Advice on how to study stylized

mikewitk

Hello Everyone,

First of all thank you for your time reading this thread.

Second, I love 3D but I'm passionate about stylized art. I was always avoiding studying it because I'm not very good with colors (colorblind)... but I decided to find a way to overcome this.

I want to get a job at Gameloft Toronto, they do only mobile games with stylized art. I figure out that I need to improve a lot my texturing skills. My modelling skills are ok, I can do everything (given enough time).

So I was searching for some tutorials and I stumbled across this one
http://3dmotive.com/series/stylized-dungeon-in-maya.html

It covers Modelling + Sculpting + Hand Painted textures

The modelling and sculpting are not going to be a problem...however, the hand painted textures might be. What software should I use for it? Photoshop? Subsance Painter? Learn to do on both? Learn how to make stylized texture on Substance Designer as well?

What a mobile company wants?
I want to learn, study, work...and repeat that until I die...but I don't want to feel like running in circles.

Any tips, tricks, comments, memes and jokes are welcomed.
Thanks

JordanN

I would say the software you use matters less compared to just mastering the technique. 

Something I've noticed lately when looking at a lot of new portfolios that get posted, is that plenty of artists will already list that they're using substance painter, 3D Coat etc but the actual art they're making just isn't interesting or contains errors.

The whole point of stylized art is to literally just make cool stuff while having a solid understanding of the art fundamentals.  No software right now can automate that. Even if it means going back to Photoshop and painting it by hand, if you're creating textures that demonstrate a rich and sensible color palette, it will be far superior to someone who might just try and hack together a material without understanding why and how did they get to those results.

Brian "Panda" Choi

Learn fine art foundations.  There's a lot under that umbrella, but stylized mostly works if you know what good drawing and painting looks like.  Think about how something like WoW is essentually illustration work done on top of a model.

mikewitk

Thanks so much for the reply guys.

Now if I may continue with my novice questions
What exactly do you mean by "fine art foundations"? That term for me is too broad. Just to make sure I got it right, Fine art foundations would be:

• Perspective
• Light & Shadows
• Color

These are the three most common "basics" I've found related to foundation in arts. Please let me know if there is anything else I should focus on at this early stage because I'm really tired of wasting my time going round and round and I want to make progress and do art

Thanks again

Brian "Panda" Choi

I'd phrase it as more actionable pursuits, like the following:

Figure Drawing
Still Life Drawing
Observational Drawing and Painting

With the above, the hope is you'll practice these elements you mentioned earler: perspective, light and shadow, values, composition, color, etc. since it's a bit much to ask novice artists to make artwork just absed on those ideas a lot of times.

sacboi

Check out this resource that'll provide focused direction instead of chasing your 'tail':

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=166&t=844409

PixelMasher

I think step 1 would be just to buy and follow that tutorial, it should give you a great jumping off point. The software doesn't really matter and focusing on that will hold you back. Software isn't what is going to help you make great art, developing your eye for what looks good by consistently producing stylized art over the next 6 months to 2 years will. 

pretty much every software out there these days has a 30 day trail version so even if the tutorial uses something you don't have already, there is probably a cheap/free alternative or just sign up for the trail and use it to finish the tutorial and start developing the skillset. You will learn so much more by doing rather than looking for the perfect resource, I would just choose one and start hammering on the project until it's done

This one is also probably pretty handy to take a look at as well:
http://3dmotive.com/series/hand-painted-enviro-texturing.html

Brian "Panda" Choi

@mikewitk
Wait, is this about your Orisa Labratory environment still?

mikewitk

Hey everyone,

Thanks so much for all the comments. I’ve read them and I’m going to work on them as much as I can. 

I will work a schedule with subjects to study and goals to achieve. 

And Brian, even though I will finish Orisa environment one day I decided to take a break from it for now. It was taking me too much time on each object and I started to lack motivation to continue.

Thanks again everyone

mikewitk

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to share with you my latest project
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zAAeWZ

I learned the process from the tutorial mentioned on the first topic and did my dungeon.
There are a lot to improve but this gave me the fuel to keep going. It was really nice to do this stylized dungeon

Any feedback is more than welcomed

Cheers