Art History Week with Cryptid-Creations

Hi Cryptid-Creations! How long have you been doing your art? How did you start?

Hi, my name is Piper Thibodeau. I've always been interested in art ever since I was a child, I was a compulsive doodler, but I started to really focus my energy on it about 5 years ago. The kind of art that I focus on career-wise is character designing and visual development art --basically the pre-production stage of animated films and games.

What do you know about the origins of your art genre?

I've yet to work in a studio myself, but from my understanding so far --preproduction art is vital to these industries both because it gives a scope into the project's budget and it allows the team to visualize their ideas before it hits the shelves or cinema. A lot of it needs to be fast and unpolished because ideas quite often get recycled. There's hundreds of scrapped character designs and paintings that don't make the final cut, which is vital when it comes to honing in on an idea.

How much do you think that the roots and origins of Art affect what we create today?

If the master artists before our time didn't figure out the fundamentals for us in the present, our knowledge on the subject would be very limited today. Which is not unlike the evolution of science over the years

It's thanks to them evolving the medium that we understand perspective, color theory etc.

Which artists have influenced you the most?

I'm influenced by the work of other preproduction artists in the field, like Ryan Lang, Tom Bancroft and Nico Marlet to name a few.

In your opinion, what is the most iconic piece of art of all time?

I consider some animated films to be a collective piece of art. Like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke for instance.

Are there Art Movements or specific Artists that you are knowledgeable about, even if they are not your chosen genre of art to create?

I really love and admire Brian Froud's work, he is a fantasy illustrator who has done work on films such as Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. I love how distinct his style is, and the way he gives such character to his goblins and trolls.

What’s the future for your Art Genre?

Hopefully, there will still be jobs for 2D preproduction artists in the future and 3D won't take over the entire pipeline. That is not to say that 3D methods are a bad thing in the least, but I very much enjoy how even with CG films, you'll have so much drawn work done on the preprod side that it gives a 2D aesthetic to the final result. Check out the concept art from Tangled to see what I mean.

Thank you Cryptid-Creations!

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