Creating CRZ Fanart With Anton Dirkin
With nearly seven days til the end of Public Voting for the Toysrevil X AtomicMushroomToys' CRZ FANART CONTEST, I'd had a quickie Q&A with illustrator Anton Dirkin - the Winner for Judge's Pick - CLICK THRU ... meanwhile , GO VOTE for your fav submission for 4 Finalists to win a Combat-R-Zero vinyl robot of their own choice :)TOYSREVIL: What was the genesis of your submission, Anton? How did you arrive at the final image? And what is your creation process like?
ANTON DIRKIN: I had a few ideas to begin with, an urban battle scene with spectators cheering for CRZ on roof tops. Using the image also as a billboard with "Visit Tokyo" or "Welcome to Tokyo" as the headline. Still I didn't think I nailed the "fan" aspect, so after a few more sketches I settled on having this kid in his room surrounded by posters, toys etc. and then with all this around him we see him lying awake day dreaming about CRZ. The image of a giant CRZ peering in through the window was something I thought would contrast with his room, plus that empty space needed something. Its quite easy to get let your imagination carry away and think of loads of ideas and that was a lot of fun but as I also had other commitments that needed my attention. Eventually I had to nail the fan idea quickly and I felt happy with what I had with the kids room concept.
ANTON DIRKIN: I would say the kid day dreaming (wasting his day inside instead of enjoying the sunny weather outside!) reminded me a bit of myself. So to a degree this has a lot more personal meaning to me. In my case I was a big Gigantor fan, in my day there wasnt much merch or toys of Gigantor about as there is today, I had this cool tee shirt and the b/w tv series and that for me at the time was enough; not that I wouldnt say no to having more!
TOYSREVIL: Describe the process of achieving your final image.
*Pencil on paper, black fine liner. The drawing was done in the same sketch book I used for the roughs.
*Scanned and photo shop colors.
*Levels to cleanup the drawing, multiply layer on top for colors. I eventually reduced the opacity of the color layer
*Flattened the image then added a color to set a slightly more warmer overall tone.
I had thought about using watercolors and perhaps that would have resulted in a more interesting image. So I tried to down play the photoshop so that it would suit the line work.
TOYSREVIL: Cheers for sharing, Anton ... What do you do, Anton? Are you a full-time illustrator? And what's up next for you?
ANTON DIRKIN: Contract work for an animation studio in Vancouver as a designer. Outside of that I always have projects on the go; freelance and projects I do for myself. Currently I'm developing on a book/comic (which is more of a personal project) with the possibility of going down the self publishing route, I'm quite a long way from that though. In amongst that I also do lot of sketches and doodles which I throw up on my blog, http://bigmaow.blogspot.com. This blog (a new one as the older one was accidently deleted) acts more as digital sketch book for me. I like to put drawings up there so I can see a lot of things at a glance.
I also have a flickr account @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/anton_dirkin/sets/ which is more formal and work orientated to show clients, though it's in real need of some updates and some other changes.
Presently I'm working on some illustrations for my sister and her publishing company.
TOYSREVIL: Cheers for your time and congrats again on the win! Any final words for everyone? Especially aspiring artists/illustrators?
ANTON DIRKIN: Draw, draw and draw some more! Seriously though I'm still discovering new things after some 15 + years in commercial art. Its sometimes hard to find your "voice" but thats what makes it all that more challenging and rewarding.
I would hasten to mention to anyone to be open to all styles and forms of illustration, design and media.
Whatever feedback you get try to learn something from it, whether its a different approach to showing off your work or polishing your style a bit more to suit a market or niche.
Always be open to learning from anyone, whether they're older or younger and from those not in the business per se.
