Table of contents for February 2025 in ImagineFX

Maria Spieker LOCATION: Germany MEDIA: Procreate, Photoshop WEB: https://bit.ly/3UPrlae Maria’s artwork focuses on emotions, memories and feelings, and she adjusts her style to the task at hand. She mainly works on children’s books, with the world around her being a huge source of inspiration. Teo Skaffa LOCATION: Italy MEDIA: Photoshop WEB: www.teoskaffa.com “I’m from a small place in the Netherlands you’ve probably never heard of, and now live in an even smaller place in the Italian countryside you definitely haven’t heard of,” says illustrator and character designer Teo, who’s grateful to make a living by drawing. Masae Seki LOCATION: Canada MEDIA: Photoshop, Procreate, traditional media WEB: www.masaeseki.com Masae is a Japanese-Canadian artist inspired by nature and personal experiences. She enjoys creating art that tells heartfelt stories and reflects her deep…

“These characters are from my webcomic Raruurien. It’s a sliceof-life story of a single mother and her two kids, wrapped in a fantasy theme. I wanted their everyday activities to evoke a sense of cosiness and nostalgia, so I drew this. It portrays their dynamic where Rien is doing daily chores and her children are there to help. Most of the time her youngest is there for fun. I started by using flat pastel colours. Then, to achieve a watercolour-like feel, I used a textured brush for a touch of gentle gradation. Lastly, I added a canvas paper texture on top of it.” Artist PROFILE Ann Maulina LOCATION: Indonesia Ann is a comic book artist from Indonesia. She is the author of Raruurien webcomic, and drew Horizon Zero Dawn: The Sunhawk.…

XPPen Artist Pro 19 (Gen 2) NEXT GENERATION Whether you’re a pro artist or a passionate hobbyist, this pen display offers something for everyone with beautiful colour and accurate drawing Price £900/$900 Company XPPen Web www.storexppen.co.uk he new Gen 2 range from XPPen comes with some T big headline features, not least the boast of offering Calman-verified colour performance. After using the new Artist Pro 19 for a number of weeks, we can honestly say those promises are backed up. This medium-sized pen display is competing against some of the best drawing tablets released recently, and is becoming sought after. XPPen isn’t shying away from the fight for artists’ cash with a 4K resolution, two 16K pens, and three colour modes. If you’re a hobbyist you can plug in, get…

Price £330/$300 Company Veikk Web https://veikk.com en displays used to be prohibitively expensive P pieces of gear that you’d only find in the studios of pro artists and designers. But these days the technology has advanced and the average price has dropped. It’s impressive Veikk has managed to build something that feels this premium for under £300. The Studio 16 surprised in terms of build quality and performance. In use it did a top job drawing and painting, as well as simple day-to-day computing. It may only have a 1,920 x 1,080 screen, but there’s good contrast at 1,000:1 and it’s plenty bright enough for even a well-lit room. The glass has a slight texture; the nib and surface are spot on, giving a pleasing paperlike feel. It also has…

Price From £85/$95 Company Crucial Web https://uk.crucial.com RATING A portable SSD is a handy thing to keep around, as this kind of speedy storage can be used to quickly suck up image files, or even make a speedy backup of important documents, before being tucked away and taken somewhere more private. The Crucial X9 comes in a flat plastic case that has a degree of drop protection, and even bundles in a few apps that may be useful to someone who hasn’t already invested in a backup solution. Otherwise, it’s just a cost-effective way to copy a lot of files. A flat, low-profile shape means the X9 is easy to tuck away, and you’ll be able to find a pocket on a laptop or camera bag that will serve to…

Discover your potential with The Rookies; the launchpad for emerging digital artists. With The Rookies, your work won’t just get seen, it gets noticed and featured, just like this! Join a community where your journey from hobbyist to professional artist is supported every step of the way.  WWW.THEROOKIES.CO Seanesis: Day of the Steel Tide YEAR CREATED: 2023 MEDIA: Photoshop “This is a personal project inspired by coastal cultures and their connection to the sea. Set in a fantasy world, Seanesis envisions a festival where joyful artists and citizens come together to celebrate the sea with their creations and intricate metallic creatures. Driven by a desire to evoke a sense of peace and tranquillity, I crafted a serene universe where people honour the sea in a unique and imaginative way.” SEANESIS…

“I am afraid of my visions.” Thus spoke H.R. Giger, the artist whose paintings led to him being engaged by director Ridley Scott to design the xenomorph for the first Alien film in the late 1970s. Giger’s art, showcased in his book Necronomicon IV, and his subsequent work for Alien, sparked a dazzling tradition of dynamic and inventive creature and worldbuilding design across a memorable series of films and wider pop culture. That wave of influence has most recently been reimagined and interpreted again in Alien: Romulus. Also foundational to the work undertaken for Romulus was the art of Ron Cobb, who had been one of two principal designers on the original Alien film released in 1979. Cobb’s designs, along with those of Chris Foss, were foundational when it came…

Illustrating fan art has always been a great way for me to keep myself painting, as I find it’s fantastic for staying motivated and active after a long day of work. If I enjoyed a movie, comic or game, why not make fan art to celebrate it? In the process, I can try to analyse and understand why that particular piece of media inspired me. I recently saw Tekkonkinkreet, based on the Taiyo ¯ Matsumoto’s manga, and was blown away by the backgrounds’ richness. It’s packed full of details and life that emphasise the verticality of the cityscape. Watching early-2000s animated movies such as Spirited Away, Cowboy Bebop and Steamboy staggers me in the amount of time and care taken for each and every background, which sometimes appear for just…

Price £259/$249 Company Huion Web https://store.huion.com The Huion Kamvas Slate 10 is the latest mobile drawing tablet to pop up that challenges the dominance of Apple’s iPad for digital artists who want to get out and paint on the go. For anyone who loves digital plein air, these new Android tablets are eye-catching entries, and are priced below an equivalent iPad. XPPen set the benchmark with the excellent Magic Drawing Pad, which feels like a real drawing tablet with the bonus of a CPU, and the other brands have been playing catch up. The Kamvas Slate 10’s tech isn’t going to blow away the new iPad, and it lags behind the Magic Drawing Pad. The Slate 10’s display is fullylaminated but glossy, and offers a 1080p resolution, which on a…

Price £450/$430 Company Ugee Web https://shop.ugee.com Not everyone wants to sign up with Apple, and Android tablets are becoming more capable generally, now for creating digital art too. The Ugee UT3 – the selfanointed ‘Fun Drawing Pad’ – is one of the more impressive Android pen displays we’ve tested. This is an 8-core CPU tablet with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and supports Android 14. The eyecatching 14.25-inch anti-glare display has been designed for drawing on, unlike other Android tablets. The design of the UT3 is lovely too; it oozes class, feels like a premium product, and is a top-tier display. The screen is matte-finished and closer to a traditional drawing display than an iPad. It’s also smooth to the touch but has a little tooth to it…

Luvamiart Valladolid LOCATION: Spain MEDIA: Pencil, charcoal, ink WEB: www.luvamiart.com For Luvamiart, there’s something special about the versatility of a simple pencil. “In our fast-paced world, I want people to stop for a moment and appreciate the small details and magical stories they can form.” 1 THE TOYMAKER “A magical toymaker whose creations come to life when spinning the wheel. He often ditches them as he tries to create toys that will stay alive.” 2 THE LOVER’S LAMENT “A piece about loss and grief. The lover and her dragon companion visit the tomb of her deceased beloved every year, when peonies bloom.” 3 FROM THE ASHES “The phoenix is one of the best recognised symbols of rebirth and glory built from decay, yet there’s melancholy in it too.” 4 EMPRESS…

Set between Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), Alien: Romulus, the latest addition to the sci-fi horror franchise, eschews the slick look of the last two instalments and takes us back to the chunky, grimy aesthetic of the original films. We’re back in a world where computer operating systems are text-based and DOS-like, where every grainy video feed jitters to life on an analogue screen, and every creaky, dishevelled piece of tech is ancient-looking and coated in filth, but somehow still works. Just about. For director Fede Álvarez and his production designer Naaman Marshall, evoking the look and feel of the earliest films was more than just a case of assembling a world-class art department. It was also a matter of putting the team to work in a way that took…

Giulia Riva Web: www.instagram.com/guillyliaa Aleksa Stajsic Web: www.instagram.com/astajsic Gina Kühn (GreenfinchG) Web: www.instagram.com/greenfinchg_illustration Kinga Juszka Web: www.instagram.com/nerimitsu Jei Kim Web: www.instagram.com/kimchi.paints Alina Nesterova Web: www.instagram.com/alli_april Challenge accepted Keep an eye on our social media channels for all the latest ImagineFX Art Challenge details and you could see your art in a future issue! Visit page 3 for all our social channels…

Sometimes a complex drawing will come out right the first time I love using ink. It flows and behaves unexpectedly… I listen to what the ink tells me Do you want to share your sketches with your fellow ImagineFX readers? Send us an email with a selection of your art, captions for each piece and a photo and bio of yourself to sketchbook@imaginefx.com Artist PROFILE Katerina Putilina LOCATION: Cyprus Katerina is an artist and illustrator who has worked in the animation industry for several years, and currently specialises in creating visual development art. As an artist, she enjoys drawing in both traditional and digital mediums. www.artstation.com/putilina…

This tutorial will break down the process I followed for designing the conveyor hall and hive setting in Alien: Romulus. The aim is to show you how I apply architectural thinking when designing a feature-film set, and use methods of proportions, scale, lighting, composition and materiality to develop a dramatic environment that matches perfectly with the Alien universe. My workflow will be broken up into four phases: sketching a plan and section to break hesitancy and get ideas onto paper; blocking out in Blender to explore the initial idea in 3D; applying details, lighting and materials to ensure the design ties into the aesthetic of the first two Alien films; and finally painting over the render to add details, atmosphere and hive elements that would have been too time-consuming in…

Price £315/$400 Company Pilgway Web https://3dcoat.com Ever since 2007, 3DCoat has gone from strength to strength. What began as a robust, versatile graphics editor has evolved into one of our most trusted digital sculpting and texturing applications. Now we have version 2024, which has several new features including live Booleans, topology tools and a Blender export link. There’s nothing particularly revolutionary in there to tempt artists away from alternatives such as Substance 3D Painter, but existing users will be glad to benefit from improved functionality. Booleans were always one of those unknown entities that delivered variable results and often destroyed geometry in a way that made a mesh unusable. But they’ve improved since, and having live, non-destructive capabilities is one reason why. 3DCoat has had Booleans for a while, but…