Dave2112
Level of Cherry Feather
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2001
- Messages
- 10,294
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Greetings phreaks and phellow ‘philes. Where does the time go? It has been ages since the last installment of Ten Questions With Dave, so much so that this may be the first exposure of the feature to many newcomers. Continuing my desire to let us know some of our community’s more interesting members better, the feature has returned from its long absence.
To kick things back off again, I’ve had the pleasure to sit down, so to speak, with one of our community’s up-and-coming artists. So, let’s all give a warm welcome to EcEu!
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1) Your artwork is very distinctive and easily recognizeable as your own. You bill yourself as a digital artist, yet your works appear hand-drawn. How do you create the pieces that you do? What goes into creating an EcEu image?
Before doing digital work, I had 5 years of background training in the formal styles like charcoal, graphite, oil, as well as two semesters of life drawing. My favorite style is hyper realism, when I make a cartoon, I want to make it as realistic as possible in terms of proportions, scene, and colors but I also want to keep that charm that still makes it an illustrated cartoon, and I do that by leaving in outlines and such.
Each piece goes through several processes. First, I draw a rough sketch of what the final piece will look like in my small notebook. Next I either have one of my friends pose for me for proportion sketches, or I use my lifelike mannequin and begin redrawing the sketch on the computer with my tablet. Next I take the refined sketch and put it in a vector program so I can create the clean lineart that's ready for coloring. I put the finished lineart in PainterX for the first stage of coloring, then into photoshop for the final stage of coloring then after effects like blurring and graphical elements. The entire process takes an average of 13 hours.
2) As a digital artist myself, I've had endless debates about the validity of CG as a true art form. What misconceptions about digital art would you set straight if you had the whole of the art world as an audience for a moment?
Art to me is anything that was made with creativity in mind, that conveys an emotion. There are many rendered art pieces that are incredible, some that are indistinguishable from a real photograph, what people need to understand is that even with the fastest computer out there now, to render an image in the degree of realism that some CG pieces are out there takes one or in some cases many days to render, that included with the time it takes to set up the objects in the image, adjust the lighting, build the set, we're looking at about the same time to create a rendered piece as it is to make a 2d image. People need to understand that there is a lot more to CG artwork than what they assume, it takes a lot of planning and for some, a lot of money to build a machine to create these pieces.
3) As art often imitates life, tell us a little about what parts of your own life go into your artwork. Practices? Fantasies?
Right now I currently have two characters. A statuesque dark haired beauty named Euphoria, and a bubbly british blondie named Giselle. Their physical, and behavioral traits actually come from me and my 4 closest friends who have supported me in my artwork for the past several years. As for what kind of image gets made, if I want to see an image of something, I just go ahead and make it.
4) Which artists have influenced you and specifically how? Fetish or otherwise.
Peter Paul Reubens, classical painter, he was in the most literal sense a celebrity at his time, he created paintings that were true to real life proportions and light, even if the subject matter was sometimes of the divine. Bandito is the one who influcenced me to start writing and make comics.
5) Outside of artwork, what other hobbies or interests strike your fancy? What does EcEu do in his spare time?
In my spare time I go out with my friends, work on my car, play some ps3 or warcraft with family and friends, and pretty much watch over the house. I love to learn about the human condition and health, my all time favorite subject is physics, and i'm always caught browsing sites like howstuffworks, or webmd, to learn more about the world around me.
6) Now for the weird stuff. You've inherted 5 million dollars, with the stipulation that half of it go to one charity or cause. Who gets the money?
St. Vincent de Paul(Catholic church), the other 2.5 million goes to my mother.
7) If you had the resources to keep any truly exotic animal as a pet, what is it that you'd be feeding twice a day...or however often it is that whatever you choose eats?
I would have a wolf. Ideally a Garfield, but cats don't think outloud in big thought bubbles.
8) You have to spend an entire month locked in a room alone. Assuming your basic neccesities are taken care of, which five items would you take in with you? Here's the catch. None of them may allow you to make contact with the outside world.
Well outside world would take world of warcraft out of the picture, so I'd take my PS3 and the entire Metal Gear Series, my drawing set, my painting set, and the complete Lord of the Rings blu ray box set. Combined those would take even more than a month.
9) What was the last film you saw or book you read that truly moved you? Not neccesarily your favorite per se...but moved you in some way?
"Don't Mess With the Zohan" moved me...straight out of the theater. Really though, The Matrix, it opened up doors for me to the possibilities of forms of art, that being the art of film.
10) And finally, the Obligatory Question Ten that we all look forward to. Here, I usually ask which three people you would invite to dinner...but I'm gonna throw a monkey wrench your way...one, 'cuz you're an artist, and two...'cuz I feel like it. If you could date any three comic characters from any genre, who would they be and why?
This would work better If i read comics growing up, so i'll go with something recent. Andi, Hailey, and Janey. Andi, someone I can take with me to Comic Con and the electronic/computer conventions. Hailey, someone I can pamper, and take to dinner at the Embarcadero near the beach. Janey, someone I can take to the international auto show, and wrestle with.
I’d like to sincerely thank EcEu for taking the time to share with us a bit and give us some insight into how he works as an artist and as a person.
To catch up on all of the previous TQWD Interviews, CLICK HERE!!!
To kick things back off again, I’ve had the pleasure to sit down, so to speak, with one of our community’s up-and-coming artists. So, let’s all give a warm welcome to EcEu!
-------------------------------------------------
1) Your artwork is very distinctive and easily recognizeable as your own. You bill yourself as a digital artist, yet your works appear hand-drawn. How do you create the pieces that you do? What goes into creating an EcEu image?
Before doing digital work, I had 5 years of background training in the formal styles like charcoal, graphite, oil, as well as two semesters of life drawing. My favorite style is hyper realism, when I make a cartoon, I want to make it as realistic as possible in terms of proportions, scene, and colors but I also want to keep that charm that still makes it an illustrated cartoon, and I do that by leaving in outlines and such.
Each piece goes through several processes. First, I draw a rough sketch of what the final piece will look like in my small notebook. Next I either have one of my friends pose for me for proportion sketches, or I use my lifelike mannequin and begin redrawing the sketch on the computer with my tablet. Next I take the refined sketch and put it in a vector program so I can create the clean lineart that's ready for coloring. I put the finished lineart in PainterX for the first stage of coloring, then into photoshop for the final stage of coloring then after effects like blurring and graphical elements. The entire process takes an average of 13 hours.
2) As a digital artist myself, I've had endless debates about the validity of CG as a true art form. What misconceptions about digital art would you set straight if you had the whole of the art world as an audience for a moment?
Art to me is anything that was made with creativity in mind, that conveys an emotion. There are many rendered art pieces that are incredible, some that are indistinguishable from a real photograph, what people need to understand is that even with the fastest computer out there now, to render an image in the degree of realism that some CG pieces are out there takes one or in some cases many days to render, that included with the time it takes to set up the objects in the image, adjust the lighting, build the set, we're looking at about the same time to create a rendered piece as it is to make a 2d image. People need to understand that there is a lot more to CG artwork than what they assume, it takes a lot of planning and for some, a lot of money to build a machine to create these pieces.
3) As art often imitates life, tell us a little about what parts of your own life go into your artwork. Practices? Fantasies?
Right now I currently have two characters. A statuesque dark haired beauty named Euphoria, and a bubbly british blondie named Giselle. Their physical, and behavioral traits actually come from me and my 4 closest friends who have supported me in my artwork for the past several years. As for what kind of image gets made, if I want to see an image of something, I just go ahead and make it.
4) Which artists have influenced you and specifically how? Fetish or otherwise.
Peter Paul Reubens, classical painter, he was in the most literal sense a celebrity at his time, he created paintings that were true to real life proportions and light, even if the subject matter was sometimes of the divine. Bandito is the one who influcenced me to start writing and make comics.
5) Outside of artwork, what other hobbies or interests strike your fancy? What does EcEu do in his spare time?
In my spare time I go out with my friends, work on my car, play some ps3 or warcraft with family and friends, and pretty much watch over the house. I love to learn about the human condition and health, my all time favorite subject is physics, and i'm always caught browsing sites like howstuffworks, or webmd, to learn more about the world around me.
6) Now for the weird stuff. You've inherted 5 million dollars, with the stipulation that half of it go to one charity or cause. Who gets the money?
St. Vincent de Paul(Catholic church), the other 2.5 million goes to my mother.
7) If you had the resources to keep any truly exotic animal as a pet, what is it that you'd be feeding twice a day...or however often it is that whatever you choose eats?
I would have a wolf. Ideally a Garfield, but cats don't think outloud in big thought bubbles.
8) You have to spend an entire month locked in a room alone. Assuming your basic neccesities are taken care of, which five items would you take in with you? Here's the catch. None of them may allow you to make contact with the outside world.
Well outside world would take world of warcraft out of the picture, so I'd take my PS3 and the entire Metal Gear Series, my drawing set, my painting set, and the complete Lord of the Rings blu ray box set. Combined those would take even more than a month.
9) What was the last film you saw or book you read that truly moved you? Not neccesarily your favorite per se...but moved you in some way?
"Don't Mess With the Zohan" moved me...straight out of the theater. Really though, The Matrix, it opened up doors for me to the possibilities of forms of art, that being the art of film.
10) And finally, the Obligatory Question Ten that we all look forward to. Here, I usually ask which three people you would invite to dinner...but I'm gonna throw a monkey wrench your way...one, 'cuz you're an artist, and two...'cuz I feel like it. If you could date any three comic characters from any genre, who would they be and why?
This would work better If i read comics growing up, so i'll go with something recent. Andi, Hailey, and Janey. Andi, someone I can take with me to Comic Con and the electronic/computer conventions. Hailey, someone I can pamper, and take to dinner at the Embarcadero near the beach. Janey, someone I can take to the international auto show, and wrestle with.
I’d like to sincerely thank EcEu for taking the time to share with us a bit and give us some insight into how he works as an artist and as a person.
To catch up on all of the previous TQWD Interviews, CLICK HERE!!!
