Games of Experience
The ultimate resource on:
Video game development
Name: Rahul Philip
Job Title: Concept Artist and Illustrator
Company: Self employed
Location: Irvine, California, USA
Portfolio: http://www.rahulphilip.com
Looking for: I am currently freelancing and looking for a full time position as a concept artist/illustrator/matte painter.
Rahul Philip shows GOE two of his favourite pieces, and spoils us with one he is currently working on.
Tell us about how this piece of work came into being. What is it based on, what inspired you to make it?
I was really inspired by the ominous Chinese statues called “Shishi lions” and I wanted to experiment with scale, by using an enlarged image of the Statue and made other elements, like holy men/worshippers and trees way smaller. I wanted the statue to really dominate the image, and hence I used an overhead lighting over it, with some indirect lighting. I wanted it to seem as if the worshippers have to offer sacrifices to appease a wrathful God. I also used waterfalls and canyon paths to lead the viewer’s eye/confine the focus to the statue.
Which tools / tactics did you use to make this particular piece?
I used Photoshop and a graphics tablet for this piece. I started first by creating a simple thumbnail sketch to lay out my plan for the painting. I experimented with scale, shot angle, to give a dramatic feel to the image. Then I painted the sketch, finalized the lighting and created base layers. Finally, I superimposed the statue and some images of rocks and mountains over the layers, using soft-light blend mode and then I worked on some parts of the image that I didn’t have matte images for, and finished the piece.
Do you have any visualizations of the process? Like photo’s the artwork was based on, previous versions / screenshots that can show us how you went from nothing to something?
I have the rough sketch layout and image references:
Rough sketch layout thumbnail:
Image references used:
Color palette:
Tell us why it is one of your favourite pieces of work. And, did it do something special, like get you a particular job you wanted or end up in a game you admire?
Its one of my favorite pieces since I find it visually very appealing, I like the mysical feel of the image and most importantly, I’ve never had this much fun while painting a scene from scratch.
Tell us about how this piece of work came into being. What is it based on, what inspired you to make it?
This piece was one of the first of my concept art works. I wanted to create huge towers and to give a feeling of looking at them from below, watching them fill the skies. I took a fantasy theme since I love painting massive castles. It is somewhat inspired from Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia series, specially the character in the foreground. I started off with some thumbnails, and finally chose one with two huge castles on mountains, filling each side of the screen, with a river flowing in the middle. I chose a sunset to give a dramatic effect to the scene.
Which tools / tactics did you use to make this particular piece?
I used Photoshop for creating the thumbnails first, and once I knew what I wanted to do, I created quick perspective lines to make sure I created the castles going in the right direction. Then I started looking at different references of architecture, for castles and palaces, started coming up with some. This was one of my first personal concept art projects, so I didn’t focus a lot on research and did not decide on a specific architecture to use at this one, just filled in the details as they came to my mind.
Tell us why it is one of your favourite pieces of work. And, did it do something special, like get you a particular job you wanted or end up in a game you admire?
This is one of my favourite pieces of work, since it was one of my first environment concept art illustrations and I’ve had the most fun and also learnt a lot about environment lighting while doing this project.
Tell us about how this piece of work came into being. What is it based on, what inspired you to make it?This painting isinspired by the vast cityscapes in cities like Morocco, with some elements from various architectural styles. The flying creatures were inspired by various animals like bats, alligators, owls, as I wanted to create something different than basic dragons.
Which tools / tactics did you use to make this particular piece?
There weren’t much special tactics used in making this artwork other than my usual process, starting with the thumbnail, and adding details gradually, after experimenting with different shapes and keeping the ones that work for me. I am using Photoshop and a graphics tablet.
Do you have any visualizations of the process? Like photo’s the artwork was based on, previous versions / screenshots that can show us how you went from nothing to something?
Yes, I do have painting stages for this one:
Explain what it is you’re working on. What idea did you start from, what will it eventually be?
I started off with a basic cityscape with some flying creatures and some characters that I would later refine into soldiers and archer. I basically want to show a city under attack by flying creatures and soldiers and archers trying to take them down.
Why are you making it?
This painting is just a personal project and basically a study of composition and landscape painting.
Founder of Game Thingie (gamethingie.com), she currently works as a game journalist to learn about the industry and get into game development after attaining her MscBA.