Clearing up some misunderstandings…
Posted in Art & Design, Boston & Local, Gaming, Music, Personal, Reviews, Sketchbook, Uncategorized, Updates on April 2nd, 2009 by Matt LaskowskiTags: art, attention, blog, clarification, exposure, focus, help, illustration, matthew m. laskowski, photography, plastic shards
I’m thrilled that Plastic Shards and my work has recently become popular among blogs and design/illustration sites, I’m grateful for the exposure!
However, with all of this new exposure comes a bit of the “telephone effect.” Basically, as some blogs pick up my work and publish it in a post, some facts can get skewed here and there. Most notably is some confusion about what I do, and the focus of my work.
I’d like to take the time to clarify that I do photography as a hobby. In the case of some blogs, they write that I “often use photography” in my work, when in fact I’ve only used it in two pictures within my gallery. [The "Series I" images.] All of my work is actually created from a more classic approach — that is, I start with a quick thumbnail of the scene, I bring the thumbnail to a rough sketch, the rouch sketch to a cleaned up sketch, then the cleaned up sketch to a final polished drawing. I have some supporting imagery to show the processes in a couple of my images.
[Click the image below to see a larger version.]
I also have a video recording of one of my one-hour speed paintings, start to finish, compressed into about 10 minutes. You can see how I work directly!
So I like to use photography as a method to improve my visual memory, composition, and value, however photography is actually RARELY present within my work :) This would make me a Matte Painter if I did use photography — but the truth is that I’m not a matte painter. I like to be a conceptual designer and illustrator. I like to sketch and draw things from my head, quickly, and then embellish the sketches after the initial speed sketch. [Much like the video above.] Of course if anyone has any questions, feel free to drop me a comment here!
Just wanted to clear that up, and hope you found those examples interesting!
Thanks again!
Hey dude, just wanted to say that I really love your work! and you’ve got great taste in videogames :D.
Hey, great job. I was curious what options did you use to toggle the colors in photoshop during the video at 3:03mins around? Hue/Sat?
Thanks
Always a good feeling when i find a cool new blog, great stuff mate….love seeing work in progress and processes, is that sketch-up you’re using for the geometry? whatever it is, great results, especially the girl getting off train, love it, sweet lighting and the glimpse of the city is enticing and spot on. Oh, and always good to hear of another mirrors edge fan, i loved that game :)
So, did the people at Mirror’s Edge find inspiration from your work or the other way around?
You definitely have some really cool stuff, but some parts in your images are identical to Mirror’s Edge, if you did find inspiration from it you should at least mention it in your post.
What an interesting blog! I had fun looking at your previous entries… now I really want PSCS4 T_T
Have added you to my google reader – looking forward to more posts!
I really like your work. In the two image processes above, what are you using to get the original clean lineart? On the left side you jump from structure lines to a clean shaded image.
In reply to Jonas:
I’ve written a lengthy explanation to your claim in another blog post, here: [link]
In reply to Ross:
Actually those lines are just brush strokes in Photoshop. That was the base composition/perspective thumbnail. Sorry the process suddenly jumps to a partially completed picture, I actually lost the process images that took place inbetween the thumbnail and that step. So that was the best i could do hahah.
Amazing work! Do you have any tips for drawing characters? I have the proportions of the body right, but all of the faces I make are very bland and generic. Im just starting to get serious about drawing, but the faces are the one thing that bugs me the most. Does it just take time?