Tabla de contenidos para January 2026 en ImagineFX

The nights may be long, but for many of us that frees up more time for creativity and practice, and this month we have an abundance of inspiration and knowledge to share with you. On top of our usual FXPosé and newly added 3D galleries we also showcase the winning entries from this year’s Concept Art Association awards. A big congratulations to all of them! See if you can spot artwork that helped bring your favourite film, TV series or video game to life. If you’re looking to add some new skills to your tool bag then head to the workshop section, where you’ll discover the best way to approach your concept art for video games, put colours and contrast to their best use with our cover artist Sora Kim,…

JDR LOCATION: US MEDIA: Photoshop, Blender, ZBrush WEB: www.artstation.com/jdrconceptart JDR’s art journey began in 2022. Influenced by films like Requiem for a Dream and directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson, he aims to create images with the same emotional energy and impact. Youyou Wta LOCATION: France MEDIA: Procreate WEB: www.instagram.com/youyou_wta Youyou is a self-taught, multi-discipline artist who divides his time between digital illustrations and traditional paintings on city walls. Inspired by comics and cartoons, his work is mostly focused on character design. Aleksa Stajsic LOCATION: Serbia MEDIA: Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint WEB: www.artstation.com/lionsden Aleksa started out as an architecture student and a barber before moving into illustration. He’s inspired by the video game cover artwork that he loved as a kid, as well as art history and modern works. Vorueg…

I fell in love with this space immediately! The entire building hints at 1950s Greek revival architecture, and it has presence. The space could very easily be a spare bedroom, but it became my sanctuary. The floor-to-ceiling windows flood the studio with natural light. It’s perfect for any traditional media conquests and even better for watching the weather in Buffalo, NY, with a hot coffee in hand. One of my favourite things is gazing out at the rain or snowfall – it keeps me productive! I juggle a lot of hats – part-time student, freelancer and late-night professor – plus a full-time overnight job so I can take classes in the day (it’s a lot!). It doesn’t leave me with much room for personal art, but if I’ve got a…

“On short flights I try to spend the time sketching and finalising an idea. It’s a great way to focus on drawing” “I enjoy putting comic bubbles as notes to my characters. It makes the drawings personal” 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 Ashley Stegon LOCATION: US Ashley has always loved animals, and believes that watching a lot of Animal Planet has made her a better creature designer. She graduated from Gnomon School of VFX and is now a character artist at Squanch Games. Ashley continues to learn, create and explore the world with her fellow artists, and her…

I had an image in my mind of a wide, expansive landscape showing a large amount of depth. I wanted to paint a scene with an alien-looking object of interest to help draw the viewer into the fantastical environment and give them a sense of wonder. The final image looked a lot different from my initial concept of the landscape, as I expanded my ideas on the canvas to really sell the space and depth of the piece. I knew what I wanted to achieve overall, but much of getting to the final image was a case of figuring things out as I went along. I wanted the alien object to be curvy. This is echoed in the design of the round dwellings, to help with the overall flow of…

Price £399.99 (with optional keyboard) Company Huawei Web www.huawei.com Huawei has started making its own chipsets, suite of apps and software. In the Huawei MatePad 11.5”S (2025), the most polished – and addictive – of the lot, this makes it worth the purchase all on its own. The MatePad line-up has always been well built, and this model is no different. The metal chassis is sturdy yet at 510g isn’t too heavy, and the texture of the back makes it comfortable to hold. It comes in two colours – grey and violet – and we picked up the much prettier one, the violet, to test. The screen, unlike many others, is not an OLED or AMOLED, but it comes with a feature that many other tablets lack. The TFT LCD…

Price From £1,230/$1,739 Company Lenovo Web www.lenovo.com There are plenty of laptops that achieve a light weight, but that isn’t enough to be premium. Enter the ThinkPad X9 Aura edition, which looks to make productivity sexy. It comes with an all-metal build, a fancy OLED display, biometrics, a new Intel processor and more. It’s thin at just 17mm and with a weight of 1.1kg, it can easily be lifted with one hand. In a backpack, the Thinkpad feels as though it’s barely there at all. At over 3K in resolution, that OLED display is pin-sharp given the relatively dinky dimensions of the panel. It supports full HDR and is Dolby Vision-certified. It’s certainly a pleasing option for watching video, with a 120Hz refresh rate. Peak brightness was also just about…

“I made this piece in Blender, using add-ons such as HardOps, Node-It, and preset assets to speed up my workflow. I started by blocking out the scene with one main light source and atmosphere to keep it feeling natural. From there, I used Photoshop to layer in photo textures and details, making sure to balance realism with a painterly style. To finish, I broke up the 3D look with the Dry Brush filter and tweaked the colours with Hue/Saturation layers. My top tip is to really take the time to learn your tools. Knowing the shortcuts and add-ons can save a lot of frustration.” How I create… THE START OF A RACE EVENT 1 Figuring out the story I think about what needs to be in the shot to sell the…

Price £59.99/$59.99 Company Anker Web www.anker.com RATING Desktop chargers are one of those devices that you didn’t realise you needed until you have owned and used one. If you’re fed up with cable switching, then Anker has a fantastic solution called the Nano Charger. The device delivers a total of 130W of power through six ports: four USB-C and two USB-A. Users can take advantage of 100W charging from the first USB-C port, 65W from the second, and 20W from the third and fourth. At 93 x 98 x 19mm this charger is compact, hardly taking up any room on the desk. However, it weighs 320g, which isn’t bad but too heavy to make it truly portable. Anker has included ActiveShield 2.0, which performs three million temperature checks daily. When…

Publisher Domestika Price £39.90 (but can be found on discount) Format Online Length 3hrs 44mins Web www.domestika.org This is a lovely course from Natalie Andrewson that’s both an examination of her career and sources of inspiration (the film composer John Williams was a surprise!) in illustration. A key reason why this course stood out is that it uses Photoshop and Procreate; that said, the illustrator stresses that the course is software-agnostic. Natalie starts with a reference-based workflow and explains, for example, why a walk from Indiana Jones is important. She also demonstrates useful techniques to loosen up creatively, such as adding elements to existing artwork for inspiration rather than staring at a blank page. Ideation is a focus, with Procreate used as the sketchbook tool of choice. When the sketches are…

SAVE UP TO 45%* PLUS FREE DIGITAL ACCESS TO 150+ ISSUES** FANTASY ART ESSENTIALS EBOOK FOR EVERY NEW SUBSCRIBER This is the perfect time to take out a subscription to ImagineFX, because as well as saving up to 45 per cent off the store price of the magazine, you’ll also receive our Fantasy Art Essentials special issue as an ebook. Inside its 148 pages you’ll find galleries of inspirational imagery, interviews with fantasy art trailblazers, and plenty of art advice and techniques for you to use in your own art workflow. And because it’s an ebook, Fantasy Art Essentials can be accessed instantly on your phone or tablet! Save up to 45% PRINT PLUS FREE DIGITAL ACCESS • Six months of the print edition • No-hassle home delivery • Pay less…

Over the past three years, creatives working in video games have been relentlessly battered by wave after wave of industry lay-offs, with tens of thousands of people losing their jobs. There are multiple reasons behind it: overhiring when demand for entertainment spiked during covid, a preference for investing in AI, and the global economic slowdown are just a few. It’s a complex picture, but one thing’s clear: it’s tough to be an artist working in games right now. Sandra Duchiewicz, a character and creature concept art specialist, is working as a freelancer. She describes the situation as “bleak”: there are fewer projects to work on, budgets and therefore pay are lower, and there’s a much larger pool of other artists competing for the same work. “It’s still doable, but only…

Having worked on projects such as The Last of Us and Cyberpunk 2077, Maciej Kuciara is proof that artists don’t need to attend expensive, prestigious schools to make it big in the industry. We caught up with him to hear how he developed his skills with rigorous discipline, what artists need to keep in mind if they want to improve, and the secret to keeping work and life in balance. Please tell us a little about your background as an artist. How did you get started, and what has your career been like so far? I’m a Polish-born artist and director who grew up on 90s VHS tapes and anime. I began as a self-taught artist in 2003 and landed my first concept art job in 2004 at People Can…

This image was part of a community concept art challenge I created for my members on Patreon. Here you’ll see a method I use regularly in my professional work to quickly iterate and refine ideas, which can be helpful in a production setting. I’ll show my design process that involves developing a standalone architectural concept, which is useful for the creation of video game assets. I’ll then produce a final mood illustration to show the design in the context of its environment. This helps with the story, the atmosphere and tone of the location, and – in a studio setting – hopefully inspires the rest of the team by showing them a clear vision we can all work toward. 1 Visualising an idea I sit down and open Photoshop with nothing…

Price £190/$240 Company XPPen Web www.xppenen.com The third generation of the XPPen Artist 12 arrives as a subtle but meaningful evolution in the brand’s affordable pen display range. It’s the first model to ship with XPPen’s new X4 Smart Chip Stylus, together with a complete redesign that promises faster response, tighter precision and a lighter touch. Paired with a slimmer, magnetically equipped tablet body, XPPen has seemingly studied its higher-end competitors, such as Wacom’s Cintiq Pro and Huion’s Kamvas Pro, and reimagined them for hobbyists and students who want pro-grade drawing at a more accessible price. XPPen has been generous with what’s included. Alongside the 11.9-inch drawing display, you’ll find the new X4 Smart Chip Stylus, 10 spare nibs, a nib replacement tool, a glove, a cleaning cloth, and, importantly,…

Price £599.99/$729.99 Company BenQ Web www.benq.com The BenQ MA320U is one of the best graphic design monitors we’ve come across. Purpose-built for Mac users, this 32-inch, 4K display delivers perfectly matched colour reproduction through BenQ’s Mac Color-Tuning Technology, while its USB-C connectivity will help keep your workspace clean and cable-free. It’s ideal for those who divide their time between creative projects and everyday productivity. The monitor combines vibrant visuals with intuitive Display Pilot 2 controls, enabling smooth integration with your computer’s keyboard (we tested the MA320U with a MacBook). The ergonomic stand is well thought out. It offers height adjustment, tilt, swivel and a full 90-degree pivot. The screen is also a joy to work on. Its anti-reflective and anti-glare coating makes a huge difference if you’re working in a…

Organic Elements Artist True Grit Software Procreate & Photoshop Brushes 47 Price $12 Rating Another great selection from True Grit of natural textures such as leaves, grasses, trees and shrubs. The Photoshop pack comes with the most assets, but the number of brushes is the same no matter which program you use. http://bit.ly/4nyjoSu Fine Liner Brush & Pattern Tool Kit Artist Artifex Forge Software Affinity Designer Brushes 53 Price $24 Rating A great set of brushes and patterns that enable a classic ink-and-line style and enhance the already strong drawing tools in Affinity Designer. For the value offered, the price is great as well.  http://bit.ly/4hAnKaf Environment Brushes for Photoshop & Procreate – Landscape Painting Tools Artist Maddy Bellwoar Software Procreate & Photoshop Brushes 128 Price £15.66 Rating A huge selection…