Meet the Artist: Feng Zhu

#173

I just got done watching your Fundamental of Shot Design DVD and I have to say that I am floored. We went over perspective at the fine arts college I attended, but never in as much depth, and the DVD was only 2 hours long, lol. ::Bows down to the Feng:: I was also happily surprised to have seen you on G4TV not too long ago.

(My very first wimpy concept sketch with a wacom)

I’m not sure if this was asked before, but have you ever written out or fleshed out ideas for a movie or story of your own? Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons? :smiley: If Vin Diesel has a tatoo of his DND character’s name, I’m starting to believe everyone may have played it at one time in their lives, lol. Oh, and do you play any instruments? Drums, Guitar, Bass? … Tuba?

P.S. I’m hoping that Oblivion’s team are just selective about not giving away the core world design in screenshots. Maybe they’ve got an NDA to keep it more or less under wraps till near release, and to boost hype through technology only at this point. Still, i’m hoping they touch the same chords as Morrowind in terms of immersion, because I’ll be in line, day one, for that sucker :smiley:

Thanks again!

#174

Well thanks feng zhu. You are a champion of answering all questions addressed. I will start with a couple of questions the I want to chime in on a couple of things addressed.

Questions:

  1. Is all the work you have in the Art of Ep3 book done digitally?. Some of it just doesn’t look it but the book in the intro says that it is all done on computer.
  2. Now as I look at your digital work on the website it seems to be less technical than your hand rendered drawings. Is this tru or just happens to be the samples I am looking at at the time?
  3. At this point in your carreer do you ( or your manager) still contact your clients or is it the other way around ?
  4. I have noticed you recent digital work has a type of ambient ‘texture’ applied to the surfaces… what technique to you use to acheive this?
  5. can you elaborate or post a like for the illustrators union. I have done a google sketch and come up with too many random things the only official thing I know of is the graphic artist guild.

Ok now here is a few things to address some subject bought up during this session. A good book on perspective I found was Basic PERSPECTIVE FOR COMICS available at www.bluelinepro.com .

Now on to the questions about vector art. I also have thought about using vector programs for line art. To be exact I have been doing character work with illustrator with a technique I came up with to copy the look of traditional inking. I think it works well for characters but and not sure if it would be beneficial for technical illustration. Here is a sample.
http://www.artiscommunication.com/6.html
http://www.artiscommunication.com/9.html

again I thank you for taking the time out to answer all our questions I dont think you realize how much you have pushed me. And I look forward to the day we are working side by side on a project

#175

Hi Feng,

This may sound weird, but I’ll give it a go anyway :slight_smile:

I usually have plenty of ideas for creatures and such, but when I start drawing the image in my head keeps changing constantly, so that I’m not able to get a clear image of what it is exactly that I want to draw. It’s really frustrating because this usually ends up with me not drawing anything at all. I’d really like to get into designing, but this has stopped me from doing so for years. Any tips on how I can fix this? Is it a familiar problem for starting artists? Have you had the same?

Jeroen

#176

Hi feng.

First, sorry for my poor english

I’d like to thank you because your arts always makes me dreaming.
I can spend hours just watching it, and I never miss an opportunity to tell everyone how much i love your works. :thumbsup:

Here is my question :
I’m currently studying CG. I’m on my first year out of 3 (or maybe 4 or 5 :wink: )
I have to do a picture in 3D, based on the atlantide.
I’d like to take your shark submarine art as reference, if it doesn’t mind you :wink:
I will of course post my finished work on CGTalk as soon as i will achieve it :cool:

Thanks again, keep up the good work!

#177

Thanks for the reply, Feng. Certainly the entertainment factor comes first. Although IMHO every director who makes a movie containing “war” in the title would greatly benefit from an hour or two lecture of basic military tactics :smiley: And IMHO again something can be much more entertaining if it has some basic grounds in reality. But that’s just me. Thanks again for your time! You are immensely helpful to everybody here. :slight_smile:

#178

Thanks again Feng for being a good sport… This is sort of where my style is heading regarding vector art. Thanks for viewing… Later!
http://www.igorstshirts.com/temp/1612droidwbike.jpg

#179

Feng,

Love your work, Feng! It’s very cool that you’re taking the time to interact with the community this way.

Question: with traditional media, you spin the page a lot to align it since you make straight lines by pivoting your elbow. How do you deal with this issue when working with your Wacom tablet? Do you rotate the tablet or rely on the straight line tools of Photoshop?

Thanks,
Ted

#180

Thank you Feng for repling.
The second question that (maybe I’m not good in english) I mean. Do you always place another vp. out of the frame space?

#181

Hello Feng, thanks for answering our questions. I actually don’t have any questions for you, since all mine have already been answered, quite an eye-opener.

Anyway, when you mentioned Legend of Kyrandia as one of your early inspirations, I almost fell out of my chair. I have really fond memories of the old adventure games, it’s really too bad that the adventure game portion of the industry has withered away. God…320x200/256 colors was so impressive back then, but these days it’s all about +1024x768/millions of colors…

Sorry about the rant, couldn’t help it. Er, carry on. : ) Looking forwards to more answers!

#182

Hie Feng…!

Ure a kewl guy…I love ur work and ur achievements…U inspired me really to take up 2d painting…:slight_smile:

Im at a stage of understanding colors now…I think ur strength is you color apart of course other important aspect too…

No questions from me! :scream: Just dropping a line in this awesome thread!

All the best, mate!

#183

humm… where’s the other recruitment posters, I saw only four there ?

anyhow, I dunno if this was included in them, but in case it wasn’t, here’s
one for the really ambitious : :smiley:

thanks for the inspiration , dude
(ps. if dat helmut looks any good is because i had photo
ref for it :p, if it doesn’t, well, :blush:)

keep up the good job, Feng :thumbsup:

.

#184

Hi Feng, Thanks so much for your involvement and for sharing your work life with us!

my questions:

  1. It seems like your deliverables are mostly 2D renderings. Do you follow up the execution of your designs that get chosen to be modeled in 3D, fabricated at physical models, etc? Or do you just hand off the design intent and the client’s team decides their own execution. If the latter is the case. doesn’t that frustrate you when they interpret a design in a different way that you had envisioned it?

  2. Do you see that most of your clients just want this very conceptual stage as a final deliverable, or do you see room to also have a staff to implement these things in 3D under your supervision?

  3. Besides having a business manager and office support, do you delegate design work too? I mean, are you limited to the amount of bandwidth you you can provide out of your own hands or do you have a team that can help you sketch ides together, illustrate them, flush out details, etc?

  4. If you have not being able to grow into a team, is it because you don’t want to? or because your clients are too posessive and whant YOU personally involve in every aspect of your work?

(The 4 questions above are all very related, feel free to give us one general answer, no need to reply as 1-2-3-4)

  1. what are the biggest challenges, duties or compromises that come as part of your job. I’ll give you an example of what I mean: In my case being an industrial designer for consumer products and automotive parts, I enjoy the deign side of my job, but I don’t have as much fun managing the projects, negotiating with engineers what things I allow to change and what things are not negotiable, finding suppliers for materials and processes done right and cost effectively, etc, etc. Not things I like to do, but that I HAVE to in order to ‘protect’ the integrity of my designs for the benefit of my client. Do you have challenges of that sort in your industry?

  2. Since you say that your job is very mobile, what do you do about hardware when you work on a client’s site? Do you have your own portable system or do you have to adapt to different systems, without your settings, preferences, etc? What are your mobility challenges to have ‘your tools’ with you? Related to this, have you looked into the latest tablet PCs with 1400x1040 displays (Toshiba Tecra M4) ? If so what do you think of that as a portable option or a digital sketchbook?

Thnaks again for your involvement and your positive enegy!

#185

Amazing work Feng – very inspirational.

  1. What in your eyes is the difference between Illustration and Industrial Design?

  1. While i’m ultimately interested in [character] animation – I also want to expand my talents and options to concept design, illustration, storyboarding, graphics design, photography etc. I’m looking at taking a broad subject like a Drawing degree to learn the raw skills and backing it up with various shorter courses like cinematography, photography, concept design
    .etc. Do you think this would help or is it being too broad?

  2. Is it possible to move around within a studio one you’re hired? Say you’re an animator but would like to work in concept design for your next project. Are you basically stuck where you are.

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#186

Hello Feng! :applause:
(it’s the same Denart from CA.org. We kind of talked about pixel art / skillz and its presence in today’s industry)

  Anyways!

Don’t you find it interesting that your name, Feng Zhu, pronounced in Mandarin is very close to the Mandarin pronunctiation of “house”
And we all know you are the master of house and insane architectural designs.
Heck, you even went to Berkeley (to please your mother!) to study architectural! :smiley:

  [b]1) Looking back, did going to Berkeley helped you in the long run in as a concept artist?[/b] 
  
  [b]2) Are there any regrets for "wasting" all that time at Berkeley?[/b]
  


  Thanks for your time! ;)
  (man, its awesome to see you taking the time to answer all these questions. Your replies are super LONG and meaty!) :)
#187

Feng !!

No question, all have been answered here… Man seeing this thread has really inspired me !!! Iv’e been in a bit of a drawing slump as of late, but this thread has got me going again, as well as all of the insite you have given on workflow and what not… im also messing with painter now as well ( 2 hours so far lol ), thank you lots, and thanks to the community for great questions, I have read every page on this thread haha. Keep up the work man !!!

#188

thanks feng for answering my question.

Here is one of your characters i modelled. Im gonna rig him and make some test animations.

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=223132 (scroll down to see end result)

cheers mate.

Great thing your doing here giving up your time for us :slight_smile:

#andrew

edit:// i had a question but it hass already been asked :slight_smile:

#189

Hey man, i love you work and ive been a long time fan, ur also a huge inspiration to me, my question was about mechanical things, during school when you were learned and getting good at doing ships and robots did you just study alot of real world parts and machinery? like did art center have you guys draw those things or just look at them to get the functionality in ur head because i always notice parts on peoples designs and stuff taken from say a train or something so im just wondering if thats the way to go? thanks for your time!

#190

Wow, this is like an audience with a king… In my Charactar Design & Storyboarding for Animation class last quarter, my professor (for the sake of posterity, I’m in SCAD and his name’s Ray Goto) showed us your Gnomon demonstration as part of teaching us how to do character environments within a reasonable timeframe. When he did I just about fell outta my chair; I’ve been a fan since I stumbled across your website a few years ago.

And I have lots’a questions, but I’m reading the backlogs even as I type this, hoping I’m not gonna make you re-state something you’ve already said. And by the way, those Star Wars girls rock :thumbsup:

Most any question I can think of has already been answered, and you have a lot more on hand to answer, so I’ll only ask one quick one…

How important do you consider versatility to be, not just in subjects but in skills? For example, I’m trying to learn to do basically anything I can grasp; illustration, storyboarding, animation, concept design, digital painting, modeling, texturing, working with live-action… I’m not saying I’m good at all this yet, but I’m trying. But anyway, am I more likely to succeed in being competent with lots of the design work, or devoting myself to excelling in a narrower spectum of the process?

#191

Thank you kindly for answering!

Have a great year with lost of fun projects!

Peace, Adam

#192

Hi Feng,

I really love all your artwork so much. Thanks for giving great and detailed answers.

I’m focusing on 3d art but would love to improve at 2d stuff also.

Here’s a couple of images.

I’d really appreciate any critique.

Thanks alot.