Table of contents for Xmas 2024 in ImagineFX

We published our very first Sketchbook Special in January 2023, and so many of you told us you loved it that we just had to do it all over again! The art community is awash with amazing talent and jaw-dropping artwork, but there’s often a process involved in getting to that final piece. That can be the initial thoughts put on paper, a work in progress, or simply practice to retain and build muscle memory, line confidence and so on. This doesn’t often get seen or appreciated, but it can be fascinating to view. That’s why we reached out to a variety of incredible artists from across the industry, asking them to share some of their sketchbooks and explain a little about these more personal pages. Being inspired and motivated…

“I create key art moments now and then just to see what new ideas I could generate” “I love testing out new artistic recipes in my sketches” Artist PROFILE Björn Hurri LOCATION: England Björn Hurri is a veteran entertainment industry artist with more than 150 published titles over 20 years. He is currently an art director and lead artist for an outsourcing company called Opus Artz. Björn has been educating artists for over 10 years on a wide variety of educational platforms and in hundreds of workshops across Europe. As an advocate for daily sketching, he has been making a daily one-hour sketch on his Discord channel for eight years. www.artstation.com/bjornhurri…

“The gestural line work evokes fluidity, which works well for concept ideation” Artist PROFILE Stuart Kim LOCATION: US Stuart is a principal concept artist at Amazon Games. He mainly uses digital tools, but loves creating a traditional look in his work and enjoys using a variety of techniques to bring a sketched quality to his art. Before working in the video games industry, Stuart began his art career as a graphic designer. www.artstation.com/stukim…

“I consider what the entire print will look like in someone’s hands” “I love to use a pencil brush to sketch just like I do on paper, with messy, quick lines” Artist PROFILE Natalie Andrewson LOCATION: US Natalie is an illustrator, comic artist and risograph printmaker who lives in Los Angeles. Growing up, she loved the woods and all things wild in the mountains, and now enjoys exploring waterfall trails. She has worked with a range of clients including Apple TV+, Wizards of the Coast, Disney and First Second Books, and always seeks to bring a touch of fantasy into the world. Natalie also produces fantasy-themed risograph prints each month for her subscribers. https://natalie-andrewson.com…

“I wanted to appreciate Alien, but throw an African twist into the design” Artist PROFILE Omar Gomet LOCATION: US Omar Gomet is a visual development artist and character designer in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has previously worked with Marvel Studios Animation and multiple independent projects where he was among the creative teams developing character concepts. Omar works on designing and assisting the character concepts for movies, shorts or television shows, currently focusing on original characters for short films that emphasise greater diversity. With a love for classic action and science fiction movies, he is passionate about finding cool ways to implement these ideas into his creative process. https://bit.ly/4dJx0FO…

“Living by the sea, every time I go there I take a moment to observe and study what’s around me” “Exploration is my favourite step of the creative process as it makes my mind feel so free” Artist PROFILE Lucia Parvolo LOCATION: Italy Lucia is a freelance visual development and character design artist. She has always loved drawing and realised it could be her job after she started sketching to free her mind. Lucia began her career in 2D animation, which proved a significant influence on the flow of her line work. She later decided to focus on pre-production art because of her love for building personality and credibility in her characters. In her spare time, Lucia also loves to paint with gouache and take care of her many plants.…

1 Draw enough to communicate your ideas clearly Basic drawing skills are necessary. At the very least, the standing pose should be drawn naturally. 2 The character’s narrative When you see a character, it’s a good idea to make it possible to imagine their personality, as well as their past, present and future. When designing a character, think about why they need each specific design element. 3 Design direction A good design doesn’t necessarily include any unique elements. If all the elements that make up the character have a consistent direction, it’s a good design. If you’ve considered why any elements are needed for your character, you should utilise them with a singular goal in mind. 4 Good visibility Except in a few special cases, characters should be easy for…

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“I’ve been loving working traditionally lately… Even the mistakes feel valuable” Artist PROFILE Reka Harte LOCATION: US Reka is a comic artist, illustrator and designer from San Francisco. She started her career in game design and found a love for crafting stories and experiences that shift perspectives. Today, Reka runs a Discord community for other visionary artists, as well as creating zines, comics, fashion and videos to show her artistic process online and help inspire her fellow artists. https://rekaharte.com…

1 Start with the idea Having some idea early on always helps. It can be open and vague, and somewhere down the road you can even go in a different direction, but you don’t want to work randomly without any plan at all. The initial idea can be simple: depicting a warm sunset or covering most of the scene with deep blue shadows. When you have this idea, all the colour choices should support it, and you want to avoid everything that could weaken the landscape. 2 Organic construction Most of the forms found in landscapes are soft and organic. Because of that, you want to push and describe the form as much as possible. For example, when you’re painting the top of the tree, it can be just a…

“Figuring out how best to make a set amount of colours harmonise is fun” Artist PROFILE Charissa Curiel LOCATION: US Charissa is a freelance digital artist who loves painting portraits, colour studies and concept art. Her art journey began with traditional mediums in college, but she predominantly works in digital art now. Charissa has painted illustrations for tabletop RPGs, TCGs and artbooks. She also loves travelling, music from all over, gaming and crochet. www.charissacuriel.com…

“Displays at natural history museums are some of my best references” Artist PROFILE Sorie Kim LOCATION: US Sorie Kim is a Los Angeles-based artist and instructor who has taught courses for Domestika, Warner Bros. Discovery Access, Create Now, and more. She takes the majority of her inspiration from the natural world and loves to explore the balance between drawing from life and imagination in her sketches. www.instagram.com/soriekim…

“I make the best of what I have, even if it’s little information, poor drawing material or limited time” “When I’m sketching, I often add notes to explain the reason for a particular design choice” Artist PROFILE Jeremy Hoffman LOCATION: The Netherlands Jeremy is a character designer working in the animation industry. As a young child he always knew that drawing was part of him. In his artwork, Jeremy follows his heart in what he creates. He loves to tell stories with his vibrant array of character designs, and uses his creative freedom and inner child to explore new characters and dream up appropriate, original ideas. https://bit.ly/3ziB69L…

“The thing that I love most is travelling with my best friend and wife… I cherish this moment” Artist PROFILE Angela Sung LOCATION: US Angela is an art director at Sony Pictures Animation with a huge passion for visual development and traditional art. She also cofounded Warrior Painters and Warrior Art Camp. Alongside her role at Sony, Angela offers courses and workshops in background design and traditional and digital painting. She is dedicated to promoting artistry and education in the entertainment industry. www.instagram.com/angothemango…

“They manoeuvre and fight a lot like battleships during the Age of Discovery” “The most famous and distinctive stores in the small settlements are run by a light bulb family” Artist PROFILE Dolly Chris LOCATION: China Zhiyang Fu, also known as Dolly Chris, is an illustrator from China with a passion for sketching and cats. Over the past 14 years, his career has mainly been focused on creating concepts for characters and scenes, storyboards and illustration work, with plenty of stunning science fiction artwork to be found throughout his ingenuitive sketchbooks. https://chrisfzy.artstation.com…

This image showed me something I often see: having goals, moods and feelings that you want to depict makes future decisions much more manageable. I struggled quite a bit to finish this piece. It initially started as a study of a street, but then I thought it would be fun to bring in a few cherry trees. It was way more tricky to add them than I expected. After a few different tries, I realised that the best way would be to focus on just a single tree in the middle and paint the other ones in a loose, suggestive manner. For springtime, it makes sense to go with something much softer and suggestive rather than sharp corners and hard edges. So even though I wanted to paint them quite…

“Online art challenges can be a good source of inspiration” Artist PROFILE Braden May LOCATION: England A senior concept artist of eight years’ experience in the video games industry, Braden currently works at DPS Games. He grew up playing Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy and Halo, which explains his love of sci-fi’s many shapes and forms. www.artstation.com/bradenmay…

“I find the time to test on smaller, personal drawings without much pressure” “The goal is to go fast enough and capture the lives of the characters” Artist PROFILE Anthony Jean LOCATION: France Anthony is a comic and concept artist. He traded his job in the aeronautics industry for the life of an artist and studied in Lyon, where he fell in love with the artwork of Mike Mignola, Bill Sienkiewicz, Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane. He has since worked for a variety of companies, including a role as reference artist for Monolith and DC Comics board game Batman: Gotham City Chronicles. www.instagram.com/anthonyjeanart…

“Under the cosmos, a young dreamer gazes up in awe as vibrant hues paint the sky” Artist PROFILE Geizi Guevara LOCATION: US LA-based Geizi is an illustrator and designer with over 16 years of experience in the creative industry. Specialising in illustration, graphic design and creative direction, he’s skilled in digital art using the latest software, as well as traditional media. Geizi is inspired by the ever-changing environment of the design world and strives to create work that will inspire others. www.instagram.com/ggkoncepts…

Freelance artist Kyounghwan Kim is known for creating genre-spanning characters incorporating just about everything from spacesuits to medieval armour and animals. In his recently released character concept art class, Kyounghwan breaks down how he works, and we decided to catch up with him to learn more about his career, what it takes to be a concept artist, and why sketchbooks are still valuable in the digital age. 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 won the grand prize in a game character contest hosted by Nexon back in 2003. Starting with that award, from 2006 until now I’ve been a game character concept artist. I’m currently working as a freelancer and also…

“The knight embodies a blend of fantasy and reality, paying tribute to Amano’s timeless influence” “The towering blades tell tales of forgotten heroes…” Artist PROFILE Reza Afshar LOCATION: Türkiye A freelance concept artist and illustrator, Reza has more than 10 years of professional experience to his name. Specialising in landscape and environment design, he draws inspiration mainly from nature. Over the years, he has worked on a wide range of projects including video games, board games and cover art, making him a sought-after artist in the entertainment and publishing worlds. www.instagram.com/rezaa_afsharr…