- individual approach;
- assistance with portfolio organization.

The video course is designed for 2 months, one lesson per week + homework, a total of 8 step-by-step lessons for 2-3 hours and 7 homework. For each homework you will receive a detailed video analysis from the teacher.

You can study lessons and complete assignments at a time convenient for you.

To complete the course you will need a computer, internet, graphics tablet and graphics editor Photoshop.

For a main group of 10 people - 3900 rubles (cost in an additional group - 8000 rubles). Self-study 2900 rub.

Result / will know, be able to

You will master basic digital drawing skills, the principles of creating 2D computer graphics, and learn how to bring ideas to life in a high-quality manner. Such a wealth of knowledge will give you big advantage in developing the skills of a CG artist. Will also appear in your portfolio quality work, which will certainly help you in future employment.

Program

Includes:

1. PREPARATION. Theory, pre-production, setting up Photoshop, tablet, brushes, creating a palette and much more.
2. CONCEPT. We look for references, draw sketches.
3. CHARACTER. Let's look at the entire character creation process.
4. SUBJECT. We will develop an inventory for your character.
5. BUILDING. Let's look at the principles of construction, shadows, volume and more.
6. LOCATION. We create a playing space - trees, stones, various textures.
7. INTERFACE. We'll draw icons and buttons, work with fonts, touch on usability and much more.
8. CONCLUSION. Let's sum up the results and prepare the work for the portfolio.

Write about irrelevant information.

Let me say right away that this article is not for beginners.

Despite the fact that now best time to make money even in our visual effects industry, many internet members continue to complain about low salaries.

And we’re not even talking about beginner students, but rather strong specialists.

And so, I’ll start with the facts: the average salary in the offices of most IT companies in the millionaire cities of the CIS = $1300-$2000. This also applies to our CG industry (post-production, game development, animation).

Hired employees with at least 2 years of experience with an average workload and responsibility can count on it. Employees with higher responsibility, for example, supervisors, leads, generalists, can receive from 2k to 3.5k $/month. The highest salary for a CG specialist that I have heard and can confirm is $4,000 (Kyiv).

But the problem is that quite a lot of excellent specialists do not earn as much as they would like. A few reasons why this is so that I have noticed over my 12 year career:

1. Low social activity

Or in other words – lack of networking. To put it even simpler, they should know you. And preferably influential market participants.

It's no secret that the best vacancies in good companies they get through acquaintances. Please note that there is little work on thematic sites where the salary exceeds $3,000/month. They are simply not advertised. The fact is that in the social circles of smart specialists there are always 2-3 of the same or even better specialists (such as professional friendship). First of all, most directors turn to their employees - find me someone like you. And often they find it.

2. Rare job changes

“There is still no better company anywhere. Stress. Difficult." These are all typical excuses, because of which we spend half our lives in the place where we ended up by chance after college.

More than once in articles we have mentioned that in domestic cgi companies practically absent career, no matter what they tell you during interviews. Yes, there are a few exceptions, but still, the growth of your salary within one company will rarely exceed 15-20% in dollar equivalent (usually it does not change at all for 5-7 years).

The easiest way is to resell yourself, like good specialist(if you are one), to other companies for higher salaries and positions. So without much difficulty you can get an increase in salary from 25 to 50%.

I recommend on early stages career change jobs once a year, year and a half. At a more mature stage - once every 2-3 years. Moreover, you yourself will understand this and reach such a schedule if continuous development is important for you, just as it is for me.

3. No skill to sell yourself

Go ahead. Tell me, how many times in your life have you been to interviews over the last 2-3 years? It's good if more than twice. And this must be done. Post your resume on all job search sites and wait for people to call/write to you. Next, answer calls and tell your new boss what a great specialist you are and why you should be paid above the market. And look for vacancies yourself. On the Internet, with friends. And go to interviews! Learn, in general, how to sell yourself.

5. Stagnation with prof. growth. Lack of ongoing continuing education

Think back to your last job change. How many tutorials did you watch a month before and when you switched to new company? How many questions were asked to new employees? How many new techniques and tricks have you learned? This all happens 2-3 months before and during the first year of being in a new company. So what is next…

A rare change of place of work often leads to the fact that a person stops developing. To be more precise, it begins to degrade. After the second or third year of being in the company, the employee slowly begins to become covered with the “film of God,” primarily in his own eyes.

It’s clear that your professional growth and development as a person stops. And professional growth is one of your basic values. If you put everything else aside, you get paid a lot of money just for what you do. good professional= know how to quickly solve company problems and issues.

4. No need for money

Everything is simple here. Most of us earn exactly what we need to successfully stay awake in our comfort zone. Everything else is whining and “It would be nice to buy a yacht next week, but my bad boss won’t raise my salary.”

How to treat? Just expand your needs, the level of the norm. Fly to the seaside in the Dominican Republic, visit car dealerships for new cars. If you do this regularly, you will need money.

6. It's not yours

In order for everything above to work, so that you would like to grow as a pro in the field of CG and VFX, make sure that you have a passion for it. Nowadays on the Internet you can find many beginning game makers and buzzers. They were inspired by some project and, with sparkling eyes, are supposedly ready to play around day and night. But this fuse goes away after a week or two. For some, in a month or half a year.

Creating visual effects and 3D graphics is actually not a simple, tedious, routine task. These are not the easiest customers to “understand and forgive.” Therefore, make sure that the visual effects industry is what you really have a passion for. Only under this condition will it be easier for you to grow and develop, increase your level of skill every year, learn new tools and techniques and, as a result, increase your income every year by at least one and a half times.

Write your thoughts on this matter in the comments!

C.G. or CG Painting is nothing more than digital drawing or abbreviation for Computer Graphic. This direction includes all pictures drawn on a computer or, as it is also called, Digital.

What CG artists draw in depends on what exactly they are drawing. Roughly divided, there is raster, vector and 3D. The vector can still be animated later.

Raster is, first of all, Adobe Photoshop , in which you can draw in raster, partly in vector, create flash animations, work in the technique of photo art and collages.
Is there some more Corel Painter with a huge amount different brushes, imitating real painting. Some paint in less popular PhotoImpact, GIMP, SAI, Artweaver, Open Canvas, Art Rage, MyPaint, Krita. And of course in Paint, in which, by the way, it is convenient to draw pixel graphics, they say.

Vector is drawn mainly in Corel Draw And Adobe Illustrator . Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but both are the largest and most famous vector editors.

3D players also have a choice. 3D Max, Maya, ZBrush, Cinema4D– editors for 3D modeling. To fully create this type computer graphics Requires a VERY powerful computer.

How is digital painting better than traditional painting?

Very high speed and big choice materials. Choice desired color- a matter of seconds (unlike traditional painting, where you need to mix or buy additional paints to get the desired color - it requires experience and time), choosing the right brush/tool is also an almost instantaneous operation. You can do work with imitation oils, pastels, watercolors, or all at once, which is difficult in real world.
The ability to cancel your actions, as well as the ability to save at any point in your work and return to it later, and an even larger list of features and advantages - all this makes the artist’s work several times faster with the same quality.
Computer work is immediately ready for use in digital technologies of cinema, games, layout - work done on the material with paints must first be transferred to digital form and there are also a lot of problems here, plus an additional stage of work.
Unlike traditional painting, digital painting has cool and convenient tools and capabilities: for example, working with layers or applying textures from photographs to the areas of the painting you need; generation of noise of a given type; various brush effects; HDR pictures; various filters and corrections, and much more.

However, there is a big problem related to color rendering - difficulties in displaying art on material media. Most monitors work in the RGB color model with the sRGB color space, the color boundaries of which are not the same as those of a typical CMYK printer, which has its own color gamut limitations. As a result, some colors visible on the monitor are not printed on paper, and at the same time, the full potential of the printer in terms of coverage is not used. To solve this problem, professional monitors are used with the ARGB color space (Adobe RGB), specially designed to accommodate almost all the colors available for the printer, and color profiles are used to best match the images on the monitor and the print medium. However, 100% coincidence cannot be achieved, because Even the worst sRGB space is wider in some color areas than many CMYK spaces.

The problem of education still remains outside the brackets - few schools and courses, a lot of personal time and money. But I think few areas can boast of instant and easy development. In general, now I know what CG is with some additional details and I’m not afraid of this term. It seems to me that, despite the “warm and luminous” aura of traditional painting, the possibilities of CG are still just developing and in the future this direction will only get better.

Computer (CG) an artist who creates his works exclusively on a computer is a well-rounded person, because creating digital images requires a lot of technical knowledge. This distinguishes him from ordinary painters, who do not need unnecessary tools other than canvas, brushes and paints.

1. It is believed that for any artist it is necessary to have talent. However, everything famous graphics and painters say that success consists of just one percent of talent, the remaining 99% consists of diligence and work. So, taking one percent as the initial value, you can understand that it takes a lot of effort for an artist to be able to create, overcoming all the difficulties that arise, laziness and many other distractions.

Only constant training provides an opportunity to realize your talent.

2. A computer artist, like any other painter, must have the basics of academic drawing and painting. He must have a steady hand, a well-developed sense of composition and eye, as well as correct color perception. Only through diligent training does it become possible to achieve professional mastery in drawing.

3. For competent execution of digital images, in addition to the classical fundamentals of drawing and painting, additional knowledge is required, such as foreign language and mastery of special graphics programs. Without these skills and abilities, drawing will not bring pleasure, but will only become "heavy load".

4. Naturally, to create computer graphics, especially for three-dimensional and animated images, you will need a fairly powerful computer.

5. A prerequisite is to have a perfectly calibrated monitor with excellent color reproduction and high resolution.

6. To realize your creative potential A CG artist will need additional equipment such as a computer mouse, graphics tablets, a scanner and a digital camera.

When working in vector programs, it is enough optical mouse.

For more accurate and complex drawings will be needed tablet, or it is also called . Graphic tablets have the same formats as paper - from A6 to A3. For professional computer graphics, the largest format is used.

To work with the digitizer, you need a special pen, shaped like a regular pen. This cursor is also called a stylus. A graphics tablet allows you to create a drawing as close as possible to the image drawn on plain paper; a masterfully executed work can be impossible to distinguish from a man-made creation.

The principle of operation using a digitizer is the same as on a simple sheet of paper, however, “ ” in this case serves as a graphics device, and the drawing being created appears in the file and is displayed on the monitor.

The digitizer itself is often more valuable to an artist than the computer itself.

Auxiliary input devices are scanner And camera. It is often easier and more appropriate to draw a sketch on paper, then transfer it to electronic format. To create the necessary photographs from nature (references), an indispensable assistant comes to the rescue - a camera.

There are already more advanced and expensive devices, such as, on which the creation of an image is carried out on the screen, and the pen has ink. For professional digital painting, such a device is much more convenient than a regular tablet.

7. Also, a computer artist sometimes needs Printer. To print large formats you will need plotter. These devices are quite expensive and large in size. Only a few artists can afford them to work at home.

8. An important condition is excellent command of graphic programs, without which you cannot do without digital painting. There are many graphic editors, each of which has its own features and advantages.

Any program has its purpose.

Adobe Photoshop is the most common editor, it allows you to create both raster and vector images. This program allows you to work in photo art techniques and create animated images.

Photoshop provides a wide range of different effects. Besides everything, this graphic editor has a lot of convenient ways saving and editing files. The capabilities of the program are so great that there are very few people who have studied all of them.

Corel Painter also applies to no less popular programs among CG artists. This graphic editor has more than four hundred varieties of brushes. Corel is designed primarily for creating vector images, so a huge variety of effects and functions are not required.

Adobe Illustrator– similar in purpose and functions to Corel Draw vector program.

3D Max, Maya, ZBrush– editors for 3D modeling, which require a powerful, at least 4-core, computer to work with. There are many more graphic editors, each of which has its own purpose.

Licensed programs cost a lot, but for computer artists to professional work It is still recommended to purchase this version to avoid troubles with inspection authorities. Companies producing these graphic programs are increasingly paying attention to copyright compliance.

Alternatives available free programs, the most common of which is GIMP. A CG artist most often prefers one favorite editor, but the use of other programs is often necessary.

9. For an artist specializing in digital painting, having the necessary skills, equipment, tools and proficiency graphic editors will allow you to create fruitfully. But he's like anyone creative person, needs the approval of contemplatives. Moreover, the more recognition, the better for the development of his creative potential.