I’ve seen an interesting evolution in how the digital art creation process has evolved and changed over the past 5 to 7 years. When I began in the industry the process often times was to sketch something up traditionally, scan your work in, and refine it in a program like Photoshop. As computers became more technologically advanced, and software/plug-ins evolved, many artists now would just start straight in Photoshop rocking out on a tablet or drawing screen. Most recently, I’ve seen another level of change.
With the mobile device market growing and offering more lucrative and powerful tools, many digital artists have started to adopt and push the creative boundaries even more. I’ve watched many concept and 2D artists I work with now take on a tool like the iPad and almost 100% start and deliver their work from it. Applications like Procreate have gotten so powerful and feature rich that you can now do high quality print or digital concept work with the base line tools in the mobile software.
Being an AD at Iron Galaxy, we have artists we’ve worked with that have made in game splash screen art 90% in Procreate on the iPad, and then finished the last 10% in Photoshop. UI artists now start their sketch phase on iPads with programs like Affinity Designer, and export art work straight from there to game engines like Unity. We have a concept artist that works 50% in Procreate and 50% in Photoshop. At the end of the day the work often comes in ahead of schedule, because of the ease of use these tools have.
Ultimately these new tools are great, but they are still just tools. Understanding and adapting to more efficient processes and techniques as you grow in your career is key. That’s something we focus on here at Chimirus. We take a look at what’s out there, and help adapt it to your creative repertoire. You’ll be at the top of your game. We are always here to help the creative community, so book a discovery call to learn how we can help you!
Roger Yuen
