Meet the Artist: David Levy

#70

Hello there Mr Levy!

Was just wondering how you supported yourself in your round the world jaunts?

Is this where bar experience comes in useful or were you lucky enough to find work in the industry?

Thanks for your time!
/thumbs up

#71

What is the role of a concept artist? like if there is one character model to be made, what help does modeler & texture artist get from you? only concept art or you are with them till they finishe modelling and texturing? I mean to say does modeller and texture artist require concept artist’s help while working.

#72

Inkrabid>>

  • The only tutorials I have right now are on my website. Those can take quite some time to create, and lately I have been too busy to do more :frowning: . I will probably totally update my tutorial section around august.

  • For large area with textures, I created a brush that fakes perspective using various settings on the pen pressure. It is one trick that does not always work, so on complex images (unless they are speedpaintings), I tend to use photo textures, or the texture checkbox option in the brushes when painting.

  • For the gradients, I am using nothing special, just the PS gradient tool! Sometimes I use the airbrush or the round brush. But for the most part I use the PS gradient :slight_smile:

  • Composition, is one of my weakest points. The best person I know about composition is Sparth: it is totally natural and intuitive for him! I use very basic systems (the 3X3 rule), but like I said it is very basic. I am learning a lot on that subject now. I heard of a french book by Jacques Bouleau, “the secret geometry of painters”, and that’s what I am reading at home now.

  • I checked the gallery quickly. I would say that you seems to be still floating between genres and styles. By touching 3D and 2D you are doing the necessary experiments to make your choices. I did not see any in your gallery, but on top of doing fantasy images, I should post technical exercises (like model drawings, still lifes, light analysis…). In short I mean that if you want to master fantasy, you have to master reality. My favorite is probably the black and white mystic.

Tiger1313>> I love your speedpaintings! And just saw your gallery. Great work. THanks for the comment!

Fl3k>>
Sparth and Hydropix are the ones that advised Ubisoft to contact me. We knew each others from the forums, and had met in person in Austin. We had a great contact, and talked about how great it would be to work together. One year later, it happened!
Most of the times, you will find a job by a contact, or someone who has arleady worked with you, and know you are reliable. You can call it word of mouth, or networking, but in the end, it is your attitude and qualities that sells you.

Kewn>> Drawing is the architecture behind painting. Draw first, but start practicing painting on the side. Think of a plan of attack, and decide of a project that would motivate you that would also help you raise your abilities.

BLOWFISH>>
Hmm, I am FAR from rich, and moving so much only came with many sacrifices. I have not seen my family in a long time, and I have eaten pastas many times without butter…

mike_angelo>>
Once again it depends on the project, and the way the hierarchy works. You want to make sure you are not stepping on anybodie’s toes, but overall you should always be available for questions and help, or even additional sketches that could make a difference. Overall, it should be the art director’s role to communicate any changes necessary especially on big projects, but it depends on his work techniques and the way management regards concept artists. Nowadays, concept artists are still VERY underused and ignored on most projects (even big ones). Companies and studios that understood that, are on the top of the world now, especially japanese companies: think Metal gear solid, devil may cry and other strong licenses, those only came because of creative freedom, not dictatorship and ego of one person.

#73

Fl3wk>>
Sparth and Hydropix are the ones that advised Ubisoft to contact me. We knew each others from the forums, and had met in person in Austin. We had a great contact, and talked about how great it would be to work together. One year later, it happened!
Most of the times, you will find a job by a contact, or someone who has arleady worked with you, and know you are reliable. You can call it word of mouth, or networking, but in the end, it is your attitude and qualities that sells you.

It seems going to these events to see fellow artists and such is really important, especially if your goal is tork in bigger and better companies.

Some more questions, about your workflow and CD stuff:

  • So you say you dont just illustrate as a CD, but use what is neseccary to complete the task. Does this include tradtional things too like Marker Pens, Inks, Pencils, Pens, Paints? Or is all your work Photoshop exclusively? I guess working straight from photoshop would be much more efficient due to everyone having a copy of your work, and also accidents are less likely to destroy the work. Another thing would be that modellers would be able to take your concepts home on their laptops/disks and do work at home if its needed. of course this is idle speculation, only someone like yourself would know the real uses for having everthing digital.

  • Backing up your work if very important due to viruses and system crashes. What kind of back-ups do you use?

  • All these files and folders everywhere due to years of working, where and how do you sort it all out? Do you use software to help you orginise things or or just done on built-in features of Mac/Windows?

  • At what resolutions do you work on your images? I find it difficult to work on high resolutions due to system limits (which I will hopefully rectify soon). Is it important to start at high resolution? I know if you start large, then you got all that head room to down-grade resolution and make things smaller. As opposed to working small and then you are very limited due to not being able to size up.

  • Do you listen to music while you work? I find it quite a nice treat due to it blocking out the ambience of the room. But it can also distract. What songs do you listen to if you said yes?

  • Not sure if your allowed to answer this one, but what is your average hours per week at Ubisoft?

  • How many concept artists participated in the development of Prince of Persia the Two Thrones. And how many, estimation, concept designs did you do (rough figures if possible, i.e 100+ or maybe 100 - 200, thats sort of thing if you dont have the exact number).

Some of the questions might be too up close and personal, I apologise if it somehow offends. But I just find it very interesting to actually have a chance to speak to one of you guys and find out how you live and work.

#74

Hello Vyle!
I’ve been following the work of the “Ubi-crew” over on CA.org for a while now and your concept art, personal images, and speedpaints especially have been some of the ones that really inspired me. Something that I am curious about is what you think about the random/abstract design processes. What I mean is like scribbling/erasing out a bunch of lines/shapes and pulling forms out of that, or layering patters or textures utill something suggests itself. I ask because I can kind of see it in your work, especially the speedies, a beautiful controlled chaos. I was wondering if thats how you arrived at the style of shapes and lines you seem to favor, sort of a mix of circuitry and art nouveau…hehehe techno-nouveau. I’m specifically thinking of the last two pieces in your “Homework” gallery, Megacity_A and Archi_L.

I’m going to try to make it to Adapt in September, and I see your on the roster. If I make it out there I’ll defiantly swing by your booth/room/whatever…however they’re gonna have it set up.

Cthogua

#75

Hello,

I just wanted to comment that your work is very awesome and I can see and feel the passion in it…it is very vibrant and alive!

You have a very impressive bio, thanks for the interview with us!

Pamyla

#76

Amazing Q&A you generated here.

Never saw so much high quality information on concept design like here on this thread.

You should write a book after that. BTW if you know any nice books on concept design, please mention them here.

I am right now writing on concept design for a special studies group at Méliès Cinema 3D and Animation School here in Brazil, I always thought that emotions were the main subject a concept artist should work out to bring out the idea behind the concept itself, reading your answers I can see you made it clear too.

Would you say that basic knowledge about psychology and theater would improve concept artist’s view? I think personally that the most we know about mind, emotions and how they operate better artists we become, at least we become better as human lol.

Can you say to us a little more about your background with emotions/ psychology at your work?

Thanks a lot to be sharing your knowledge and time with us here,

#77

Fl3wk>>

  • I have not used traditional media at work in ages, although once in a while for no reason whatsoever I would throw a sketch on paper (sometimes when I have a complex building to prepare, I do a top view or something). Your workflow suggestion about being easy for the pipeline is very right: by using photoshop you reduce the amount of translations to the digital media (scanning, contrasting etc…). So all in all, much more logical in production, plus the tablet PCs coming up soon will make all this much more userfriendly.

  • For backups, I work with 4 hardrives at home. I have a raptor drive to run my softwares, an internal for main work (250GB), an external for large backups and video editing (250GB), and another one for large work in progress especially when dealing with recording (250GB).

  • For the organising, well, I am just very organised :slight_smile: In my life I am quite the opposite, and I can’t remember the things I did the day before (my gf hates htat too…), but on my PC and at work, I am very tidy, and everything I do follows precise naming conventions.

  • I work around 4000 pixels for painting and general concepts. I work at 6000+ pixels for marketing illustrations. I hate having to resize my pics in the middle of a work, but I sometimes do the mistake.

  • I have to work with music, I think I mentioned that earlier, my most influencial and inspiring tune is the theme music from the movie “Amelie”.

  • 40 hours week

Pamyla>> thanks for the kind words! I am the lucky one to be interviewed here. Such an honour! Thanks again to CG talk, for allowing me to participate.

Djampa>>

  • Thanks for the kind words! Well, if I was to write a book, there would definitely be a LOT of stories to tell! But that would probably take a long time, and people would not believe me on many of them! I think I went through all the worse experiences of the gaming industry history …

  • I had never thought about the importance of Psychology and theater in my job, but it makes total sense now that you say it. The systems I use right now, when it comes to emotions are very basic, and I would say more “gut feelings” driven. I think it comes back to the “story telling idea” that I mentioned regarding script writing or film making studiying.
    So many books to read, such little time to live!
    But that’s a great comment that gets me thinking! Thanks!

#78
  • I have not used traditional media at work in ages, although once in a while for no reason whatsoever I would throw a sketch on paper (sometimes when I have a complex building to prepare, I do a top view or something). Your workflow suggestion about being easy for the pipeline is very right: by using photoshop you reduce the amount of translations to the digital media (scanning, contrasting etc…). So all in all, much more logical in production, plus the tablet PCs coming up soon will make all this much more userfriendly.

Traditional media can be rather messy and inefficient. I see why its important to stick to digital. I bet you had to start with traditional when learning to draw and such (studying).

  • For backups, I work with 4 hardrives at home. I have a raptor drive to run my softwares, an internal for main work (250GB), an external for large backups and video editing (250GB), and another one for large work in progress especially when dealing with recording (250GB).

Damn, all I got is a 80GB main for my software and downloads, then a 19GB as my storage,which I just put my work there and my software back-ups. I need to invest in an external HDD : / Well thats a poor student for ya!

  • For the organising, well, I am just very organised :slight_smile: In my life I am quite the opposite, and I can’t remember the things I did the day before (my gf hates htat too…), but on my PC and at work, I am very tidy, and everything I do follows precise naming conventions.

I consider myself like this too, but I dont have enough digital work to say that I name every file/folder correctly.

  • I work around 4000 pixels for painting and general concepts. I work at 6000+ pixels for marketing illustrations. I hate having to resize my pics in the middle of a work, but I sometimes do the mistake.

Damn thats large! I am lucky to get maybe 1500X1500px…

  • I have to work with music, I think I mentioned that earlier, my most influencial and inspiring tune is the theme music from the movie “Amelie”.

Sorry I must have passed it by accident. I will look up that theme tune.

I added this one a bit late I think. You dont mind answering it do you?

  • How many concept artists participated in the development of Prince of Persia the Two Thrones. And how many, estimation, concept designs did you do (rough figures if possible).

Thanks for your time!

#79

“For large area with textures, I created a brush that fakes perspective using various settings on the pen pressure. It is one trick that does not always work, so on complex images (unless they are speedpaintings), I tend to use photo textures, or the texture checkbox option in the brushes when painting.”

Could you explain this in depth a little more? I am intrigued. Perhaps a screen shot of the brush settings or a description of the settings or perhaps even the brush itself as an abr file to download?
Great works, I always look forward to your posts on CA

#80

Hi man! I am your big fan, love your works very much.
I haven´t much time now, but I will ask you some question later, cya :slight_smile:

#81

Hello David :slight_smile:

I have seen the little V signs on your most recent work.
According to their design: Are they understandable as a hommage to V for Vendetta?

Have fun :slight_smile:

#82

wow wow it buautiful nice concept idea

#83

Hey Dave, your work is okay at best.

Alright just kidding. You know you rock! Keep up the great work, my friend! It’s always exciting to see new work from you.

Isn’t V for Vyle?

#84

Fl3k>>

  • I used to be a poor student too, and I can tell you one thing: my first PC was the best investment I ever did.

  • We were 5 on Prince of Persia: Hydropix, Viag, Patrick Lambert, Martin Deschambault, Myself. Difficult to tell how much work I did. I will count and post the numbers!

The Prof>>
I will probably post that brush once the CA workshop in Montreal is over (tuesday). But it is fairly simple: opacity and roundness are both set to “pressure” on a basic round brush that looks like a “rust texture” that fades on the side. Ahem, yep, probably easier if I post it.

rawwad>>
Thanks! Looking forward to answer those.

Azurelle-Ray-Ray>>
Actually the V (for vyle yep) is not for Vendetta. I actually did not know that comic book until recently. I thought signing the whole nickname was not very discreet, and also got lazy.

Ray-Ray (also called smeagol if I remember? Brad booker is sitting next to me right now and he is the one who gave me the tip!)>>
:stuck_out_tongue: Great to hear from you! Congrats on your new little family member! And tell hi to Vanessa. I miss going to Barton springs on hot days, I hope Austin is still as beautiful as it was!

#85

I see what you mean, and that’s really a cool coinsidence since the two signs look exactly the same - but there are too many different people on the world, so coinsidences are a real must.

Keep up the good work. I especially like your prince of persia “portrait” :slight_smile:

Az

#86

Djampa>>

  • Thanks for the kind words! Well, if I was to write a book, there would definitely be a LOT of stories to tell! But that would probably take a long time, and people would not believe me on many of them! I think I went through all the worse experiences of the gaming industry history …
  • I had never thought about the importance of Psychology and theater in my job, but it makes total sense now that you say it. The systems I use right now, when it comes to emotions are very basic, and I would say more “gut feelings” driven. I think it comes back to the “story telling idea” that I mentioned regarding script writing or film making studiying.
    So many books to read, such little time to live!
    But that’s a great comment that gets me thinking! Thanks!

:slight_smile: Thanks for the answer. Glad I made you get thinking. :slight_smile:
“gut feelings” driven… lol Thats the best I´ve heard ! I´d say you may have a lot of “gut feelings” then… hehehehe your work rocks !

Best wishes,

#87

hello Vyle. Youre a great and very inspiring contemporary Artist :thumbsup:

questions:

What are for you personally the 3 most important qualities of cd in the whole production ?

Do you think that this job will ever evolve more in europe in the future ? :slight_smile:

I assume that for your gut driven system it is very important to be able to work very fast with fluent brushwork. Especially in your free work at home where you let yourself be inspired by the image itself. How much Ram do you have so you can be fast in those 4000 & 6000px high resolutions ?

#88

My real first PC was in 2003, and I’ve been fixing upgrading it ever since. Been a real investment in both luxary and studying! I’m thinking of getting a new one with my student loan when I go to UNI. Even though I might have to pay the loan back, atleast I bought something worth while.

I dont really have any questions right now, thanks for posting :smiley:

#89

Hello Vyle, love your work since the first time i saw it at CA
I wanted to ask you if you think that it’s possible to reach a professional level, and be updated with the latest trends in the industry without going a normal/top school? these last months i’ve been doing a lot of stuff at school without seeing the purpose.
I attend to a fine arts school where no technical skills are being teach. So i’m always asking myself if i should do my own schooling.
Anyways, thanks for taking the time.