[ silence ] >> how's it going guys? cool, awesome, you guysare awake and stuff. nice. no, it's reallycool to be here. you know, i had a coupleof friends, i used to go to long beach like backin the day and they're in the art department and stuff. so it kind of-- you know, i usedto visit here, man, back in part like early 2000 and stuff.
so, it was quite a ways back. but anyway, john and i arereally happy to be here, and so yeah, we justwanted to come in and sort of share a little bit about whatwe do and sort of our passions, our background, andkind of how we got here. so, you know, onething that i know is that we're all creative people. and, you know, we're i allin this room for a reason. so seeing you guys, evenseeing some of the work that's
in the hallway isreally, really cool. and it kind of bringsus back, you know, we're just talkingabout this outside. it kind of brings us backinto like, oh my god, we remember being in thisexact sort of scenario, using the same typeof materials and stuff which is really,really cool to see. but john and i, you know, werepresent brainstorm school. and this is a sort of a--
[ inaudible remark ] oops. oh, there we go. all right. so yeah, we come from brainstormschool and what we really kind of focus on is conceptual art. and a lot of today, we kind of don't know whatconcept are really is as it's a very bigterm, you know. and so today, whatwe want talk about is
to inspire through design. and i know you guys haveprobably seen the flyers and stuff. and so, you know, we really wantto talk about what that means to us as conceptual designers in today's entertainmentdesign market. and so that's me and john. yeah, it's awesome. so when i was young,these are the things
that got me interested. i don't know how old you guysare or probably like 18 or 21, 22, something like that, right? yeah, more or less. >> forty. >> forty? super duper seniors. yeah. those are me too. awesome. but these were thethings that got me interested when i were young, youknow, when i was young.
as a kid, always drawing,playing, you know, watching, playing video games,just looking at cool art, comic books, playing with toys, and all of these stuff wasjust getting me excited. you know, i wasn'tnecessarily your studious type. i wasn't your academicexcellerant [phonetic], you know, person that would-- imean, and it didn't make sense. but, you know, person thatexcellerize [phonetic] in-- i make up my own words all thetime, excellerize in academics.
and that wasn't me, you know,and so it was really hard to sort of find myvoice, you know. and one of the thingsthat started to happen was i startedto build a passion. going back to the slide, ifwe've kind of just looked a lot of the things that encompasswhat got me really excited, it might be the samefor you guys, you know. and the same reasons why youguys are taking probably design classes or illustration classesor doing sculpture or, you know,
learning 3d tools or photoshop. that's all kind ofwithin this realm. and that's what got mereally excited, you know. and so, kind of goingthrough this, i started to really understandthat there was a market to learn this material,you know. there was a-- therewere schools out there to really help youfocus and sort of learn things aboutdesign, right?
things about function, digitalpainting, learning tools, learning how to representyour ideas and illustration, you know, the portrayal ofemotion and the portrayal of communicating astory and a narrative. those are, you know,things that we started to learn going back into school. and john and i bothcome from arts center. my background in particularis in illustration. i initially startedoff going to arts
and i'm thinking i was goingto be a gallery artist, doing oil paintings forgallery shows and i don't know. that was it. that was literally-- i hadno guidance at that point. and i remember sitting inthe cafeteria at arts center and looking through atmy friend's sketchbook which was this sketchbookof spaceships. i was like, "whatare you doing?" he said, "man, i'm freelancing.
this is stuff for-- i'mdoing for microsoft." and i was like, "what?" that is the coolestthing i've ever seen. i only thought you can drawthis when you're like 12 years and under, you know,robots and spaceships and stuff like that, you know. i said, "what the heck? and you're gettingpaid for this?" and it really started toconnect these dots, right?
and i started to inquire askingmore questions to teachers, to students and, you know,just the guys around me. you know, your network,your peer group. and i started to learn thata lot of these industries such as the video gameindustry, feature film, which also includes animation,and theme park design, not to mention a wholeslew of other industries that really revolvewithin the same space such as toy manufacturing,costumes,
you know, marketing material. marketing is huge, you know. you guys go in a best buyand you see the huge call of duty posters thatare everywhere. someone got to design all those. someone's got to paintall of those, you know. and they need artisteverywhere to kind of accomplish thosesorts of things. so now, it kind of comesto the idea of what are we?
we're concept designers, ok? and if we kind of look up andi know this is super academic and i was just telling you guys, i'm not the academicexcellerant. so, this kind of goes against mygrain, but we just kind of look at the ideas of conceptand design of what john andi do as a career. it encompasses tworeally important things. one is the idea ofthinking, right?
just the conceptual part of thattitle, it's all about it, right? it's about thinking. it's about coming up with ideas. it's about finding inspiration. and the second partis designing, right? we all love to designand whether we know it or not, we are all designers. it's just about reallykind of tapping into that designability within you.
and when we put the wordstogether, it's really to kind of start to create withpurpose with unique ideas, ok? and a lot of peopledo that, right? a lot of people cancommunicate new ideas and stuff, scripts, right, music, dance. but we're doing it throughthe language of arts, right? and so i'm going to starttalking about, a little bit about some of thatlanguage and how that starts to kind of come through.
so once i started to adapt andlearn some of these aspects, you know, the fundamentalways of drawing, fundamentals of design, you started tounderstand that you can start to design for the videogame industry, you know. build your illustration skills,your art skills, your ability to communicate veryquickly within line drawings or color paintings, developyour imagination and your sense of taste as a designer. you know, these arethings that really start
to definitely build up. and the coolest thingis that you get to create your own worlds. you get to be imaginative,right? you get to constantlycreate on a daily basis which to me never seemslike a day of work, right? i was, you know, i grewup in southern california. i grew up in glendale. i went to high schoolin glendale.
it wasn't art classes and, youknow, my parents, you know, i'm korean so, you know,any of asian people like the parents are like,"oh, yeah university. and, yeah, arts? no, not really, no, youmay be go engineering or be a doctor or something." i don't know. but obviously because of myexcellerating [phonetic], you know, academicperformance, you know, what--
that weren't reallywasn't the case, you know. but i know that withinfinding your passion, that's what really broughtme to kind of love what i do and that's what broughtup the hard work. you know what i mean? never one day, when i'm sittingin front of the computer, i'm drawing robots,i'm sketching out characters for,you know, new idea. it never ever doi sit and think,
"oh my god, my life sucks." you know, "i needa different job. i want to work on a bank." you're never going tobe in that situation which is very, very rewarding. so i'm just going to go througha couple of slides of some work. and, you know, definitelyfeel free to ask any questions about any of theimages that you see. but i'm going to talk aboutmy-- just brief history.
so coming from artscenter, again, i was in the illustration track. and we're studying, youknow, figure drawing. we're doing like still lifes,like drawing shoes, you know. what else did we draw? you know, like geo forms, right? you guys all do that stuff? and so all of that translation of fundamentals becamevery important
to actually do stufflike this, you know. and some of these slides,these are actual concept art for a different things frommovie illustrations, right? they're actually goingto be building out. this is what-- medievaltheme film project with-- oh, rob cowan[assumedspelling], there you go. some magic card, anyof you guys play magic? yeah. there's always some. this is a huge game.
it's awesome. yeah. you know. anyway, so coming from thefundamentals of illustration, that's-- it gave mesome of the tools to really be prepared, right? so that when imagination andwhen conceptual ideas start of getting push myway, i had something to actually communicate with. and that's why it wasreally, really important.
and so, at arts center,i started to learn some of those fundamentals. a lot of them being tounderstanding a form, understanding of light,colors, materials. and that's what really seguedinto going into learning more about concept design,conceptual design. soon after graduatingarts center, i quickly had to find a job, you know, as weall know, with student loans and things like thatjust really piling up.
i found a job workingwith an advertising. and the industry of advertisingis actually super huge. and there's a need fordesigners, graphic designers, illustrators, people thatdo-- that know how to-- you do flash, web designers, people that knowhow to do cinema 4d. there are so many jobs out therewithin this creative field. and so working in advertising,i found myself working within the game spaceand movies.
so i was designing movieposters and video game packages. as well as if you'relooking like game and form or the covers, the ads in there, those are thingsthat we're designing. and that was a lot of fun. it was really, really cool. you get to see your work beingprinted out on a monthly basis. but later, i startedto go, "man, i'm-- but i'm not designing."
you know? i'm not the guythat's creating the gears of war characters that i'mcreating ads for, you know. and that's what kind oflike bugged me a little bit, you know. so i started to work a littlebit harder on my own portfolio at home and at night, and started to puttogether a design portfolio to work more into video games. and so this is some of the workthat has been sort of compiled
up through the yearsof now working within that video game industry. at one point, i was at a companythat i thought was really, really, you know,the-- my goal, right? and that goal was to workat a topnotch game company, work with a good art director,good other concept artists, and just work on, you know,have fun all day long. luckily, i got to that goal. it was really cool.
but one thing that got messed up was the economy crashedreally bad around 2007, and that studio justkind of shut down. and so i was likeleft out of a job. i was like, "oh mygod, life sucks. i'm going to go back to abank or something," right? and so, "my god, that bankjob sounds actually kind of good now." but, you know, that passion,that part about, you know,
the first slide with playingtoys, games, video games, all that stuff was comingback to me again, you know. and it was a little saddening,you know, having that dream kind of be taken away, you know, just because of a badeconomy, you know. so what did i do? i just kept drawing, you know. i fed all of that energyinto my passion again. and so i started to createanother portfolio and started
to work more intothe freelance market. and that's when istarted my own company, my own studio, scribblepad studios. and at scribble pad,what we do is we do a lot of different designingfrom video games. this is somethingfrom titanfall. we also worked on gamesfrom like call of duty, medal of honor, infamous,gears of war, shoot, uncharted. the last? yeah.
anyway, there's a lot of gamesthat kind of been able to-- i've been fortunate to workon in the past few years. and we were also--what's kind of interesting about this industryright now, as well, is that with any video gamecomes a really cool movie, comes a cool animationseries, comes a cool toy brand, comes a cool t-shirt brand,you-- and so on and so forth. you guys know whati'm talking about. and even when disneybought out star wars,
immediately you'd see starwars branded stuff at petsmart. like chewbacca collarsand stuff. those-- i thought itwas the coolest thing. i bought some. yeah, i fell intothe hype totally. so that's what wasreally fun, you know. and, you know, you're alwaysgoing to hit your ups and downs and your dips, but that passion, that part about what gotyou guys excited about art
in the first place whenyou guys were young, it's probably still thesame reason why you guys are here today. and so, just want to showyou guys some of that path, you know, and showing you guysthat it's really about kind of being in thisspace of creativity, learning the fundamentalsof design, learning the fundamentalsof art, you know, listening to your teacherswhen they're saying, "hey, ok,
we're going to do a-- we're going to draw anapple today," you know. and you're like, "oh, man." but what ends uphappening is it translates into stuff like this, you know. and it translates into beingable to portray and show form in different contextand different ideas. so my forte is particularlywithin environment design. so what i work on mainly isi design out what the levels
and the environmentsthat you play in within a video game space. i also design a lotof music videos sets. also working with theme parkdesign, designing attractions, what do the actualrides look like, what does the entrancelook like, you know. so there's a lot of cool andinteresting things happening. this is some work that's kindof like my personal stuff that i do on the side.
it's like a little sideproject of doing just like world war ii inspiredillustrations and stuff. and so these are things thati just kind of do on the side to do fun stuff outsideof the fun work stuff. so it's just funand fun, you know. what can go wrong? and so yeah, one of the thingthat i kind of want to show-- and here are just some of theclients that i've been fortunate to work with overthe past few years.
and they range fromall different sorts of book publishers to gamecompanies to film companies. and so, the thing is, isthat this industry, right, the industry of this-- ofall these creative fields are in need of just good designers. you know of-- in needof people that know how to communicate good designwithin a realm of an image, within a realm of, you know,3d space within an animation. whatever it is, they'relooking for people with talent.
and right now guys, and,you know, i tell this a lot to my students is this isthe first time in our history that art and theprofessional world have met at this type of level, you know. so these are really, really cooland fortunate position to be in, that you guys are, you know,filling in that market. the video game market, when igraduated to art center in 2004, was an $8 billion market. it just eclipsed film.
now, it's a $65 billion market. it-- i don't know, mathpeople, it-- you know. holy cow, it got huge, right? so, you know, the market isgetting bigger and everything as you can tell is it's just agrowing market with video games, toys, and that sort of thing. and you guys playleague of legends and, you know, games like that. yeah. so there's all games that,you know, we get to work on,
you know, so it's really fun. so. yeah, definitely, you know. so one thing that ijust want to share with you guys isfollow your passion. you know, that passion,that vein that was just sort of being the backbone of kind of like the career pathwas just following that, following what you want to do.
the things that get youexcited in the movies that want to make you come back to artclass and draw them again. you know, that's the stuffthat's all right here that can really build, youknow, a really awesome career, you know, provide a lotof you know content. become very satisfiedwith what you can produce and we're always kind of pushingyour boundaries as a designer. so that's my bit right there. awesome. thanks, guys.
[ applause ] so cool. >> well, first off, thankyou for having us here. it's a thursday night. it's party time, right? and so james andi, we drove kind of from the la pasadenaarea and the traffic sucks. so if you guys livein that vicinity, i'm sorry and thank you.
we got some cool prizes andswag to give out to you guys. it's nothing much, it'sjust t-shirts, you know, so don't get too excited. but, you know, just out ofcuriosity because james and i, we come from art center. and art center is a specifictype of design school. and my background,i went to art center in 2006, and i left in 2009. and my major was product design.
so i designed, you know,watches, soaps, phones, a lot of small stuff,and it was fun. but i'm trying to bereally excited here. how many of you guys areproduct designers here? just raise your hands. so we got like apretty large number. it seems like around 70%. how about architecturaldesigner? zero percent, one person.
thank you, you're here. you made it, man. how about sculpture design? am i making that up,wesley [assumed spelling]? i made it up. >> interior design. >> interior design, notsculpture, interior design. three, four, welcome. this is getting exciting, five.
am i missing anything? transportation design. >> no. >> zero. you guys don'thave cars, it's ok. so anyways, my backgroundis product design. i studied for about two years. and i will tell you, it tookme about two years to realize that i didn't want to continue. but i learned a lotof valuable things.
sorry. i'm not trying to discourage youout of your major. but let's just kind of gothrough my sketchbooks here. so, you know, growing up,and this was pre-college. i still just doodle ideas, youknow, a lot of nonsensical, fictional, you know, characters. but i love the idea of worldcreation, and i love the idea of just kind of expressingmy opinions. and that was the mostimportant thing for me.
mainly because i suck atwriting, and believe it or not, james and i were probably one ofthe worst asians on our average. we are on the-- we are aminority group in terms of like the lowestgpa grade level. so we're probably about2.0, 2.3 grade average, so it's not good, you know. but in this world,i felt comforting. you know, i felt like i canactually express myself. i was able to articulateideas without being graded,
without having to follow thisacademic structure, you know, and that's-- that was just me. and it was just purelyexpressing my visual ideas. and, you know, there's a lotof things that influenced me, there was a lot of art books,there was a lot of movies and tv shows and cartoons. what really got me into thisfield was, you know, growing up, just like many of you guys. i grew up watchingsimpsons religiously.
and i was like, "mattgroening is the man." i mean, there's kids, idon't want to say [noise]. but he the shizzlema nizzle, you know. but i wanted to doanimation, but i didn't want to do the work of animation. it's kind of-- doesn'tmake any sense. but meaning, i wantedto create the world. i love the idea that thereare so many characters, so many different locations,but i hated animating.
so i went to an animation schooland they made me draw some like, some chubby dude walking acrossthe street, and i made him draw across a page andhe went off the page because my layout was incorrect. and i'm just like, "screwed. this is bad, this is horrible. why would anyone dothis in animation?" but i just realizedit wasn't for me. it wasn't a world creation, notin-- not what i thought it was.
and so, you know, i justwent back to my sketchbook. i did what i did naturally,you know, during class. and i attended communitycollege before art center for about two years. and this is what i didin my writing class, in my math class,art history class. so as you can see, it's alot of work from my art class and my history classand my math class. but, you know, and james,we talked about passion.
and passion is somethingthat, you know, i'm going to be a broken record,but we want to kind of express, you know, how important that isregardless of your education. and i think education issomething that we're going to get exposed to, differentavenues of education, different principles, differentfoundations, different roles, and different, youknow, theories right? so when i went into artcenter, again, spend two-- first three yearsdoing product design.
how many of you guys, inproduct design, how many-- a lot of it is aboutbrand, right? what else? just scream it out. don't get-- not all at once. what? >> manufacturing. >> marketing. yes.
>> analysis. demographic. whoo, super fun, right? it's like holy-- don'tget all excited here. i want to go anddo some research. but-- it was a veryinteresting learning process. and it was something thatwas very new to me, you know. and what's wrongin my sketchbook? and i was like, "why?
why are you punishing me, man? i came here to do art andyou're making me do research." and i did bad in english. and doing that was justgoing against my grain. but it was another form. what i learned was anotherform of being able to kind of articulate my ideas ona more generalized level, to be able to communicate, notonly to me, but to the people that i'm talking to, to thepeople that i'm presenting it,
and to the guys thatare looking at my work. and that's what i learned. it was learning how toconceptualize your ideas, learning how to articulateyour ideas, and learning how to be very clear aboutyour ideas, you know. whether it's likecrazy pull toys. i'm sure you guysare kind looking up like, "what is that thing?" but this was for aclassroom assignment.
and very similarto what's probably on your-- on the walls here. we're looking throughthe gallery. and it's a lot of just ideasin my sketchbook, right? and eventually those ideaskind of refined themselves, they kind of evolvedas we kind of go through the creative process. as we kind of-- we startto refine our ideas, we start to kind of chip awaythe rough edges, and we start
to get into a little bit more,more like clarity, right? so that's something thatjames and i, we really try to hone down, you know,the art of being clear. and then that was aprocess in itself. and so the basis of thisproject, what i ended up with, was this fish pull toy. and we actually haveto build this thing and i'm horribleat building things. and i think i mighthave some images here.
but we got to do this reallycool like manual how to use, how to-- how it actuallyfunctions, what the materialsare made out of. and it was actuallyreally helpful, you know, because i was horriblein english. i was able to kind ofwrite out small little, you know, fragments of words. i was like, "i can do this. this is easy."
pulling, tug, wood, awesome. you don't have to writelike an essay with pieces and like, "what is that, man? that's weird." go do that at uc, youknow, different uc. but this was my language. this is my way of speakingto the people, you know, to speaking to kindof the outside world. and so-- there it is.
look at that. don't get excited. it's pretty sweet. hold on. so this wasactually kind of fun or not, it was sort of fun. but we got to do a lotof exploration in kind of building these mockups. and before we got to kindof the finalized idea here, and this was what was i-- whati presented as a final concept.
and it was amazing becausei put all this effort and bought into it. and during our presentation,i was supposed to perform or i was supposed to kind of show how this thingworks and everything broke. it was awesome. so i was like, "dude, can yougive me a paper and pencil, man. i don't want buildstuff anymore." but it was a great learningexperience, you know,
because it showed me what ittook from going from paper, from research to paperto physical product. now, let's zoom out here, soyou don't see white paper. so i-- what i eventually startedgetting into was i wanted to kind of expand myeducational experience. and so i got into cars becausewe have a car design program at arts center. and, you know, transportationdesign was always really interesting justbecause, you know,
you get to designa larger product. it wasn't something small. it wasn't handheld. and it was something thati can, you know, kind of, you can imagine yourself likebeing on this large vehicle. it almost was like yourpersonal spaceship, you know. so i did this for about a year. and i'll just kindof scroll through. and a lot of what i learned
in doing transportationdesign was everything was about aesthetics. so it had a lot to dowith functionality, but it had a lot more to dowith the sculpture aspect, kind of the form building,understanding, you know, how to make things look sexy. that was it, likethat's what i learned. i was like, "if yourcar doesn't look sexy, don't put it on the wall, man."
my teacher was so mean. and i'm sure thereare some teachers that are kind of mean here. but one time, he came in andwe had our work on the walls. and, you know, he kind of talkswith a really thick accent. he's like, "oh john, you know,why your drawing of the car, that look like your face?" i was like, "whatdoes that mean?" that's incredibly either reallynice or really offensive.
and then so he would justkeep going on and he was like, "you know, ok, you know,listen, your car looks cool, but you watch way toomuch animal planet, man." why your car look like fish?" and i was like, "dude,what is this? i came to express my ideas." and it was just like, you know,it was hard at first, you know, because you don't-- when youguys are presenting your ideas in class, there's kind ofthis preciousness, right?
you're like, "oh, it's mine." and anytime anyonesays anything critical or constructive,you're like, "fu. don't touch or talkabout my stuff." but there's something tobe learned because it-- like it wasn't, youknow, only your opinion, it was about what other people,how other people perceived it. and that's what ilearned in this process. it wasn't about howcool i thought it was.
it was about whatit communicated and how it translated. so it's a lot of cars. and eventually, i stepped out ofthe car realm, and i was like, "i want to do animation. that's awesome." pixar is my dream. and so we had anassignment where we had to-- we got the chance to design.
we designed shrek. and this was all acharacter-based project. but i used a lot of similarprinciples that i learned in product design andtransportation design. so the product design aspect, ilearned about research, right? and what's the purpose,why am i doing this? and so i came up withthis idea that, you know, shrek can essentiallybe based off of rock, paper, and scissors.
and his character wasmore-- a metaphor of a rock. and donkey was more ofa metaphor of paper. and puss in boots was more ofa metaphor of scissors, right? very swift, very agile. and using all that ilearned, what i encompassed in those two years were--yeah, in the two majors. i basically translated intodoing these character designs and it was a very interesting,very interesting experience, and very interestingdesign process.
and because it kindof-- i wasn't just-- i didn't feel like i wasrandomly doing things. i felt like i had a conceptand i had a purpose, right? so we have our ideasand we have a reason for why we're generatingthese ideas. and i just put more purpose for why we're designingthese things. so here are some ideas. so this is princecharming, right.
and my concept for this--because if you guys remember-- have you guys-- many ofyou guys watched shrek? all right, kind of weird movie. but there's a characternamed prince charming. he's kind of weird. he's a little low iq, right? he praises his mom,the fairy godmother. well, my idea was he-- itsays-- it's always his birthday, and the fairy godmother isactually a hat that sits
on top of his head, right? so she's basically thebrains of the operation, but to him it's like,"party time. hey, guys, what's up? where's my castle?" you know, so that's kind ofhis whole like personality, and i wanted to show thatjust in the expressions, and the development ofthe character design. and so that was kind of myapproach with this kind of work.
so i'll continue on. i think i have like150 slides here. so i'm just goingto scroll through. so we definitely want to getin to some, you know, q&a. and eventually, you know, i--as i continued to exercise, you know, some ofthe foundations, some of the things i learnedin, you know, other majors, i started to see thevalue in foundation. i started to see the value
in all the boring assignmentsmy teachers made me do, you know, like perspective. like who loves perspective here? really? if you raise your hand,i will give you a high five. you are lying. you are such a liar. no, but, you know, perspectivewas one of those things where i'm like, "whyare we doing this, man?" it's like the driest thingin the world, you know,
or even like arthistory like, "who-- why? who wants to do that?" you know, i don't want tolearn about the history of art, but it was-- it came to a pointwhere, you know, i really felt like it was my parents tellingme something and i didn't want to listen to them until ithappens, and you're like, "oh, that's why we learn it. that's cool." that's what i felt like.
that's what i feltschool was like, you know. and the instructors are justbasically a different form of our parents, trying to teachus these lessons, and we're just like constantly trying to ignorethem and go against them, right? so-- but again, it was such aliberating experience because, you know, once some ofthose things clicked, i soon realized-- yeah, i'm justgoing to go this full screen because this don'treally matter. wait. where are we?
full screen. see, we know howto use computers. so we-- oh, you know, so i basically use thesame principles in a lot of the ossuaries[phonetic] you see up here. and what you guys will seeis just a different variety of designs, differentvariety of themes, concepts, and things like that. but the more of what i'mtrying to say is, you know,
behind every drawing is a-- behind every drawing isa really clear concept, and behind every great designis a really clear purpose. i just made that up. does it sound pretty cool? i was thinking, i'm like, "ihope i don't eff this up." we-- so i guess, you know, i'm going to show youguys some of the slides. i'm going go a little fasthere so that james and i,
we can open up to q&a. so you see a lot of robots. and eventually i startedkind of working my way up. so you kind of see thegrowing pains, right? i kind of went fromproduct design to cars, and then i finally got,you know, the confidence. i was like, "i'm goingto do an environment." and i was like, "oh, geez. that's a lot stuff, you know."
so i was like, you know,ans everything for me in art and in design andeducation in general, it's a learning process, right? it's to take thingsone step at a time. and if you guys ever feel likeoverwhelmed by a big idea, just try to make it simplified,try to take smaller steps, you know, try to tackleyour ideas, and, you know, more efficiently andmore effectively, and so that we can conquersmaller pieces rather
than trying to conquersomething big. so that concludesmy presentation. thank you. cool. so open q&a. now, it's your turn to present. we don't want to talk, ok? yes. like they go, "oh,this is my son john. he does graphic design." i'm like, "no, i don't."
i don't do that. you know, actually-- ok. true story, i'm not making this up because i know it'sfunny and, you know, me and james are crackingreally lame jokes. but, you know, ata certain point, if you continue workinghard and doing what you do, you'll eventuallyget successful, you'll get good at it, right?
it's inevitable, right? so at the age of 21 orno 22, i think that's when i first metjames and he got me into kind of the career aspect. and i got-- i felt like i hitmy creative or my success point at the age of like 23because i was making-- i think i made likemy first $100,000. i was like, "dude,that's baller. i'm going to buy a car.
be where i want tobe like, what?" but at that point my dad--because he knew i was in art, but he sat me down and we'reeating, he was like, "john, i don't understandwhat do you do? what are you doing?" i was like, "what areyou talking about? i'm just eating my rice." and he was like awkwardlysitting there like, "what do you do?
i don't get it." and i was like, "is that likea trick question or is that-- or are you like genuinelyasking?" and that's-- i think that wasthe first time my parents were genuinely interested orcurious in what i was doing, because before that, iwas a graphic designer for a long time. yeah. so i told them i waslike, "i work in movies, dad." he was like, "but--well, i don't understand.
you're not drawing. i don't see your drawingsin the movies, john." >> john. >> "don't do that, john. i don't see the drawingin the movies." the movies have a cg,and you don't draw cg." and he was like,"what are you doing?" and so he-- i thinkhe thought i was a-- he thought concept artistwas like con artist.
he's like, "no, you'recon artist. what is that?" i was like, "dude,that's-- was my stuff, man." so i have to explain to him. and it was educating my parentsand just like how, you know, this industry is so new. and what james was saying, rightnow is the time where business and art is really kindof joining teams per se. they're starting tounderstand one another.
because concept design like,who knows what that is? no one knows what that is. everyone knows what adoctor is, lawyer, you know. if i say to my familyrelatives, i'm like, "i'm a concept designer." they're like, "what? i don't get it, whatever." you know? and so-- yeah,that's how it came out. yeah. james?
>> oh man. well, my biggest [inaudible] with my parents is actuallyhow do i get into arts school, you know, how can i majoran art or something. and i remember that being a-- it was a negotiation of let meapply to arts school one time and if i don't get in,i will work for you for the rest of my life. that's literallywhat i told my dad.
>> well-- >> you know, to basicallywork for him in the summer. and he used to have this likesmall business and it's-- i hated working there. so he knew that i wasserious if i kind of put that ultimatum out there. but even now, i think my parentsstill think i do animation. yeah. they go, "oh-- " >> that's pretty good.
>> they think, "oh yeah,he works on cartoons." and like now, wellmaybe 2%, you know. but-- because effectivelywhat we do as a job is that we're sort ofa problem solver, we're like a visualproblem solver. and so whether we workin film, video games, and we cross-pollinate ourindustries all the time, i work in film, heworks in games, and we do it all the time,we bounce back and forth.
but we also get to work in coolthings like restaurant design. i used to work for-- weactually did a lot of stuff for sbe few years back, and wedid the sls hotel, the bazaar, and we're designing andworking with philippe starck for the interior guysthat might know him. but, you know, this realm ofconcept that really helps, kind of just be a problemsolver for everything. and i try to tell that to myparents, they're like, "oh." they-- it's justnot there, you know.
especially, you know, i don'tknow if any of you guys-- the older generation just didn'treally know art, they're like, "you're going to starve. and you're going topaint by the beach. and you're going to sellthem next to everyone else, and you're going to starve. and i was like, "no, old man. if it is, then i will. i don't know."
but, you know that's kind of--i wanted to explore that realm, you know, so yeah, but-- >> the best was a-- i have areally good friend of mine. he is a car designerfor mercedes-benz. and that's like a huge thing. i'm like, "dude." every time i seea car, i'm like, "dude, did you design that?" he was like, "no, man.
just stop. i design-- i do theheadlights, seriously." [ laughter ] but he's-- it soundsreally impressive, and it is impressive. and what he does, hedoes really good at it. but again, going back tothe statement like how do-- how does the outside worldperceive us, because we're kind of a rare, weird breedof people, right?
so for the longesttime, his parents and his friends wouldcome up and be like, "ok, george [assumed spelling]--"his name is george. so george, if you seethis, i'm sorry, man. so his name is george and hewas like, "george, you know-- hey man, i know you're in cars, do you think i canget a discount?" he was like, "what areyou talking about?" he's like, "yeah, youwork at mercedes right?
what dealership do you work at?" he's like, "no man,i design that." and he was like, "no,no, seriously man, he's like, "no, no, no. i design the cars." he's like, "why? what are you talking about? they just make them." so again, like thatjust shows a lot
of people don't knowthis industry. a lot of people don't knowthe industry of design, right? it's still a new thing. >> yeah. >> and so, you know, i'm sureyou guys deal with that too, you know, and you guysare going to deal with it, continue to deal withit on a regular basis. but i guess, i guesswhat it comes down to is design iseverywhere, you know,
from like the water bottlesto fashion, you know, to the interface on yourcomputer, to video games, to facebook games, you know. who plays puzzles & dragons? yeah. you raise those hands,stop-- don't-- come on. i see one. ok, you're being honest, everyone else, youguys are lying. you guys play that.
but, you know, games like that,it requires a lot of design, it requires a lotof problem solving. and, you know, design hasmany different phases, right? and so i guess that'skind of what we, you know, we all kind of arein the same hub, we just have differentways of expressing it. >> now, i guess howthis pop culture, the things that are currentlyout really affect how we design. and so being aware of what's outis absolutely super important.
and, you know, you'llget different feedback from different designersand artists, but for me, i need to know what's out there,so i can effectively know how to design new and uniquethings even though it's-- even if it's kind a fillingwithin the cracks, you know. if you have a-- now, weall remember when lord of the rings came out about 10years ago, maybe almost close to 15 now, 2002 maybe. but it was a thing
that catapulted fantasymovies, right? after that, there wasjust fantasy, fantasy, fantasy, fantasy, fantasy. avatar comes out sci-fi, sci-fi,sci-fi, sci-fi, sci-fi, right? so there is a trend toall this, and being aware of the trend is actuallyvery good, but know that it canpull you in, right? one thing that iremember from arts school, from one art teacher
in particular is what yousee, comes out, right? whether you know it or not,everything that you observed with your eye comes outin a way of a design. and so some of the theoriesand process that john and i have been taught andutilized within our job is how to come up with creation, how to come up withvariation that's unique, that still feels cool, butdoesn't hit all that, you know, pop culture, sort of marksthat they already have.
yeah. >> yeah, what james said. yeah, i mean, you know, the outside world has alot of influence, right? in what we-- the way we thinkthe way we react to things. you know, it's likeflavor of the week, right? if something cameout, you're like, "oh my god, justin bieber." there's justin bieberfans out there, beliebers.
but, you know, you're likejust shaking your head, you're like [inaudible]. but it's very-- whatdo you call it? it's very a-- i want to saylike infectious, i don't know, like it kind of like it lingerseven though you don't want it to affect your work it does. so what's interesting isit's kind of like trying to think outside of the box. and when teacher say, "thinkoutside of the box" we're like,
"what do you mean, man? like you keep saying that." but really, it'slike think outside of what everyone else sees. and i think that'swhat hit home for me. so i sort of-- i do stillpay attention to the movies, the games, you know, theproducts that are out there, the new apple laptops, and allthat stuff, but i really try to pay attention to things thataren't in the norm, you know,
weird plants that i've seen, youknow, i try to like really look at it beyond justthe image and try to let it influencemy thought process. and i know it sounds reallyartsy-fartsy when i say, "let it influence you,let it inspire you." but really, let it kind of seelike try to challenge yourself to see if you can come up witha really unique idea not based on something that's genericor based on something that everyone else sees.
here's an example. so i'm asian, right? i mean, james are asian. and asian people have a wayof organizing their homes and especially ourparents, they're called-- known as this thingcalled pack rats, right? so they like to saveeverything just because they think world wariii is coming, people are going to die and, you know,they just keep everything,
i don't know why, from the 1967newspapers all the way to now. i don't know why. it's disgusting. but i was like, "thisis disgusting. it's visually upsetting thatmy parents keep all this old stuff." the only time they cameuseful was when i had to actually design aninterior based on kind of a chinese or asian apartment.
and i was like, "that's easy." right? but no one else in thedesign team knew how to do that. that's because i'm asian, right? i was like, i owned it. i was like, "i caneffing do this. this is easy. so let me show you howto do it right, you know, put the fans here, the slippers,the box of ramen, you know." it's like utilize your space,
your bed is essentiallyyour table, right? you know, you hang your clothingstrategically so that the sun, when it comes at a certainhour, it's drying your clothing, but also, it blocks the sun out. you know what i'm saying? so like who can thinkof that but me? and so-- and whenthe director saw that he was like, "oh my god. i feel like this is real.
i feel like you've been there." and i'm like, "i don't know. it's just-- maybe. it just came out of me." and by the way, do yousee what i'm saying? it's like instead of likegoing on google and looking up like asian apartmentbecause you're going to get some like bunch of generic things. i was just like,"what do i have--
what does my parents'house look like?" you know, and i'm looking at itlike, "oh, there's random stuff. there's an old toy thatrolls, there's coupons." and i'm like, "why? coupons, they've expired 10years ago, but they're there." and you throw-- youwant to throw them out like, "no, no, no, no, no. we could use forsomething else." use for what?
for fire, i mean, or for likedoor stoppers, for random stuff. but that's what i mean, that'slike owning your creativity, and that's thinkingoutside the box. >> yeah, no, i totallyagree with john. that's so funny. >> yeah. so basically, weall use photoshop pretty much as our main tool sourcefor what we do everyday. and, you know, photoshopis a really powerful tool. so it's sort of like aweapon of choice, you know,
it can definitely be cateredtowards whatever it needs. you know, photographers,concept artist, digital painters will alluse photoshop a little bit differently. but, you know, partof the thing that-- it's almost counterintuitivea little bit about doing digital painting,but one of the best ways to practice is actually justbeing a really good drawer, because photoshop is actuallya little bit wild, you know.
it is such a powerful tool that really quickly itcan kind of overpower you. but having thosetraditional skills is one of the best things to do. you know, also, within our-- you know, we also reallylove digital painting, and so we were one of the kindof generation at art center that actually created orembedded digital painting into our curriculum, you know,
actually into ourassignments where-- we'd actually get in trouble forit, you know, they'd be, "hey, bring in an acrylic painting." but we'll bring somethingdigital. and they go like,you know, failing us or doing all sorts of stuff. but, you know, we're tryingto learn something new. it was actually very kindof forefront, pioneering. it was really fun.
but to learn it traditionallyis one of the best techniques. so yeah. >> there's so muchstuff on youtube. like if i were to-- theamount of resources that are on youtube now is insane,like i would probably, and not to discourageanyone here, i probably wouldn'thave gone to school. because there's somuch stuff out there. it's crazy.
like the other day i was like,"how do i make scrambled egg?" like i know how to make it, youknow, but how do you make it like restaurant style. but-- aand i saw avideo, i was like, "damn, that's how you make it, dude. that was awesome." but to your point, there's alot of tutorials, there's a lot of like, you know, how torender shapes, you know, photoshop introductions.
if you're looking for formsspecifically on facebook, there's like digitalspit painting or speed painting, right? there's all these groups thatare kind of sharing and there's like a community, right? because i feel likeart is the only-- i feel like it's like oneof the only industries where everyone generallylikes to network and socialize, you know.
and so some of theother industries like they're a little bit moresegregated in most instances, but sharing is a huge thing. and you-- there's a lotof resources out there that will show you that. yeah. that's a reallygood question. so what's our process whenwe get into an image, right? or designing our concept-- >> when you got anew assignment.
>> ok, new assignment. so first thing i do is, whatis it that i have to draw? i start with a very, verysimple question, you know. and i break that questionnow into like three or four keywords, right? so a lot of times i'll get anassignment like, "oh hey, john, i want you to design like somesci-fi robot, blah, blah, blah, and he has machine guns." so i'll think, ok, robot,machine guns and piece
from the future, right? those are kind of the keywords. and based on that, i'll actuallydo some research that will kind of be under the category ofthose keywords, because for me, you know, one thing that i learned was wehave a visual library, a visual memory bank thatwe cycled through naturally, but one thing you don't wantto do is go to that first because you're going to getreally, really generic ideas.
and it happens toall of us, right? you know, when you guysare doing product designs or interior designs,you're like, "i've seen that at bj's[phonetic], whatever." or "that looks just likemy apple laptop, whatever." and it's naturally happens because you're constantly seeingit and it's in your brain. what you want to do is youwant to kind of sort that out, kind of look at it,reinterpret it, and then kind
of start sketchingyour ideas out. and then from sketching yougo into, you know, value black and white, and thenwe go into color. but the essentialthings is breaking down what it is yourgoals are, your keywords, and doing your research atleast for me, i don't know. >> it's kind of interestingbecause john's background within product design. since i've known johnfor quite a while,
we've worked together a lot. and so we get to sort of understand the differentdisciplines of product design and illustration,it's like, "oh wow. you guys think about thatfirst and this first?" but it's really interestingbecause the process, it always starts fromresearch, you know, trying to understand what it is. my illustration backgroundis sort of gears me to think
about the emotionalaspects a little bit first. you know i think, oh, like goingoff of his robot gun future guy, it's like, "oh, it's mysterious. it's supposed to bevery frightening." so it kind of gives me aoverall tone or like a color or even a camera angle of howto kind of capture that image. and then i kind of go back intowhat john does about thinking about the function and theforms and that sort of thing. so i kind of go slightlyreversed, you know,
but we kind of endup at the same point. it's like start with yourright foot or start walking with your left foot doesn'treally matter, you know, you get to the finish point ofthe design at the end of it. so yeah, process is process. your own process, that's what ithink is art, is what, you know, you create your ownway of doing it because it's personalto you, you know. wow. that's a reallyinteresting question,
because that actuallytouches point on how concept artis actually expanding out of its initial tear of justdesigning for entertainment. so-- and to kind of answeryour question, first is yeah, we get to work on alot of cool titles, but a lot of them are thedark, are the post-apocalyptic, you know, take over theworld and die and, you know, that sort of thing, becausethat's what needs a lot of unique design a lot ofthe time within the industry.
>> but, you know, when westart doing personal work and we start getting other workthat's outside of, you know, the conceptual designrealm, maybe theme parks, maybe doing hoteldesign, maybe trying to do an interactive spacefor kids and education, that's really starts topumped it up a bit, you know. and we have a friend whodesigns a lot of military stuff for maybe movies like elysiumand district 9 and even chappie. but, you know, this artist, hedesigns a lot of stuff that's
within that realmilitaristic sensibility, but he actually getshired by the military-- >> -- to actually design someof the stuff, because he is such a-- he actually hasproduct design background with this conceptual designexpertise and he's able to design it for movies, andthey're like, "oh my god, we need him for the military." so i haven't really done that'ssort of stuff, but he, you know, we definitely know that kindof cross-pollinates, but yeah,
for me personally, yeah, ihaven't really done anything that actually gets builtto like do stuff like that. it's all imaginativedigital, but yeah. how about you, john? >> that's-- yeah,that's kind of weird. that's tough, because, youknow, they're like, "hey, john, i'd like to hire to designthe new air 15, 3000k blaster. it has a, you know,shooting radius of 3000 bullets per second."
you're like, "oh my god. i'm designing the weapon ofmass destruction, you know." >> so it's like-- there'sa fine line and i think-- i really think it's up to youas an individual, you know. i'm-- we're in conceptdesign, so we think of messed up stuff all the time, you know,like i going to do stuff for-- when i worked for godzillai was like, "oh, yeah. dude, that's awesome." 9/11. yeah, 9/11.
let's look at 9/11 stuff." that's such a sensitivetime because, man, so many people died and-- >> -- you know, like we have--i'm sure we have families and friends that wereinvolved with that, but as a concept designer, a part of me couldn'thelp but get excited. i was like, "lookat those structures. holy, look at those buildings."
and it's kind of messed up. you're like, "oh, i shouldn'tbe excited about this." but a part of you, you're likeyou kind of need to embrace that chaos and, you know, letit be controlled chaos, right? but in terms of like future,like if you guys are designing like architectural things thatare a little bit more positive, i love looking at, youknow, frank gehry buildings, calatrava, and those are thingsthat are physically made, but i like to kind of lookbeyond that, like we know.
because as a conceptdesigner, you're not bound by physical structures, you're--you can kind of put like, well, there's a watermelon towerjust because it's made of watermelons, you know. so you can kind of go reallywacky with those ideas and kind of define your ownform language, right? your own structurelanguage, your own material, and kind of do whateveryou-- do whatever you wish. but yeah, that's areally good question.
thank you for asking that. yeah. i got hired todo a monster movie. and it was kind of like-- i wantto see more like freddy krueger, like it was horror movie with--it was like a horror gore movie. and i was like, "oh, i neverdone anything like that. that's pretty awesome." but that's kind ofout of my comfort zone because the first thing iresearched was like gore, and you get like, you know,
amputated limbs andi was like, "no!" i was like, "oh my god! my eyes!" and i couldn't handleit, so i got fired on the job because my ideaswere so generic. because i couldn'tembrace that side, like-- it was just not in me. and i know guys thatlike they get so fascinated bylike, "oh my god. i found this, like,really cool scab.
do look at the scab, bro." and i took photos if it. look at the textures. they think that way. their moral compass islike, kind of upside down and 360 degrees, it's kind ofweird, but they think that way. and they kind of utilize that. but for me, it kind of workagainst me because i'm not-- i'm kind of like, i getlike, "oh, that's nasty."
it's like, "i can't do it." you know? so i guess thatwas the only time for me, personally, it workedagainst me. >> oh, well, i don't really gettoo gross out by that stuff, but i have a buddy who-- garret morans [assumed spelling]who's a really awesome creature designer, an alienkind of creature guy that works in the film industry. but he-- his reference libraryis gross, it is so nasty.
it's kind of [inaudible], man. yeah. so i said tomyself sometimes, but it's, "oh my god." it's like weird photos, man. >> it's some weird conditions-- >> there's a lots of genitalia,like some weird stuff and-- >> yeah. anyway, next question. when i was talking about whenkind of economy went down and i got the studio kind ofswept out under me, i was really
in the position to try togo into the freelance realm which was always alittle tingling thought, but i was always scaredto do it, you know, just kind of quityour job and go out to like this territory was littlefrightening, so i just-- what i worked at,at the passion part of it all was the driving force. and so i really workedhard to try to get a projectthat was substantial.
and i was luckily able tokind of work with robh ruppel, if you guys know he is. he is the art director at acompany called naughty dog, and they make games likeuncharted and the last of us, and they are a huge,huge company that makes-- well, they are not a hugecompany, they're a game company that makes really,really awesome games. and working with robh atuncharted, he's a guy that had about 15 years of disneyexperience of storytelling,
animation, and visualdevelopment prior to going to naughty dog, so working with him was a tremendouslearning experience. it was ridiculously awesome. and it was to a point where--if you guys remember back to, maybe your most influentialteacher, i think that's probably thebest parallel that i can put it in is someone that guides you,inspires you, he knows how to kick you in the butt,but always make you smile
at the end of the day, you know. and that's what thisart director was. and it wasn't reallythe project. it was actually theexperience of the project. so that was really,really inspiring work with a really awesome team, andthe camaraderie that's build in the art department is--it's like brotherhood, it's like being outon the trenches, you know, it's having a family.
it's really, really awesome. >> oh, man, that'sa good question. i would say the biggest project or the project i'm mostpassionate about right now, i got lucky, i got called by a production designer namedben procter and dylan cole, and they're currently developingavatar with james cameron. so i've been on that for abouta year and i was like, "what?" but, you know, like in termsof like my bucket list,
i was like, "oh my god. i got to work with the guy thatcreated aliens-- -- titanic." but what's even more awesomeis the amount of like hard work that the level ofexpectation, you know, how far they push design and howanalytical they are in the team. my supervisors, benprocter and dylan cole, they're like incredibledesigners. and i think, as artists, asmuch as we like to kind of cling on to the idea oflike, "oh my god.
i wish i can do this or ican design the next cool architectural building or ican make this amazing product." but i think it's really aboutthe culture of their team, really about theculture of the studio that you actuallyget involved with. and i find that that wasthe most exciting for me and it's still very exciting. and it kind of getsme up in the morning. i'm like, "dude, i want to go towork and i want to learn this."
i suck at this, so i'm going toask them how i can get better. and it's like-- i feellike when you leave school, you feel like, "ok. i'm done with art." right? "i'm a professionaland i'm working in the field." it's actually theother way around. you go to school to kind oflearn the basics and when you're out of school, now you'reactually doing the real learning, getting thehardcore learning,
the things that are goingto demand you and push you to such high limits that younever thought you would have dealt with, you know. and i find that sort of likeit's just a really great experience to have. any other questions? yes. yeah. so like, for-- i guess oneexample i can give is i just came from a meetingwith james cameron
and we would do theseblue sky concepts, and basically it'sjust ideas, right? it's our visual opinions. and he look at those images andhe'll be like, "that is awesome. i want that in my-- inthis section of the movie." and you're like, "really?" like, "oh, dude,that's awesome." so it's such great part, it's such a great collaborativeexperience because your designs,
your opinions, your visualexplorations get translated, it gets passed off to thenext guy that can make it into something amazing. and that person fabricates it into something evenmore amazing. and it becomes likethis real life products, whether it's a movie or like ahandheld object or a video game that you're interacting with. i think that's theprocess that's just
like when you see it,you're like, "holy cow, dude, that's amazing." you know. so as aconcept designer, we help inspire that process. >> and i think one real kindof easy way to put it is, whether it's a film, a videogame, maybe a book cover or whatever it is, think ofthat being a house, right? and so you're going tohave two major phases when you design a house.
you need an architect and youneed a construction crew, right? we're pretty muchthe architects. we're the people thatsort of get a base idea. ok. the director oryour art director says, "i need a house that'sthree bedrooms." so you kind of get theidea, general directive. you go, "cool. i'm going to designing a reallyawesome three-bedroom house. it's going to have this,that, and this, that."
and you kind of gauge what theylike, what their taste are, look at their shoes and go, "ok. you wear sneakers all the time. you must like going outand doing active stuffs. so i'm going to make thishouse full of active equipment, you know, outdoor things." so all these ideas startto come up based off of that one little directive of creating a three-bedroomhouse, you know.
so that architect, the conceptartist are just stirring up ideas, you know,creating drawings and communicate it back to them. "is this what youwant it to look like? is that what youwant to look like?" and they go, "yes." and that's-- that part islike really, really rewarding, and then you see it go intothe construction, right? you see it go into 3d.
you see it go into animation. you see physical sets get built. you get-- you see green screenanimation sets being built. so depending on what youdo, you'll get a couple of different constructionprocess or different ways to construct it, butthere's always a designer in the front end that's justcoming up with these ideas and translating them, you know, so that people canunderstand it, you know.
one thing that's-- and certainis, a huge movie like lord of the rings that hassuch crazy fantasy. how did someone or ateam of people designed that huge universe so thatwe can all understand it? so that the hobbit land, youknow, the mordor tower, the-- i don't know, somethingelse region. why do they all look differentand how can you recognize them? because people designed it out. you know, they thoughtabout these things.
and that's what aconcept design is. >> i don't know. >> you want to go first? >> well, actually, i guess iwould love to get into toys. you know, growingup i loved legos. and i love the-- i guess i wasin generation ninja turtles, you know, that's my jam. but i love physical toys, youknow, because it's something-- it's so inspiring becauseas a kid i remember like,
just looking and iwas like, "oh my god. and this table topbecame a building." and like as a kid,i was so inspired. so that-- that would be onething on my bucket list, i'd love to crossor check, you know. here's a question i liketo kind of ask you guys. outside of school, curiosityabout concept design, do you guys have any questionsregarding kind of the-- your career path, your industry,you know, like financial things,
freelancing, things like that. james? >> you know-- let's see here. within a studentportfolio, you get-- and any type of portfoliothat's getting into a studio or in front of an artdirector, you get to see a lot of similar type of work, andstyle can definitely be one of those things that canhelp you be promoted, right? be a little bit more visibleand-- to the rest of the bunch.
but they can alsoslightly backfire because if the styleis not applicable to a certain projectstyle, right? so one thing that, you know,and john and i, we really try to help studentscater their portfolios for maximum effectiveness. and so we actually requirestudents to actually come up with many different styles,because a style isn't yours, because we're not an artist,we're a concept designer.
we're providing a service, we're providing adesign for other people. it's not about us. we do our own personal work allthe time, that's art for us, but we have to make sure thatwe do this for our client. and so keeping that inmind that, you know, his shrek concepts, you know,may be not work for the guys that do angry birds, you know. it's not that the style is bad,
but it just mightnot be fitting. so that's maybe one thingthat i would keep in mind. and that kind of goes backto research, you know, going back to who'slooking at your portfolio, who is the company or whatkind of projects do they work on to kind of give you that-- none of my stuff will everpass phase one at pixar. it's just not thelanguage that they want. they might like it,but it's just,
"we don't want toscare our fans." you know, "we don'twant to scare our kids." right? so-- -- it might be different. >> i got a pretty good analogy. ok. think of yourportfolio, your body of work like a restaurant, right? and everyone here,we all love food. i love food.
i'm hungry as hell. but when you go to a buffet,are you guys specific? or do you go to abuffet and you're like, "i'm going to eateverything that's here, fried rice, freaking pizza." it just doesn't make any sense. it's all over the place, right? so you can almost relatestyle to that like-- so if a client or a studio islooking at your body of work,
they want to get the impressionof like what kind of palate or what kind of tastedo you have? are you a sushi restaurant orare you an italian restaurant? metaphorically speaking, right? so, you know, try to reallydefine what it is and own it. you want to really own it. so me and james, we're inthe realm of like realism. so a lot of work that we'reinvolved with is very realistic, you know, hyper-realisticgames, hyper-realistic films,
not necessarily in the realmof pixar or anything like that, it just mainly because we kind of enjoy the realistickind of aesthetic. so yeah, we're thatkind of restaurant. we're the realistic restaurant. but, you know, we dowell and we thrive on it and we try to own it. and so that would be mysuggestion to any of you guys about style, you know,
try to really define whatit is that you're on for. >> well, before i-- and we liketo always start with analogies. we always love analogies. before you get into thecar, you need to know where you got to go, right? ok. so that's forme and hopefully all of you that's here, right? but in turn withyour career, right, your art is yourvehicle, you know.
you just kind of need to knowwhere you want to end up. and it doesn't haveto be, you know, "in 10 years i'm goingto end up in tokyo." and you're going to have topath years and years and years and years of trail to get there or you can just make reallysmall circles, you know. "in the next three months, i want to really do anawesome pencil rendering." you know, "after that, maybei'll take a pencil rendering
and do a cg model of it. i'll light it." and you can actually doyour whole thing by yourself as to show in your portfolio that you have a widerange of skills. but that will allow you toknow where you want to go. some-- similar tojohn, he had to go through product design trendsand all these other stuff to know that, ding, "i'mgoing to go the other way."
ding, "i'm going togo the other way." and it sort of formulatedinto his path, right? and i would say that in someways you might not have had a direction, but you knew that your direction wasto find a direction. >> right? so even if you'renot looking behind you, you know that 50% of what you-- is around you, youcan focus on, right? so if you're bouncing aroundfrom lighting to texturing
to mapping or, you know, allthat other kind of stuff, give it a shot, butdiligence shot, you know. notice that john also put in acouple of years into it to know that he didn't want to do it. it wasn't like twodays, two weeks, two months, literally two years. that's dedication. but i think that'sone of the best ways. just give yourself a target.
you know a lot of traitsthat could probably help you, you know, hop skipand jump there faster. >> yeah, i mean like, i guess, if i were to just be reallystraightforward with you, right? and what's the first step? i mean, it's notbe like supervisor. i would say it's kind of like,you know, what's the thing that makes you want toget into a game studio? you know, what do you feelcomfortable contributing to,
you know? and basically try to nail thatdown and let that be the basis of getting your footwet, and just kind of start from there, you know. because i can't tell you, "hey, in five years you'regoing like this. in 10 years, you're going to probably eventuallydo this, you know." everyone's different andi think what everyone--
what we all need to figureout is it's a process. like-- just likewhen i started out, i thought i was goingto do product design. it wasn't for me, but ilearned a lot, you know. and i felt like my life waslike a bowling alley, you know. i know i'm going to hit thosepins, but i'm just going to like bing, bing,bing, bing, bing. i'm like, "god dammit,i suck dude." and i'm just like hitting it,
but i know i'm goingforward, right? and there was thisreally cheesy, cheesy quote that i heard. it's like, "no matterwhat, even if you fail, you know that you'refailing forward." right? it's like-- noweveryone is like, "oh man, that's so like now everyone'slike, "oh, man that's-- >> ohhhh. >> -- that's pretty--
but you know what i mean? so it's like, youknow, no matter-- even if you didn't find yourniche or what you wanted to do, at least you know, you have abetter idea what to do next, you know, kind of cheesy,i know you're like, "it's not the best advice." but it's something that iwould say simplify your goals, i mean my long-term goal, i want to be a millionairefor sure, you know.
just like you guys. but first off, i want tomake sure i can make-- how do i make $10in a day, you know. if i can make 10 bucks,how do i make 20 bucks? how do i make $100, you know? and i even treatedfreelance like that, like what james taught me isdon't shoot for the big goals. try to make sure you canhit the small milestones because that would teach mealong the way how to manage
and really know what i cantake on and most importantly if i really like it, so-- yeah. it's kind of like, you know, we're getting draftedfor the nba, right? i mean not all ofus are kobe bryant. i wasn't. i didn't come outlike, "yeah, i'm like 18 and i would slam dunk." i was more like the5 foot 3 guy who-- it's like, "you are just goingto be a benchwarmer, man."
but i was a good benchwarmer. i kept that thing warm. no, i'm just kidding. but, you know, my firstjob it wasn't like-- because i wantedto go to blizzard. that was my ideal place. i was like, "i love blizzard. i love starcraft. it is my life.
i'm asian. it's in my blood. i'm going to do it,you know, starcraft. that's me." but i didn't get in. but i didn't want it tostop me from continuing on. and i was like, "ok, fine. what's the alternative?" and i think that's what led meto understanding it better was
that alternative, becauseit wasn't there, it wasn't-- i wasn't ready for it yet. so i seek an alternative. and the alternative was like a third party smallvideo game company, right? and they do really bad stuff. but it was a chance for me tokind of learn, under their dime. they're paying me. they hired me.
they trusted me. and for me to kind of testout my skills, you know, what i learned in college. and eventually when i was readyto leave that bird's nest, i went to anothernest, you know. and it was, for me, it wasjust like a stepping stone. and, you know, like gettingout, yeah, i had big dreams. i totally want todo this and that." and, you know, ididn't think i'd be able
to work with james cameron. i mean, i'm not likeflaunting, but, you know, like that wouldn't-- that goal-- that ought to beway too big for me. i'm like, "what? no way. dude, get out of here. come on, let's keepit real, man." you know? but like along theway, i was like, "oh wow. there's opportunities."
you know? but i had tojust be as, you know, as farsighted aswe like to seem. you have to make sure you canhit those short-sided goals and hit them effectivelyand just rock it, you know. so yeah. james. >> think about-- you justthink about game companies. i want you guys tokind of understand is that they all started off inpeople's garages, you know. all these big companies,naughty dog, you know,
spark, what else is there? even the guys infinity ward, allof them, they started with guys that just were like, "hey, let'smake something fun and cool." you know? just probablylike how you guys talk when you're in the cafeteria. "hey let's draw some today." you know? and that-- becauseall of these places were started with such grassroots, they'reall very, very different. and no one game company--
and i've been able tofortunately worked with, i don't know, maybe 50different game studios, but they all run very,very differently. some of them are morepricing on their 3d guys. some of them are pricingon their concept guys. some are more, you know, "hey,let's have a fun, vibrant, you know, happy-go-luckyenvironment." and others are, "ok. let's get to work guys,let's hit those milestones,
let's make sure thatour publishers are happy and everything in between." so there is no one rule, whichis a beautiful thing, you know. and i promise you that there isan industry, there's a company, there's a studio tomatch your personality. and just like when iwas answering before, what's my most, i guess, fun moment in design was itwas just the experience working with fun people.
everyone is goingtowards the same goal. it's like centipedes, right? there's 100 legs, but one legcan't do it all, you know. it's the team effort of people. and making sure that you getalong with your guys, you know, the people that you workwith is very important. yeah. so that wholecompany culture-- game companies are fun, youknow, they're really fun. segway scooters, man, you gotguns everywhere like airsofting
and ping pong, you know. and because they want to-- ifyou have fun making something, it's going to be afun product, you know. if you have fun designingit, it's going to look fun when someone looks at it. so that's the kindof the mentality. yeah. i think there'smay be time for maybe two morequestions, so. yeah, go ahead.
>> it was-- yeah-- >> everybody! like oprah, everyone'sgoing to be rich. they're going to be rich. >> yeah. and do you-- >> i mean don't get mewrong my first job was-- it wasn't like amazing,you know. so i was making probably10, $15 an hour. but that was awesome.
i was like, "all right, sweet. go to internet twice this week. awesome, man." and then you start to kind of,you know, get more experience. and, you know, the moneydoes flow in, you know. and there's somethingthat i learned is, again, i'm full of likecheesy quotes today, but if you don'tchase the money, the money will eventuallychase you.
but that's like a weirdasian saying, i heard it. it makes sense inasian language. >> i speak asian. >> i speak indian-americanlanguage. but it does. it's like if you focuson what you want to do and your passions, you know, success will eventually findits way to you, you know. so yeah, i mean likemoney was a huge factor.
i was like, "oh damn. my friends, theyjust graduated ucla and they're making like 65k. bastards." you know, i'm like, you'dget a check [inaudible]. and we go out to-- wewent out to dinner and i'm like telling my ego, "oh." but i think financially, youknow, it was one of those things where it's like, ok, as long asi'm happy and i can survive and,
you know, live thenext day, that's good. because eventually, you know,like i think a half a year from that point, i wasable to get a salary bump because i switched jobs,you know, i was learning. i was learning. and just like whenyou learn, you know, financially that willgrow as well, you know. if you're stuck ata studio and you like [noise] then you'relearning starts to plateau,
so does financially, itwill plateau as well. but if you're ok withthat, then, you know, that's what you should expect. but yeah, in the world ofart, if you're hard working and you can be smart about it,you can actually be very, very-- it can be very lucrative, right? >> james. >> right, james? >> well, i mean, here's thething guys is with that--
i got a very latestart at art center. actually in college, i-- yeah,i was excellerant, right? i was like the academicexcellerator [phonetic]. but-- so i didn'tdo anything really after high schoolfor quite a bit. and i didn't reallystart art center. i actually go intocollege until 21 maybe 22. so i graduated art centerwhen i was around 26. so very late start and i guesswithin the college terms,
but part of that was thati wasn't ready, you know. i think if i went to thatschool when i was 18, i would have failed out. i would have gone kicked outno matter what, you know. and that also was thesaying that, you know, things come in time, right? and, you know, don'talways just see who's out of the startingblocks first. it's like who hits thefinish line, right?
so i think that's definitely onething to kind of keep in mind. but, you know, youkind of use your head, use your smarts, you know. you have a skill thatpeople want and people need, and so there is definitelyawesome opportunities out there, awesome, awesome opportunities. >> that's a good analogy. like there's so many timeswhen i want to go back to middle school and i'm like,
"i'm going to be the best eighthgrader and be a valedictorian." i'm like, "damn,school is so easy." but it's natural. as you graduate, you go throughthe process, you go back, you're like, "those high schoolkids, you don't know shit". like, "and you'recomplaining about life. like what are youtalking about, kids?" you know, but if i were togo back and redo high school, i would have gonelike a 3.0, you know.
it would have been-- i would have been 1.0 higherthan what i'm usually used to. but that to me is like,"dude, that's pretty good." and if you go backto middle school, i would have beena valedictorian. and i would have-- yeah,just dropped it, you know, been a pretty awesomeweird, you know, almost 30-year-old livingamongst 13-year-old kids. but like-- it goes to backto james' point, you know,
like you guys havedifferent backgrounds, different life experience. some of you guysstarted school early. some of you guys started later. and it all has adifferent advantage. and i think justembrace it, you know, so. >> yeah. there's no race. there's no, you know, whogets their first wins. it's all your own pace.
>> yeah. one more question-- >> i guess, there willbe one more question. >> -- i guess. well, interesting. here's-- the interestingthing is myself and john, we have this group of friends. and i'm pretty surelike we-- i don't-- we haven't talkedabout this formally. but there's this group offriends that we are very kind
of like silentlycompetitive with each other. and it's part like thatwithin your class, right? same thing happens when you'reout working all that stuff. but when john is doing someof his robots, i'm like, "goddamn, that is cool." >> and i'm like,"yeah, suck it, james." >> and i'm like, "dude, let me. i want to-- dude, i needto learn this stuff. i want to get into it."
>> like, "no, you can't dude." >> and then, you know, with character designers,environment. and it's like thisthing that we kind of keep each otherinspired, you know. and in that downtime, we actually-- and it's kind of interestingbecause we also do a lot of teaching as we give eachother this mini assignments. like we're giving each otherhomework, you know, like, "hey,
we got to do this todayand by this tomorrow." and, you know, westart learning. we just-- osmosis, we startbouncing ideas off each other. and that's what it is. it's-- we're artist at heart. we don't do this. we don't do art for work. we're artist by heart. and we end up doing artfor work by the way.
i think it's a conceptof equation. we'll still be doing creativethings no matter what, so. >> cool. well i guess thatwraps up the presentation. >> thanks, guys.
