Thanks to the amazing support of the Urbance community through the Kickstarter campaign, the Urbance pilot was green-lighted for production in January 2015. The pilot was produced in 9 months between Canada, Japan and France, and ended in September 2015. It was a blessing and a wonderful first experience to work with such an amazing and talented team of artists from all around the world. Yapiko Animation did an incredible animation job, which was led by Hiroshi Shimizu (Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke). On the other hand, the original soundtrack was created by PLAID, a talented duo from UK, as well as many other brilliant music composers: The Tanuki Project, B.Ames and High Klassified. Each one of them instinctively mixed up our vision with their unique color. Lastly, Total casting, Spacesheep and Hifi-Génie also contributed into making this pilot a success. Up until now, the screening was restricted to kickstarter backers and festivals only. We are very happy to finally share the pilot with you.

Enjoy the Watch!

Countries of production : Canada, France | Year of production : 2015
Production : Steambot, DFP | Animation: Yapiko Animation
Direction : Joël Dos Reis Viegas, Sébastien Larroudé
Music : Plaid, The Tanuki Project, B.Ames, High Klassified

Visual ID : 123 Klan
Main voices: Ryan George, Vanessa Hasid, Ben Cardilli, Marie Nonnemacher

FX/Compositing : Spacesheep | Sound : Total Casting, Hifi-Génie

The post WATCH URBANCE PILOT NOW! appeared first on Steambot.

From my experience , being versatile and curious,  always experimenting new techniques is the best way to improve your pipeline of production, increase the quality of your artwork and escape from the routine.

3D is a powerful tool to add tou your asernal, and the best thing to do is :

Test new softwares, some are expensive , some are free , you can also download trial versions before to buy.

My choices :

3D Studio max from Discreet , the most common 3D software , used in almost every videogame company  ( perfect do the link between the concept department  and the 3D level art/design) 3DS Max is a versatile software , you can do everything with it : modeling , texture , animation etc…

Alternative choice : Modo, powerfull and easy-to-use , Modo is also a very good software inculding a different philosophy from 3D Studio , It’s up to you to try both of them and choose your favorite.

Google Sketchup is perfect for a beginner , you can find a lot of people using Sketchup in the movie industry nowadays . Another good thing , you can access to the Google database to download FREE 3D model of various buildings and places around the world ( for ex : Las Vegas casino , the Empire State building etc)

Sculptris  from Pixologic: From the creators of Zbrush , Sculptris is a free 3D virtual sculpting program , intuitive and simple to use , it’s a good introduction to the character and creatures 3D sculpting tool.

If you want to sculpt without going through months of tutorials, especially as a concept designer who just wants to create a rough shape before painting on top in Photoshop , you should go with Sculptris. For an alternative and advanced sculpting software, go with Zbrush or  Mudbox.

3D is a powerfull tool for any concept artist , your production pipeline will be faster , oriented toward production and you will gain in quality VS time.

Sure it’s a bit longer at the beginning of the production, creating your objects, building after buildings , but when you will have a certain amount of them , you will generate mood , vista and matte painting like a machine !

Your artistic director wants a different point of view ? no problem , change the camera angle , go behind your buildings , render and start another concept ! you will gain so much time and always be consistent with your quality and style.

3D is also a good and different way to play with shapes, do industrial design , experimenting crazy shapes and rendering, the good thing is that you can show a preview of your work , with just simple primitive shapes and lighting. It will improve your rendering , when you get alpha channel through renders , you gain some much time with your selections in photoshop.

3D is a great tool for concept artist , but a tool need to serve you , but if you start to spend too much time on your 3D , doing to many useless modeling work , spending time on details that you could paint with photoshop it’s the “darkside” !

In my point of view you need to spend maximum one or two days on your 3D , beyond this limit you losing time with your pipeline , try to do low res with more texture work rather than doing every chamfer of your model !

If you want to see how the 3d can be linked with concept : check our video at Steambot

Try many softwares , experiment things  ,be versatile and try to always have fun but keep in mind a good and effective pipeline of work is essential in our job !

Nicolas Ferrand

The post Add 3D to your pipeline: introduction appeared first on Steambot.

This 168 pages artbook covers 3 complete years of Research and Development, featuring tons of concept art, background design, backstory and animation keyframes I’ve created with Florent Auguy, 123Klan and the Steambot steam. For the very first time, Sébastien, Florent and myself open up about the creative sparkle around Urbance. You will know everything about the backstory, how Urbance started. In every single page we share our experience and motivation to achieve such as unique vision despite its off-format nature and edgy originality. You will learn about Neo-city, the gangs, the gang members themselves but also how they came to life trhough tons of sketches and animation keyframes.

The quality of the print is gorgeous and the colors have never been that flashy on quality paper; the use of acid and neon Pentone ink colors for the cover immediately gives an electric feel at the tip of your fingers. in my opinion, Genesis of Urbance is a book-to-have for animation lovers and inspired artists. Don’t miss it!

The post The Genesis of Urbance Artbook is out! appeared first on Steambot.

Why 2D? Why Live action? Technically speaking, obviously create 2d and 3d cameras is very powerful because there is no limit, unlike a real camera. But the choice of the media by type of story to tell must be perfectly symbiotic. We can say the Kon pencil hollow lesser wake of our society and its stigmas. In view of what is happening in our societies and our behaviors towards the many problems that will have us resolve very quickly, I wonder what he would have produced? What would he have sought to tell us? How could he see that? What would he have done? I would never have the answers, but I read and see his work without getting tired and every reading I find something hidden that I had not seen or had not over.Too me is work stay essentially anthropological but his eyes still full of poetry.

The post Satoshi Kon : obsession, delusion, psychic exploration appeared first on Steambot.

I drew this Dark Vador the day I went to watch the new Star war at the movies…

You can download it here on Steambot’s vimeo

Tell us what you think in the comments box below.

Have a good one!

The post Dark Vador / Speed painting appeared first on Steambot.

The Rocky brushes 01, is a combination of brushes which will always keep you inspired when needing to create and design epic elements to your paintings.
The zip file includes a .abr file with 30 professional brushes + a step by step PSD.
Please check on the Steambot Facebook the speedpainting video for a short demonstration.
Thank you!

The post Rocky Brushes Demo appeared first on Steambot.