hindering you in painting and creating what you
want. When getting online more in 2007, I found
all the incredible resources online with lots of
other artists also sharing tips and hints. This
arena was so much bigger than only keeping to
magazines and my creativity and understanding
of Photoshop in particular got really boosted.
Once I found the DeviantArt community I had
found my online place for developing as an
artist. DeviantArt had everything you needed as
an aspiring artist and I was surrounded by other
artists and like-minded peers that were all into
sharing and helping each other to get better.
Critique, support, using free stock images to
practice with, getting feedback and participating
in events and competitions and making friends
along the way all helped me to get to where I
am today. DeviantArt has had a huge impact on
my professional career.
DAL: What are your favourite production tools?
CL: My Wacom tablet and Photoshop are by far
my most important assets I use for creating my
art. I do occasionally use other programs and I
like creating images in 3D and fractal programs
such as Terragen 3, Blender, Sketchup and Ultra
Fractal as well. Since I’ve been focusing more on
video-game art than I ever have done before in
the last few years I have also got into learning a
bit in Unity.
DAL: Right, that’s the free and open source
videogame engine. Tell us about the choices you
make now, when you first plan or approach
making an artwork? For instance, is there
something that tends to influence a work to be a
speed painting rather than something else?
CL: It depends if the artwork is done for work, or
for myself in my spare time. For work each
artwork is usually described in more or less
detail before I start. So I’ll have a pretty good
idea what needs to be put on paper before I
start. For artworks I do in my spare time, my
workflow varies a lot. I usually get inspired by a
specific image or something I’ve seen and I start
sketching down ideas around this particular
image or subject. Sometimes that sketch leads
to more refining until I’ve got something that
you can visually appreciate.
Sometimes though — if the inspiration isn’t
present — I tend to start a drawing with placing
a photograph in the background of the artwork
and then I pick colours from it and just paint
random lines and blobs. I do this until I start
seeing shapes of something that inspires me to
keep going. These sessions seem to lead to more
speed paintings. Sometimes one of the speed
paintings looks promising and I will continue on
it until I have something finished, but most of
the time they stay as very rough speed paints.
For each of the finished artworks you see in my
gallery there are probably about 15 unfinished
ones.
DAL: Do you have a favourite way to work up a
picture to its finished state?
CL: I feel very happy when I can get down a
sketch and then develop an artwork within a
day. Most pieces take several days to finish but
speed paintings and some environments can
sometimes be done in under a day. The feeling
of completing an artwork in that time is very
satisfying.
DAL: Indeed. What inspirations do you call on,
for your work? I’m not especially current with
fantasy literature or games, for instance, outside
of the Elder Scrolls series. Are novels and
stories helping to inspire your work?
CL: Oh yes, movies, music and games all play a
vital role as inspiration in my art no doubt. But
so do other artists that I look up to. Browsing
images done by other artists are very inspiring. I
look up to great matte painters such as Dylan
Cole, Philip Straub and Raphael Lacoste amongst
others. I also draw a lot of inspiration from some
well-known and not so well known artists
through history too, mainly from the Victorian
and Edwardian era such as John Bauer, Alphonse
Mucha and Elsa Beskow. I don’t read that much,
I have more of a visual mind and I get ideas
from looking at things. Anything fantasy / sci-fi
are very high on my list for visual inspiration.
Favourite movies and games that are big
inspirations for me would be The Lord of the
Rings trilogy, Labyrinth, Star Wars, Howl’s
Moving Castle, the Myst-series and Zelda. I also
draw inspiration from other standalone games
which emphase m exploration and atmosphere
such as Firewatch, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
and The Long Dark.
DAL: Thanks. Can you take our readers in detail
through the typical workflow for a major 100-
hour painting, please? Also, perhaps, any tips
on how one gets over the initial ‘procrastination
hump’ and start creating.
CL: I usually start by gathering inspiration and
references for the initial idea. I sometimes do
something I call “inspiration sheets” where I cut