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
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?
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!
Hie Feng…!
Ure a kewl guy…I love ur work and ur achievements…U inspired me really to take up 2d painting…
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! 
Just dropping a line in this awesome thread!
All the best, mate!
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 : 
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, 
)
keep up the good job, Feng 
.
Hi Feng, Thanks so much for your involvement and for sharing your work life with us!
my questions:
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?
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?
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?
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)
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?
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!
Amazing work Feng very inspirational.
1. What in your eyes is the difference between Illustration and Industrial Design?
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. Im 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?
Is it possible to move around within a studio one youre hired? Say youre 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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Regards
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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!
[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!) :)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 !!!
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
#andrew
edit:// i had a question but it hass already been asked
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!
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
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?
Thank you kindly for answering!
Have a great year with lost of fun projects!
Peace, Adam
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.
Feng,
1). I don’t know if this has been asked but how did sketchgirls come about? Is the sketchgirls conecpt going to be the story idea for your artbook/storybook? or will it be something different?
2). If you can say…what did you work on with Joe Mad? was there any colab art between you guys? or at least art together but separate on a project?
3). Have you bought the Revenge artbook yet? What’s your favorite piece that made it into the book? Where there some you were surprised that didn’t make it in there? Will you be able to put the art you did on your site…ones that maybe didn’t make it in the book? cause I know there was a lot kashyyyk ones that didn’t make it even like fully rendered ones.
4). Did you ever get to take anything from the ranch like any of the statues/busts or exchange art with the other guys? I think you said you got a drawing from Iain…did you get anything else?
Well those are probably the last questions I will ask, I actually think I ran out of stuff to ask…you answered everything. Thanks for answering all my question this was really cool…Thanks Feng!
-Nate
Feng u r such a nice & hardworking artist…
thx for replying …
Will u come to Malaysia for a seminar!!!..
I want u give us a LIVE Drawing TUTORIAL RIGHT IN FRONT OF US~!
Wanna Say Hi to ur Gf from here!
Im sure Feng is busy…we as ppl in the industry doing similar things should understand…hehe(sometimes i just dont):shrug:
Hey everyone,
Sorry for the delay. I had a really busy weekend (moving into my new studio, more on this later). Im super swamped this week, so Ill have to try to answer everything quickly. Again, if you have some more personal questions, feel free to email them to me.
And thanks again for all the encouraging words and wonderful questions!
Chaitucreatity:
Interesting questions; well, I definitely see concept art growing more into the 3D realm of things. Currently, a majority of the concept art is done in 2D, by hand. However, I see more and more studios starting to use 3D to conceptualize designs. This is not a bad thing, except us 2D guys better starting learning 3D. =)
As far as technology goes, I bet someone will write a concept art generator program. Of course this may should weird, but imagine a 3D software that contains a library of millions of objects. This smart program will know how to combine these objects in a somewhat realistic way. The entire interface will be slider based. For example, I input: future city with Paris architecture mixed with 1920s New York, plus organic sea life. This program will start to generate shapes. I can use sliders to control how far things go. Of course this program wont get you 100% to a final design, but I bet it can get you at least 70% there. There are a lot of potential for a software package like this. It wont take over our jobs, but it can enhance it.
Leeru:
Yes, Ive seen screen shots of Obivion. It looks pretty cool. Maybe Ill drop those guys an email. =) Im super busy enough though; but Id still love to work on that game.
Inspiration stories? Hmmm, well, I have a lot. Most of these stories come from Iain McCaig. Im sure hell be ask to do this Q/A soon, so Ill let him answer this later.
Well, self discipline is the best type of time management. For example, if your friends are asking you to go hang out, but you have work to do, its all up to you to say no. Another thing is to try to remove yourself from the rest of the world when you are working. I do this by watching DVDs or listening to music. Distractions are the major source of corruption. It just takes time to learn these disciplines.
Turboff:
I dont have a preference when it comes to PCs or Mac. I like them both! Right now, I use a PC for all my work; this is because I do a lot of game design, and most games run on PCs. So its easier for me to run demos and such when clients send them to me. But as far as drawing, both platforms work well.
I havent noticed any off-color problems with my Cinema displays. Their colors are very true to my print-outs (Epson 1280).
I drive a Honda Accord Coup for regular days, and an Audi TT on weekends or to the beach =) And no, I dont have a motorcycle, but I might get one in the future ( and just a funny side story: when I worked at the Ranch, I shared a house with two blonde strippers. They were into motorcycles as well
.we had about 8 bikes in our garage
.Lucas Valley Road is a great place to ride).
Spider2544:
Yes, I do plan to take on some interns soon. Send me some of your work. Ive been talking to a few students at ACCD about internships and independent studies.
Noodlz:
I wasnt really into American comics when growing up. I love European ones, especially anything by Juan Gimenez and Frazatto.
Yes, Im Chinese. However, sad to say, I dont have much connection to my roots.
If you want to work in Hollywood, then LA is one of the places to be. There are a lot of jobs out here. However, LA is not the only place. And like any city, most parts are safe, but there are bad areas. You just have to know your way around.
Painter is difficult to learn at first. But if you manage through the first week, the rest comes easy.
I have some 3D work on my website.
I dont think my business manager would like me to tell everyone our yearly income. But dont worry, if you work hard in this industry, you will make a good living. Youll be right up there with doctors, lawyers and high profile architects. I answered a question about rates before; if you do some math, you can figure things out =)
RumorHazard:
For inking, I use Pilot Hi-Tec-C pens (0.3 and 0.4 size). For markers, I use Prisma Color Markers (grays in 10, 30, 50, and 70 percents, and black). Thats about all I use. And I just use regular copy machine paper.
MWarsame:
I didnt take me too long to learn 3DMAX. Of course I only know the basics, but its enough for me to make most objects. Id say it took me about 1 month to get the hang of it.
Pony:
Ive met with many agents and business managers. You just have to search around until you find the right one. And since they deal with your money, you better trust them 100% =) Im using a business manager to help me keep track of my clients, invoices, and taxes. Without here, I would go crazy. Haha…
DFPUL:
I will take a look at your website soon.
Reynold:
The game industry is a lot easier to break into. Most films require you to be in the Union, and if you read my previous post, you can see how hard it is to get in. For games, Id recommend you to send them a physical portfolio. But at the same time, make youself an online portfolio, and spread the web address around. Try to avoid cold-calling clients, and it may annoy them. Instead, get to know the art directors or producers first, then send them an email after.
There is no right answer to this question. My studio is in LA, but that doesnt mean all the jobs are here. In fact, of all my current clients, only one is located here in town (EALA). All my other clients are either in other parts of the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan. Because of the internet, freelancing has become a lot easier.
Yes, I am looking for interns. My studio needs about 1 or 2. Send me your portfolio.
TogaMario:
Nice sketch! Keep at it.
Yes, Ive written my own stories. In fact, Im turning one of them into an illustrated book right now. Hopefully itll be out by sometimes next year. No, I dont play any instruments, though when I get some free time, Id love to learn the Piano.
Ive actually never played D&D. I remember seeing other kids play it at school, but I wasnt really into it. I was more interested in just drawing at the time I guess. I did try to play Warhammer once; fun stuff, but it didnt grab my interest.
Krall:
No, none of my work for Ep3 was digital. I did everything with pen and marker.
You are not seeing all my work on my website. The images on there are mostly my early stuff, nothing crazy. You are missing about 95% of my currently portfolio. =)
Well, most of the time, clients would contact me, and then my business manager would follow up. However, if I really want to work with someone, Ill have my business manager contact them. Ive also been working freelance for a while now, so I have a study list of clients.
I just add textures using Photoshop (over-lay layer mostly).
There isnt much more to the union then what I wrote before. Basically, you have to be in the union to work on most films. To get in, youll need 30 days on a non-union film before it goes union. Or, if the production designer makes you a special case, they can get you in (but rarely does this happen). To onto non-union films, look on the back of Variety.
Spookje:
Sounds like you need more experience. Just keep drawing. You are letting the frustration part get to you. Just ignore that, and keep sketching out your ideas. When I first started, I can probably only capture 10% of whats in my mind onto paper. However, now I can capture to about 80%. Another thing you can try is to copy some existing designs. Draw some X-wings, or Abram Tanks. This will get you familiar with shapes.
Skiant:
Sure, you can use that image for a 3D model. Good luck! I look forward to seeing it modeled.
Fritz3D:
Yes, I agree with you. But in the real world, things just dont work that way. Theres reality, and then theres Hollywood reality. =)
Igorstshirts:
Wow, thats pretty nice! How long did it take you to do that? Very impressive.
Tlindsey:
I get around the rotation problem by using Painter. I cant draw for sh*t in photoshop =) But with painter, you can spin the canvas on screen, therefore mimicking the way I work on paper.
Manik:
I like to place on VP on the image, and another one off screen. Learn this by looking at Syd Mead paintings. He is the master at perspective drawings.
Silentbrain:
Man, I loved Kyrandia. Sometimes I just want to go back and re-play all those adventure games. Some of my other favorites include: Indiana Jones, Maniac Mansion (loved this one!!!), the Dig, Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Space Quest and Kings Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry. Ahh, the good old days.
Squibbit:
Ill post up the other Star Wars girls soon (my work machines are all off line right now, because of the office move).
Nice sketch by the way! Man, I shouldve done a red-guard myself. Why didnt I think of it??! Haha
Gustojunk:
Ive answered this question already.
This is pretty much answered too.
Yes, Ive reached my bandwidth. There are way too many jobs for me to handle. However, my business manager does a good job of scheduling my time; so I have some time to get all my projects done each week. However, I will be hiring artists soon, to help expand my studio. Ill start with interns first. Ive also partnered up with James Clyne, to form Gamma Ray studios. Ill more on this later.
Well, since I work freelance, I dont have to over-see projects much. However, I actually enjoy management sometimes. I worked as a Creative Director for NCsoft before, and it was pretty fun. But as far as challenges, the most I deal with is with design itself. Sometimes clients dont understand the difference between design time and drawing time. Yes, if I had a design already in my head, I can probably draw it out very quickly. But since clients are hiring me to come up with new designs, I have to spend the time to think of them. Some in-experienced clients dont understand this, and question why sometimes itll take me 3 hours to do a 30min sketch. Well, the thing is, yes, it only took me 30min to sketch it, but another 2.5 hrs was spend designing it.
I do a little of both. I have my own work machines that I keep only at the studio. I also have a system that I can carry to jobs (its a powerful PC, but built into one of those tiny cases). However, I also use client machines too (like at EA). I keep all my reference material on a small fireware drive. So no matter where I go, or which machine I use, I still have all my files (this also includes my brush settings, painter files, etc).
Doodle:
Illustration and industrial design share many common grounds. But usually industrial design focuses more on man-made things (such as architecture, products, vehicles, and environments). Illustration tends to focus more on character and creature design, as well as mood-paintings, and general environment designs (not hard-core, perspective heavy things).
If you can draw well, you can expand into many different fields (all that youve mentioned). So yes, Id recommend you to take some drawing classes.
You can move around, but it has its limits. Studios usually hire people based on their specialty (ie: 3D modeler, animator, texture artists, etc). But smaller studios tend to let you have more freedom. When I worked at Blur, Ive seen 3D modelers do their own concepts, and as long as it works in context, the boss didnt complain. This is harder to do, if you are working for a bigger studio (because you can step on other peoples toes).
Denart:
Hey man, good to see you here.
Yes, architecture definitely helped me. Actually, I never see anything as wasted. You can learn something from everything, even topics not related to what we do. For example, I took a class once on lettering. Man, I learned so much about alignments, first reads, grids, etc from that class - something I wasnt expecting.
I think I just answered your question. I dont see anything has being wasted. I also made some great friends there, and had a blast living at the dorms.
Chaosphere:
Glad I inspired you! Now get back to drawing! Haha
Gasmask:
No, Art Center didnt really teach you about drawing mechanical things. Their job is to train you on how to design and draw. I had to learn about machines and their functionality on my own. One of the best ways to teach yourself is by building scale models. Go to your local hobby shop and buy some models. Once you make a model, youll have a greater understanding of how things work and attach to each other. Try building a replica of a B-17 or a Sherman Tank for starters.
Chrisbeaver:
Glad to hear about your teacher using the DVDs are teaching material. =)
I generally find that talented individuals are good at a lot of different things. Its just their nature to learn everything. Once you start drawing, youll notice that a lot of other skills are related to it. If you learn one thing, I can be applied to the other field. For example, painting, photography, and directly are closely related. They all have to tell a story, use good composition and lighting. So yes, try to learn many things as possible. Youll be a lot happier doing many things. For me, focusing on just one thing can get boring (thus why Im doing a book, working on toys, starting to get into directing, and going into business management).
Lotrez:
Thats a great start. Whats missing right now is the fundamental stuff. Learn your basics about forms and shapes before going into details. Make sure your drawing is solid first. But keep at it. It just takes time.
Madman:
Sketchgirls is currently in production. I will have three different collectable toys by fall of this year. There will also be prints available (most likely packaged with the toys, so you dont have to purchase them separately). Ive already moved onto the next stage for Sketchgirls, but thats under wraps right now. Look for the new SG website soon.
I worked with Joe on several projects together, including the now cancelled Exarch. I dont know if I can say more about the other projects right now, as they are all in development right now.
I did hundreds of drawings for Ep3. Ill try to get Lucasfilm to release them, so I can post them up on my website. But this is not going to happen for at least a year after the movie Im guessing. My favorite piece is not printed in the books
…so check back in a year? Haha
I cant answer this question. Ill take the 5th on this one.
Dinodog_Jr:
Sure, Id love to come to Malaysia. If someone invites me, Id love to come and do a workshop!
well, i’nm guessing this is the end of the Q/A. Thanks again everyone for the great questions. I had fun answering them.
best,
-feng
Hi all,
OK it’s time to close this session. What an excellent Q&A it was! A big thank you to Feng Zhu for taking the time to do this Q&A on CGTalk!
Best,
Leonard