Creative Theory Podcast

Jon Lam is a senior storyboard artist and character designer that has worked in the Game, Animation and Comics Industry. He is currently working full-time at Riot Games. Previous projects include Diablo 4, Overwatch 2, Star Trek Prodigy, and INVINCIBLE

To find out more about Jon, go here:
https://www.instagram.com/jonlamart/
www.droidbrush.carbonmade.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonlamart/

Jon and Ilya talked about his education and how it got him into the industry, ethics of current AI practices, ArtStation and their response to art scraping, the future use of AI, practicing a variety of skills and finding the one that speaks to you and a lot more.

Episode Links:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/23/23523864/artstation-removing-anti-ai-protest-artwork-censorship
https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/17/23558516/ai-art-copyright-stable-diffusion-getty-images-lawsuit
https://www.artstation.com/bsnake/albums/all
https://www.instagram.com/zoerism/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/matthieu_pommier/?hl=en

Sam Bradley is an artist, art director and writer based in Toronto. He was born in the early eighties and raised in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Mostly through happenstance he attended Sheridan College, where he quickly discovered a passion for the visual arts. After graduating from Sheridan’s BA Animation program he began his career in the animation industry, where he has worked primarily as a designer and art director on many different television series over the course of ten years. Previous to creating & directing SPACE BETWEEN STARS, he was the Art Director on Justin Time GO, a Netflix original series created and produced at GURU STUDIO. Alongside his work in animation, he has a deep love for consuming & creating comics. His heart is split between his creative pursuits, traveling the world with the people dearest to him, and befriending dogs whenever and wherever possible. SPACE BETWEEN STARS is his directorial debut.

You can find more of his work at:
www.dreamylabs.com 
https://www.spacebetweenstars.com/
https://www.instagram.com/findneweyes/

Sam and I spoke about what aspects of work and life changed since the pandemic started, working from home, pursuit of personal voice, going from working in animation to video games, Sam’s film - Space Between Stars, and a lot more.

Episode Notes:
Space Between Stars short - https://gem.cbc.ca/media/canadian-reflections/s01e238
https://www.instagram.com/findneweyes/
https://www.spacebetweenstars.com/
JETT video game - https://www.jett.fyi/
I Lost My Body - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9806192/
Beautiful Darkness - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Darkness
https://dont-nod.com/en/
https://lifeisstrange.square-enix-games.com/en-us/
https://www.instagram.com/dedouze/
Sword and Sworcery - https://store.steampowered.com/app/204060/Superbrothers_Sword__Sworcery_EP/

Drew Young is an internationally exhibited painter with shows and projects in Thinkspace Gallery, POW!WOW!, Abend Gallery just to name a few. On top of that, he acted as the Visual Arts curator for TedX Vancouver 2014/2015, Skookum 2018 as well as being the Founder of Snag — a weekly live-painting exhibition focused on illuminating Vancouver’s alternative arts culture. He currently acts as Curator and Artistic Director for the Vancouver Mural Festival.

Drew and I talked about his development over the recent years, pursuing galleries versus personal pop ups, return of the art scene post pandemic, choosing subject matter and the strengths behind it, importance of art in day to day life and a lot more.

To learn more about Andrew and his work, follow the links below: 
https://www.instagram.com/drewstuff/
https://www.dyoung.ca/

Jeff Simpson is a concept artist for games, film, T.V. and various other media with over 15 years of experience. Some of his clients include Ubisoft, Edios, MPC, Lionsgate, Universal Pictures just to name a few and he is currently working as a visual development artist at Marvel Studios.

Jeff and I talked about his move from Montreal to Vancouver, how city culture can affect the studios in it, having a strong style, acceleration of the entertainment industry, finding one’s voice in art and a lot more.

To find out more about Jeff and his work, go here:
https://www.instagram.com/jeffsimpsonkh/
https://www.artstation.com/jeffsimpson
https://www.patreon.com/jeffsimpsonart

Macarena Luzi is a self taught textile designer based in Los Angeles, California. Her work is centered in rugs that feel both fun and elegant with a focus on color and texture.

Macarena and I talked about how she started in textile design, moving around the world and working in LA, finding inspiration, the challenges of being a freelance artist, what is exciting about the textile field and a lot more

Find out more about Macarena and her work here:
https://www.instagram.com/macarenaluzi/
https://macarenaluzi.tumblr.com/
https://macarenaluzi.com/

Nathan Thomas is a founder of Little Mountain Animation and creator of Big Dinosaur, Norman’s Island and Magic and Machines. He has animated on movies such as Star Wars, Captain Marvel, Terminator: Dark Fate, Bumblebee, Guardians of the Galaxy, Godzilla, just to name a few from the long list that he has been involved in. Nathan currently works as a Senior Artist at Unity Technologies.

Nathan and I talked about creating personal IPs, Nathan’s move from the VFX industry to working at Unity, the ability to pursue personal projects, Norman’s Island going to Annecy, and a lot more.

To find out more about Nathan and his work, go here:
http://nathanthomasanimation.com/
https://www.littlemountainanimation.com/

In Part 2 of the podcast, Andy and I talked about the design process for live action costumes, the future of 2d animation, tropes of the animation industry, Andy’s personal projects and more.

Andy Poon is a Visual Development Consultant, Art Director, Designer, Illustrator, Costume Designer who is currently working at Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver, BC. Andy has art directed shows such as Slugterra, Monster High, Blaze and the Monster Machines as well as created designs for live action shows like Batwoman, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow and others. Andy is also a recent Emmy winner for his work on the Dragon Prince.

Find out more about Andy Poon and his work here:
https://www.instagram.com/andypoondesign
https://www.artstation.com/andypoondesign
https://andypoondesign-blog.tumblr.com/

Hello everyone! It’s been a while. I hope you and your families are staying safe.

Before I get back to the podcast and the episode schedule, I wanted to chat briefly about my break as I imagine a lot of people have been feeling the same way.

At some point I felt like I lost my personal direction in the arts, and therefore, my curiosity in the arts disappeared. What’s been directing my energy and flow of the interviews has been genuine interest so the desire to learn in some ways was gone. And I truly can’t say if this was all due to COVID changing our lives or if this would happen regardless of the pandemic.

I feel pretty lucky to have the opportunity to talk and learn from the amazing people I get to have on the show, and I also feel lucky that I did not have to put an obligation on myself to constantly produce new episodes.

There seems to be an analogy to art-making here and a direct link to how I felt at the moment about where my personal work was heading. I believe there’s value in continuing to produce work even if you don’t feel like it, especially when we are placed into a professional environment. Often, to get through a block, all it may take is to force wonder and continue to search, learn, and create. I often pride myself on being able to look at a task from a different angle and find vigor to keep going, and yet I was lost and not particularly motivated. There’s gotta be truth to the fact that maybe I didn’t take my own advice here but also that there’s value in taking time off and being lost. Or so I am told. 

At some point I saw no direction in the fine arts for me to pursue, no goal to chase, and knowing that I am really goal driven, this meant trouble. Furthermore, I needed to focus on my professional work and go on a mission of tackling something that felt really difficult in order to stay out of my comfort zone. As I began working on a personal short film, the instant gratification type of pace of artmaking was gone and it actually took some time to rewire my brain. Later on, I would sit down to create traditional work, especially if it was meant to get to a higher level of finish, I would find myself asking what is the purpose. I didn’t see it going anywhere and I saw many other possible ways to practice. Perhaps, I had blinders on and I had limited insight but it also rang true to me that it was time for a change, which often is so difficult to admit to oneself. Somehow the idea of making paintings just to put them into storage didn’t appeal anymore. At some point, many of us had a wonder about image-making when we simply created without weighing down the process with too many thoughts and meanings, and for me that productive time was in the past. The value of meaning, reason, and motivation play a bigger role now and I often find this can become counter-productive to producing work. These days I am trying to regain that simple approach to art and get back to creating images. I am sure if I listen back to some of my previous statements on the podcast, I would be contradicting myself now, but that is just a sign that I continue to grow and to change. I have put a lot of weight on what it means to do one or another type of work, especially when there’s not enough time to be efficient at numerous fields, but I should have asked myself why I worried so much about it. There are so many ways to approach art-making and what works best for one at a given point in their life.

At the same time while being in a rut, I found many good podcasts that did this kind of interviews in really great ways and for some time I doubted myself. Of course, in reality the conversations really are about the guests’ paths, experiences and points of view so as long as I wouldn’t get in the way, there’s limitless value to be gained. I realize it’s as if I said since other people make art really well, I shouldn’t do it. A DUH moment on my side here but somehow the brain wonders. I am passionate about having some hand in giving insight into others’ work lives and challenges, so I felt motivated to keep going.

I am happy to say I am coming out of being lost, I see the value of practicing traditional work and the lessons that are brought along with crafting one-of-a-kind pieces that you can’t find anywhere else. I see the value in digital art and how it can bring new ways of visualizing as well enhance my life through further career opportunities. When we are talking about 40+ hours a day at a job, sometimes - if not more often - it needs to be priority number one. If you have listened to this podcast before, you probably know already about my inner desire to keep trying every type of style and medium. I have talked to so many artists that feel the same way so to bring it back to the beginning of this monologue, maybe it is the amount of decisions and the lack of time that threw me into the flurry of options, and what it took is some time away from it to show me what I value. Or a part of what I value. Although it certainly is not that simple and I continue to question my decisions, it is calming to remind myself that I do not need to choose a major to be stuck with, life is a journey and unexpected opportunities and directions can lead to incredible new chapters in life.

The reason I am sharing this is to be more honest about these feelings, despite the fact that they are not fun to talk about. I still question if there’s value to sharing it. Sometimes the social media can be too picture-perfect and I have been glad to see more realistic conversations happening online, and artists being forthcoming about their challenges. I know I am not breaking any ground here or sharing anything new, as many people have these experiences but I hope that this could be useful to someone to know that we often go through this kind of mental turmoil.

If you want to leave your thoughts, instagram is probably the best way to go. I haven’t found youtube to be as important as Spotify or Itunes have been in this medium. Let me know if you feel otherwise.

I already have a number of great guests booked and I look forward to speaking more about the art world, especially as some aspects of it seem to be shifting right in front of our eyes.

That's enough of me, thanks again for listening! I appreciate your kind words, and I’ll speak with you soon.

Jesse and I talked about his pleinair practice, working in the animation industry, personal and professional growth, being an artist and its relationship to identity and a lot more.

Jesse Winchester Schmidt is a painter, production artist, animation art director at Stellar Creative Lab, and a pleinair enthusiast. 

You can find out more about Jesse and his work here:
www.winchesterArt.ca
https://www.instagram.com/jwinchesterart/