Artist Interview 4 of 6: Manu Kongolo

Manu Kongolo, a self-taught Illustrator, was interviewed in July while attending the Artist Booth hosted by LegionInk, held at the yearly ICON Comics & Games Convention.

In short, Manu was inspired by the Ninja Turtles and Marios Bros. He draws as often as able and says: "Keep practicing". Watch his interview for the full story and to see some more of his artworks:

Visit him online:
facebook.com/manu.kongolo
behance.net/manukongolo

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Prefer to read the interview? Here it is below but we’d still appreciate it if you could go and like the video or subscribe to our YouTube Channel.

Manu Interview Transcribed

Chop Gear: Is this a hobby or main line of business?

Manu Kongolo: I'd say it's my life. I mean I do this everyday, all the time.

CG: How long have you been an artist?

MK:  25 years.

CG: Did you study this field or are you self-taught?

MK: I'm a self-taught artist. Yes I did study to draw. I asked artists, just the basics and I took it from there. There was a lot of trial and error, obviously.

CG: How much time do you spend refining your skill?

MK: Everyday I draw but it's varied form 4-5 hours everyday, depending on the mood, obviously that is...

CG: What inspired you to become an artist?

MK: The Ninja Turtles and Asterix Comic books. Super Mario games, basically.

CG: Tips and encouragement for aspiring artists?

MK: Learn how to draw, ask a lot of questions, don't be afraid to learn. Keep practicing, basically. That's it.

End.

- Writer: NinJaForge

Artist Interview 3 of 6: Warren Louw

Warren Louw, Character Designer and Concept Artist, was interviewed in July while attending the Artist Booth hosted by LegionInk, held at the yearly ICON Comics & Games Convention.

In short, Warren says do what you love! Watch his interview for the full story and to see some of his artwork:

Here are more art pieces she’s done (not featured in the video):

Visit him online:
facebook.com/artofwarrenlouw
warrenlouw.deviantart.com
warrenlouw.com

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Prefer to read the interview? Here it is below but we’d still appreciate it if you could go and like the video or subscribe to our YouTube page.

Warren Interview Transcribed

My name’s Warren Louw and I'm pretty much a character designer and concept artist.

Chop Gear: Is this a hobby or main line of business?

Warren: Ah, I think it’s a bit of both but ja, I've pretty much managed to make this .. turn it into a job.

CG: How long have you been an artist?

W:  Oh, I've been drawing my whole life but I pretty much only went digital in 2004.

CG: Did you study this field or are you self-taught?

W: Um, I'm self-taught. I mean I did go to the National School of the Arts but, they don't really teach you much there so you pretty much have to really, you know, teach yourself. So it's basically the thing that really helped me there was the competition between the students, which was my biggest drive at the time.

CG: How much time do you spend refining your skill?

W: A lot more these days. I spend a lot of my time doing warm-ups and studies before I actually get to my more serious work, if it's either for myself or for a client. These days I'm going more for the fundamentals so I'm making that whole sort of practice more of my everyday practice.

CG: What inspired you to become an artist?

W: I guess I'm a very visual person and also with art running in my family, my mother being a bit of an artist, my father can draw but his father was quite the artist back in his day. So basically, having that is part of my family which is easy to catch on to. I pretty much drew from there.

CG: Tips and encouragement for aspiring artists?

W: I would say do what you love. Um, I think one of the hardest things that we actually get caught up in is being or think we need to be doing what is very popular in the spotlight and thinking we need to keep up with all the other artists out there and, you know, how much they produce art and how well they produce art and trying to think you need to keep up with all that - but seriously, do what you do and do it how you love to do it instead of thinking that you need to be what everyone else is trying to be. Do what you love most as the priority and follow that path forward, and that will start growing into more of how you want your art life to be. 

End.

- Writer: NinJaForge

Artist Interview 2 of 6: Greg Nell

Greg Nell, a self-taught Illustrator, was interviewed in July while attending the Artist Booth hosted by LegionInk, held at the yearly ICON Comics & Games Convention.

In short, Greg got into drawing since he felt like he didn’t really have other lucrative skills. Watch his interview for the full story and to see some of his artworks:

Visit him online:
Twitter.com/GregJNell
Gregjnell.tumblr.com
andotherstories.com

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Prefer to read the interview? Here it is below but we’d still appreciate it if you could go and like the video or subscribe to our YouTube page.

Greg Interview Transcribed

Oh hi, I’m Greg Nell, I’m an illustrator.

Chop Gear: Is this a hobby or main line of business?

Greg: This is my profession…as it is.

CG: How long have you been an artist?

GN:  Professionally, the last 2 or 3 years. I’ve been drawing pretty much since I was about 5.

CG: Did you study this field or are you self-taught?

GN: Combination of the two. I did go to Fine Arts, I did fine arts at varsity but a lot of skills I got are self-taught.

CG: How much time do you spend refining your skill?

GN: Ah, not as much as I should. But I should draw more.

CG: What inspired you to become an artist?

GN: An inability to do anything else good. Haha, it’s true, it’s like I have only one discernible skill, it’s this, and shouting.

CG: Tips and encouragement for aspiring artists?

GN: Live drawing, man. Do life drawing every day. Yeah, that too – practice.

End.

- Writer: NinJaForge

Artist Interview 1 of 6: Kim Bussiahn

Kim Bussiahn, Illustrator and Animator, was interviewed in July while attending the Artist Booth hosted by LegionInk, held at the yearly ICON Comics & Games Convention.

In short, Kim was inspired to follow the arts from watching cartoons as a child. She draws for enjoyment and see’s herself remaining in the artistic field indefinitely. Watch her interview for the full story and to see some of her artworks:

Here are more art pieces she’s done (not featured in the video):

Visit her online:
Facebook: Kim-Bussiahn-Animation-in-Suspension
Kitty-cat-angel.tumblr.com
Kitty-cat-angel.deviantart.com

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Prefer to read the interview? Here it is below but we’d still appreciate it if you could go and like the video or subscribe to our YouTube page.

Kim Interview Transcribed

My name’s Kim and my skills are illustrations and animation, mostly.

Chop Gear: Is this a hobby or main line of business?

Kim: It’s a bit of both. It’s basically the industry I work in and I teach in so I guess it’s my main business, and I would continue working in the industry if I had to change jobs.

CG: How long have you been an artist?

K:  Oh man, forever. How long have I been selling? I think I started doing commissions when I was 16 but I’ve only started doing tables for the last 5 years or so.

CG: Did you study this field or are you self-taught?

K: I’m self-taught. Yeah, mostly.

CG: How much time do you spend refining your skill?

K: Not enough actually, to be honest. I usually just draw to make me feel happy and that automatically refines my skill. I should actually spend more time doing studies and stuff. But yes, most of the time I’m just doing it for fun and then is automatically improves.

CG: What inspired you to become an artist?

K: Cartoons mostly. I just watched cartoons when I was little and I’m like ‘I want to do that’, and that was it really.

CG: Tips and encouragement for aspiring artists?

K: Work hard. I know that’s kind of hypocritical because I should work harder but I know for a fact ta working hard will get you further than just plain talent.

End.

- Writer: NinJaForge

Playing Minecraft and Surviving Day 1

For years I looked at Minecraft and thought that is was just too blocky and uninteresting. I couldn’t understand why people made such a big fuss over it. Finally, one day I bought a copy and when I played my first game, it just ‘clicked’.

It’s such a creative game and the various spawned worlds are so interesting, I’ve spent hours just trying out different seeds (a unique number used to spawn worlds) and flying around exploring. Strangely enough, the best part for me is starting a new game and surviving my first few nights.  I’m not really and end-game player, I prefer the journey.

There’s a lot of hype about this game, and for good reason. The single player aspect leaves you to carve out the world you envision. Explore what seems like endless terrain, build structures galore, mine resources and create your utopia. The multi-player aspect is just as fun. Play locally with friends or join an existing server and play with strangers. Co-operate to create huge towns and settlements and even some strange structures like Egyptian pyramid replicas, the Eifel tower or anything you can imagine.

There are different modes to play in. The most common is ‘Survival Mode’ wherein you have to stay alive by avoiding or slaying monsters while finding food and shelter. Other modes include ‘Creative Mode’ which is a god-like mode and allows you to fly around, build anything and not have to worry about monsters, food or shelter. This mode is great for getting creative with some building or map designs.

Yes, you can create your own custom maps. There are several sites dedicated to this by offering how-to guides and downloadable maps made by other users. You can also find custom skins for your avatar such as this Lara Croft skin I’m using which I found on this site: http://www.minecraftskins.net

You can even get custom texture packs to make the game look and feel to whatever works for you.  I’ve found some realistic looking texture packs but they are heavy on system resources. Also, I found that a clean texture is better than a busy realistic one, but that’s just my preference. You can find free downloadable texture packs and guides on how to install them from various sites. I’m using the Soartex Fanver Pack. Also try this site for a start: minecrafttexturepacks.com

Don’t want to give away too much. Part of the fun is discovering things for yourself. I highly recommend that, if you haven’t already, go and get this game!

If you are new to the game, check out my ‘Surviving Day 1’ video which covers the basics of what you need to make it through your first night.

Let me know what you think of this game and if you’d like to see a follow-up video.

For more game and geek related videos, check out our channel!

- Writer: NinJaForge

The magic is gone, but not forgotten.

It’s not in my nature to be negative about things, but it’s also not in my nature to lie about things. Thus, I am left with a bittersweet feeling about E3.

E3 used to great, in fact, it used to be fantastic! It slowly degraded into what we see today due to corporate greed. EA, Ubisoft, Square-Enix, Sony, Nintendo, Konami and other triple-A publishers have become so desperate for profit that they have lost sight of what it means to be in game development. It’s no secret how low these companies are willing to go to exploit money from their consumers. They have simply lost their magic.

That doesn’t mean the show’s terrible, but it used to have a lot more weight. When a publisher announced a new title to an eager audience it meant they were almost done with it and it would release soon (usually within just a few months). Others would announce their game and release it on the same day causing consumers to almost weep with joy, but what do we have now?

“Insert Game Name Here”: Now in Development

And it gets worse; we barely see gameplay these days. Cinematics cloud the sky and saturate the show, leaving me feeling empty. I want to be excited, I really do, but how can I when all we get shown is something that is scripted and not in any way representative of the game’s final gameplay. In what Universe is it acceptable to show a game without any gameplay? It’s absolute nonsense and I have a lot more respect for the publishers who actually show us some gameplay, but I do feel like they might be lying to us. The gameplay we’ve seen so far seems pretty scripted as well. Horizon: Zero Dawn looks amazing, but I can’t shake the feeling that the final game won’t play anything like what we saw. Hope I’m wrong.

What’s more, when these games finally DO get released they are husks of what they were trying to be. Publishers are putting less effort than ever before into what makes games great and instead flood us with DLCs and ‘graphics’. They seem to think that we only care about graphical advancement and ‘content’. A basic rule of game development is to make your mechanic first and make it work beautifully with ugly graphics, but publishers seem to believe in the opposite.

To top it off, we get shown a cinematic trailer for a game and it immediately becomes available for pre-order... I’m sorry, what? You want me to pay 60 dollars for a product that I don’t have any clue as to what it will play like? How stupid do you think I am? Well, they seem to think I’m pretty stupid because their hype tactics seem to be working. People still fall for it and sales are being made. It’s not just sad, it’s soul crushing.

The magic is gone, but it is not dead. There are many developers who still know how to make great games and I’m confident that we’ll see more great games in the future, whether it was announced at E3 or not.

People have accused me of disliking E3 and then getting lost in the hype of all the ‘game talk’, but that’s not true - I get excited for games. The fact that they were announced at E3 makes no difference. We don’t need the show, we just need the games. So what is E3 if there are no playable games or (at the very least) a promise of gameplay in the immediate future?

The answer is: A really fancy place you go to talk about games and nothing else.

- Writer: Day
(Guest Blogger)