I am a self learnt concept artist and I have a great passion  for videogames, art and movies. I wish to contribute my  best to the most visually appealing videogames and movies  of the day. I love to work on both traditional and digital  media, and I love exploring different techniques and  studying art on my own.

Interview

GOE: Tell us how you came to be a concept artist and illustrator. How did it all start, and how did you get to where you are now?

I’ve never attended art school, but I have always been an avid fan of videogames, science fiction and fantasy movies, which provided me an inspiration to become a concept artist, and I soon realized that it was the best job in the world and I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. Before getting into concept art, I was a portrait artist in traditional media, but then I became hugely inspired by concept art for various games (Prince of Persia, Half life, Assassin’s Creed, God of War, Crysis, Uncharted) and movies (The Matrix, Star Wars and many more), and I changed my direction to concept art and began developing my skills to work from imagination and strengthening my concepts on perspective, colors, anatomy. I began to develop a huge set of personal works in my portfolio that would help me improve my skills and help me get into the concept art industry. Then I started looking for freelancing works, and began contributing my artwork to games.

GOE: Where do you want to be in five years? And what is your ultimate aspiration?

In five years, I wish to be a concept artist in one of the best video game studios out there, and my ultimate aim is to become an art director, and I also wish to come up with ideas to make my own games one day.

GOE: What are your areas of expertise? What are you best at?

My areas of expertise are environment art and portraits. I personally think that I am best at panoramic views of environments.

GOE: What is your personal touch / talent? What is your particular style? What is it that makes you such a good artist?

I paint with a realistic rendering style, with most focus on lighting and expression. I am obsessed with details, which gives me a lot of patience to work on fine details. I love to use dramatic lighting and my art is inspired by vast landscapes.

GOE: What kind of art do you enjoy making the most?

I enjoy creating sci-fi cityscapes the most. I also enjoy painting dramatic scenes, especially vast battle scenes.I also enjoy painting portraits.

GOE: Why do you want to work in the video games industry?

I have always had a great passion for videogames, right from the good old Nintendo games to the latest games on the market.

GOE: Where do you currently work? If not at a company, where do you make your art? (at home?) <If possible, send a picture of your workplace> How do you keep yourself motivated / inspired while working?

I am currently working as a freelance concept artist and I work from my home. I keep myself motivated by watching a lot of science fiction movies, Japanese anime and keeping in touch with developer diaries of the latest games, which inspire me a lot in my artworks and keep me motivated toward my work. I usually keep a movie running on a part of the screen while working to keep my mind active and creative.

GOE: What are some of the problems you run in to at times? Or your least favourite thing about being an artist?

When working digitally, a very rare problem that I face sometime is when I lose work due to a system crash where files get corrupted and can’t be recovered. Hence, I save a lot of intermediate files to be able to revert back to older versions.

GOE: And what do you absolutely love about it, and what is your favourite thing to do while creating a new piece of art?

I absolutely love working from imagination and I love the entire process of brainstorming ideas, getting inspired, combining different images from memory and coming up with something new and unique.

GOE: What is your workflow style, do you generally work on one thing at a time or sometimes find yourself mass-producing?

Usually I prefer working on a single painting at a time, but it can become tiring and your mind can become quite stagnant, and you’re not able to think creatively after some point in time. Also, you begin to ignore errors that seem to hide when you keep on working on something for a very long time. So it helps to work on more than one illustration at a time, keeping the mind fresh and makes the whole process less tedious and less error-prone.

One of Philip's creations. Keep a look-out for his Artist Showcase to see some more of his work, and find out how he creates them.

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