Meet the Artists: Do you need to use 3D in your workflow as a Concept Artist?

We are showing our incredible team some love with our series 'Meet the Artists'! We are continuing the series with Athena's Senior Concept Artist Titas Ženevičius and we are talking about whether you need to incorporate 3D into your workflow as a Concept Artist.

Could tell us a bit about yourself and your professional career?

I’m Titas, a concept artist from Lithuania. I have been working in the industry for 5 years now, which seems just like yesterday, but here we are!

I am a self-taught artist, although I went to university for 6 months, before I managed to land myself a junior artist role. I worked there for 3 years while learning from awesome people who taught me a lot. Then I went off freelancing!

For the past 2 years I have been working as a freelancer and I have had the pleasure of working on a bunch of awesome projects, before I joined Athena Productions as a Senior Concept Artist.

Why did you choose concept art as a career?

I was always drawn to art and I loved gaming, I would imagine creating different scenarios and stories.

My favourite game was Starcraft and during campaign missions I used to keep enemy buildings and start making cool and interesting looking base layouts that would fit my own imaginary missions.

After that I attended after-school art lessons for drawing and painting, and since I was naturally drawn to computer games, I managed to find that concept art fits exactly what I would like to do in life.

What does your typical concept art process look like?

My typical concept art process varies from task to task, I don’t have a set in stone way of working. Sometimes I begin by doing 2D sketches, other times I just jump right into working on sketches in 3D.

The only part of the process that stays consistent is gathering references, which is always at the start but I will often find more references for detailing as I go along.

Being able to use references is probably the most important skill a concept artist could have.

How important do you think it is for Concept Artists to know 3D nowadays?

I think 3D is a must, it lets you learn and work much faster while freeing up your mind from the fundamental concepts like perspective or basic lighting to enable you to design much more seamlessly.

Using 3D for concept art gives you the freedom to iterate and render realistic materials, and perspective. You put in some lights, fog and voilà - your designs come to life! You can also reuse assets, in a variety of different scenes or angles which is much faster than having to redraw them each time!

What 3D package do you use?

I use mostly Blender, it is a great free package and it gives you 90% of the necessary tools to tackle any task.

I like to incorporate different tools to my workflow like World Creator, 3DCoat and Character Creator 4, as it gives you a lot of options and is easy to use when designing characters.

Are there any processes, or 3D softwares that you are excited to try?

I have been trying to learn Unreal Engine 5, as it can give you a lot of freedom for larger scale scenes which is exciting.

Also the ability to quickly turn your concept into a playable game is a different way to explore your own creation. It's a very unique workflow!

What inspires your designs and environments?

My main inspiration is telling stories.

Whether it is a mysterious rock on the road, or a complex tale of human sacrifice and overcoming great challenges, everything has a story!

When your designs and environments have story and a purpose, they really do come to life.

What makes a good design in your opinion?

No one single thing makes a good design, a lot of different things can contribute to a design such as balance, shape language, colours, form and functionality.

Often a great design is something derived from observing real life and then it is exaggerated or elevated.

I think that it should be believable, but still look functional.

What tip would you give Junior Concept Artists?

Learn to take critique like a champ!

I think this is the main quality that made me excel and learn very quickly when I was starting out. Whenever I would get feedback, I made it my life’s mission to get better at that thing that was picked up on.

I push myself harder when something didn’t turn out the way that I wanted it to.

Of course, keep in mind that not all criticism is constructive and good. Make sure you only take onboard the comments of people you respect and you think have good intentions!

Thank you Titas!