1) How Have you been lately?

Pretty good actually. Been working a lot lately on storyboard work for TV commercials here in South Africa. Yup, thats something I do quite regularly strangely enough… Otherwise, Ive just been doing my own art and trying to fit in time to do everything that doesn’t include a computer screen.

2) What actually got you into this kind of Art Form?

Well I guess it all really started when I got into Final Fantasy back in 1999, and was really inspired by the style of the character designer, Tetsuya Nomura with FF VIII. Back then all I could ever do was just copy pretty much everything I came across. I couldn’t draw people out of my head for the life of me. I then reached my last year of high school in 2003 and realized I wasn’t going to and didnt want to make a living from just copying, so with my love of FF, I decided I wanted to be a character designer just like Nomura. So after much more copying and studying of Nomuras work and other comic artists I started to slowly draw my own “original” characters. As the years went on after discovering more artists, studying realism and opening up and expanding to different styles I realized that I wanted to do much more than just be a character designer. So now here I am just freelancing and creating whatever art clients would like from me in whatever style they choose. All my experience together in art has helped me build the styles that I work with today.

3) Why not any other Art Form?

Well I do have a few different styles and techniques I use to create art, but I guess it boils down to personal preference at the end of the day really. All I want to do is create art that 1st of all makes me feel like Ive achieved something, shows me that Im moving forward and hopefully makes a connection with people all around the world. So the warm, soft style I work with, tries to achieve that and thats why I keep to it.

4) What inspired you at the start?, And what inspires you now?

As I said before, Tetsuya Nomura was the one that really got me motivated into trying to draw more from my imagination, and from there I came across other very talented artists like J. Scott Campbell, Takuji Kawano, Range Murata, Gil Elvgren, Adam Hughes and Shunya Yamashita. All these artists helped refine my understanding of certain areas of my own work, whether it was colour application, anatomy, facial construction, and various styles and techniques. Right now Im still inspired by them, but Ive been more driven by real life and the beauty within it lately… Pretty girls in particular. I do feel from a design point of view that the female form is way more versatile to work with compared to males in creating beauty with a clean, sleek, harmonious flow of lines, shapes and curves that are attractive to the eye, whether your a male or female viewer. At least thats how i see it anyway.

5) Do you consider anyone to be your role model in the Art you do today?

Hmm… Well Id say in terms of sheer quality and achievements, Adam Hughes is definitely an artist I look up to in a lot of ways. I would definitely love to reach those kind of levels one day in my own abilities.

6) What sparks the love for this Artist?

Firstly hes self taught just like I am, uses a mouse to colour his artwork just like I did, and has an exceptional eye for getting his details right and making sure he gets his woman looking gorgeous. Its just his technique, understanding and approach to artwork thats very inspirational, almost as though he’s been trained by an old master.

7) What did you start out with?, Did you jump straight into Paintings/Airbrushing, or did you start out with something else?

Well I’ve been drawing ever since I can remember, but from around the age of 8-9 till I reached 17-18, I focused on realism primarily, since I had and still have a love for detail and all the intriquicies realism holds, but also loved copying detailed comic art. I focused a lot on just working with pencils on paper. I used to hate using colour, because I didn’t know exactly how to go about it, and tonal pencils were just easier. I experimented with colour pencils here and there and then got introduced to oil paints which seemed to work out better than I thought in my early/mid teens. Still, all I could mostly do was just copy, then at the age of 18, getting ready for the world beyond high school (realizing I didnt want to just copy for the rest of my life), after studying enough realism including my favourite artists over the years from my last year of high school, I began to finally be able to draw out of my own head, but that was only after much hell and frustration. So I’ve come from using only natural mediums, to shifting to computer colouring (with a mouse) with scanned penciling, and now the majority of my work is fully digital (now with a wacom tablet).

Well, that is pretty much it for today, Do you have any secret’s to your Art?, Anyone you wish to mention also?, Any last advice, and last comments?

Id say everyone needs to be more aware of the benefits that copying can achieve in the early stages of developing a foundation to ones artistic abilities. I never copy anything directly anymore since its already served its purpose. Don’t let pride get in the way of the idea of copying. Its a great way to study and reverse-engineer any image to understand it better. A great artist should be able to copy anything if he/she has to. The same goes for using reference. I use reference for certain things, but only as guidelines, so if you need it to get the job done successfully, find some and use it!

Id also like to say that Im not the artist I am because Im artistically talented. Im that way because I have a crazy perfectionist side to me when it comes to many things (I think they like to call it OCD), a long with plenty patience, determination, and the drive to go that extra 10 miles, even when you dont need to. I can be pretty stubborn about how things should and shouldnt be, but I try isolate that to my artwork mostly. This is what drives my eye to find balance in composition, lighting and colour usage. From there everything will start falling into place and youll be able to begin to realize that theres a pattern hidden within everything, that nothing is random and everything is there for a reason… but you’ll be able to understand why.

Be sure to check out Warren Louw’s DeviantArt here.

http://warrenlouw.deviantart.com/