2D, or not 2D?

I’ve been a professional concept artist for a year now, and have been buying ImagineFX on and off for years. I still find your workshops are full of great tips for digital artists, but I have noticed one thing that’s a little lacking: 3D workshops!

I think these days it’s becoming more expected in the industry that digital artists have not only 2D skills, but also 3D. I’m no stranger to free 3D software packages like SketchUp, but I’d like to see tutorials that bridge the gap between the two dimensions.

Iwan Turner, via email

Beren replies This is a timely email, because the subject has been on the ImagineFX team’s collective brain for a while. Short answer: we do it already! We’ve had a series of single page ‘Core Skills’ tutorials on SketchUp (see issues 109-116), and this issue’s workshops by Josh Viers and Feng Zhu follow initial steps in 3D and further work in Photoshop to create mega concept art. No doubt, we can, and possibly will, incorporate more 3D elements into the magazine (for example, in the Q& A section), but be sure to check out past issues for some dynamite 2D/3D bangers, notably in issues 126 (Brian Matyas uses SketchUp) and 125 (Matt Kohr takes on Blender).

This moody concept piece was created by Brian Matyas, who used SketchUp to compose and light the scene.