Practitioners

Top of Page

ILO: 10/12/19

For this task, I plan to continue with it over the holidays to enable other tasks take place. So I will be researching the artists bit-by-bit. I also plan to email Ross Tran and Jordan Grimmer about their careers. But if I fail to receive Jordan’s contact, I will try to contact another concept artist. Otherwise I will try to gather sufficient information about Jordan Grimmer.

As I research into the practitioners, I will l learn about how they progressed into the media industry as a concept artist. Unlike for Frederic Remington, I will learn about how he brings the West to the East.

Ross Tran

Ross Tran is a full-time YouTuber in concept art of characters and rarely environment.

What was his first job?
Ross’ first job was at Disney (Walt Disney & Roy O. Disney, 1923) on the film Earth to Echo (2014). He was recommended a job by his close friend Noel at just 17, where Disney needed a character designer for the film and Ross showed his portfolio to the director who became really impressed and Ross was the most liked artist by the director, and was immediately invited to work for the film as a character designer - but as lead character designer.
How Ross won the big jobs at such a young age, he explains in another interview that “You have to personalise your portfolio so it represents what you really want to do,” he informs. “For instance, if you love character design and want to get hired for it, make your portfolio and online presence character-based. I’ve seen a lot of people put too many types of work in their portfolio. It makes them look disposable. The last thing you want to be is a robot. Show the world who you are and what you want to do.”

How did he progress?
However, Ross quit Disney - as well as art to pursue acting because he thought “in my mind, I thought I could be a really good actor”, and “something I’ve always wanted to do”, because he kept receiving praises and was always known as “Ross the artist” and “THE artist” because of his skilled art and efforts. For Ross, it grinned in him, hence his new embankment on acting, so he conducted a lot of research on how to break into the industry of acting whilst his money drastically decreased from not working after quitting Disney, and staying in an apartment, learning about acting as well as working acting with cameras, learning lines, getting an agent, getting a manger, etc.
But as he auditioned he started to really enjoy the experience of acting, he didn’t manage to get hired from the audition and started missing art.

Not knowing what to do, stayed in his bedroom for a week, tweaking and playing with cameras and his Cintiq drawing tablet. And from that, he decided to create a YouTube channel about him drawing and entertaining the audience under the influence of his acting with acting, as well as enjoy their learning about art.
A week after that, his audience statistics drastically flourished in numbers. From that week, he developed 1,000 subscribers and 100 shares.
Despite how Ross “grew up really shy” and “had a lot of insecurities growing up”, his channel RossDraws represents a side of himself that depicts transformation and self-growth.

Ross Tran

What is he doing now?
Now, Ross continues to work as a YouTuber artist, but is also working on his own book about his original characters - which he’s really excited and enthusiastic about.

Is there anything iconic about his projects?
Even though Ross Tran is mainly YouTube famous and is usually recognised by beginner artists and some others, his projects are recognised for his beautiful, colourful and fluorescent, professional art. However, he has drawn characters who already existed in books, films and games, until he felt he was “wasting my time” so after a year and a half, he developed an original character of his own named Nima, as he thought that “I feel like I don’t have anything that’s mine out there”.
Ross recently made two more characters, Faye and Miracle, and with the three of his characters together, people from parts around the world recognise the characters as Ross.

Has he said about projects he worked on?
Supposedly when Ross was still studying at Art Center, it was very intensive studying that students obliged themselves to take all-nighters to complete their work. But Ross wanted to learn faster by resting the mind by sleeping on time. So he did and managed to retain information more than before when he first studied at the college.
His project of Nima not only is Ross’ original character but another form of himself, and also embodies his personality as well as his other two original characters he recently made.
From the website’s collection of Ross’ paintings, each had their attached quotes from Ross about his thoughts of his work. For example, this orange vertical landscape, he explains “this was one of the few pieces I did in my year off art to pursue acting. I just loved to paint and felt the need to express myself artistically.” (first image)
A painting of one of the characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005), where “this piece is quite special to me. People often mention that this was one of the first episodes/pieces they saw when they discovered me.” (second image)
Another painting, which personally makes the painting feel cinematically moved, “this was another one that day in my folder for about two years. I never knew how to finish it, but one day I opened it up and let the story breathe.” (third image)

daxc002-d0e777ce-0950-476a-9668-6fe9ffec

Are his projects similar or do they vary?
His projects are similar in what he creates - he mainly draws characters in forms of portraits or landscapes, and quite rarely does he draw environments. And the characters he creates are also mainly human. The majority of his projects consist of the themes of magic and fantasy in some forms of Asian fantasy - in terms of the clothing and weaponry. Another form of variation is where the characters he draws comes from. So not only does he draw people, but the majority of the characters are already existing in the media of anime shows, TV and games. However, he does also conduct artwork of his own original characters, such as Nima, Sloan, Faye and his most recent character, Miracle.

How does he organise his projects?
After the attempt of trying to contact him for this research, his executive assistant reassured me that Ross was busy and is tight on schedule with projects and with “a lot of back to back projects lined up”. Which I understood, since Ross was dealing with an explosion of organising his merchandise bought by thousands of his fans.
In one of his interviews with Blender Guru, he quickly added how he even plans his YouTube schedule of what he should create next “in the shower”. But as he explains how not even working in full-time YouTubing, he’s still not enabled to have his free time like what he experienced whilst he was studying at Art Center - intensive and no free-time. But he also informs that after he uploads a video, he immediately plans “so what’s next?”.

What methods or techniques does he use?
Mostly iconically, Ross Tran is very most recognised for his favourite use of colour dodge, which is a tool that brings tones and glows the colours - essentially bringing the art vividly to the eye.
However, other than that, as I watched his videos, I noticed that none of his art include any form of outlining - which is something I need to, personally, start doing in my drawings, because - especially in Ross’ art - it makes the art break free from being frozen in place and, instead, also brings the art to life with some senses of movement and pace of the image, as well as allowing the colours flourish beyond the canvas.
In Ross’ tutorials, he explains the interpretation of shapes and how to use them to communicate to the audience so they can naturally interpret the personality of the character, as well as with the use of colours on them and around them. Therefore, Ross also uses the technique of semiotics - which is the most fundamental skill when doing art.

Are his projects similar or do they vary?
His projects are similar in what he creates - he mainly draws characters in forms of portraits or landscapes, and quite rarely does he draw environments. And the characters he creates are also mainly human. The majority of his projects consist of the themes of magic and fantasy in some forms of asian fantasy - in terms of the clothing and weaponry. Another form of variation is where the characters draws comes from. So not only does he draw people, but the majority of the characters are already existing in the media of anime shows, TV and games. However, he does also conduct artwork of his own original characters, such as Nima, Sloan, Faye and his most recent character, Miracle.

Opinions and thoughts on the work he has done?
Even though Ross hit over 60,000 subscribers in 2018 and is now at over 1,000,000 today, he still claims to be shocked over how his channel exploded with a growth spurt of viewers and sharers. Blender Guru asked Ross if any of his previous jobs - especially with the auditions of acting - ever became an influence to his YouTube channel. Ross highly agreed with the question and indeed claims that his previous experiences helped him progress into where he was and is today. Even though Ross was a shy and introverted person, before he applied for acting, he knew and saw himself that he can definitely become an actor - to which as a result of his self-development and YouTube channel, he’s not shy anymore - which is also reflected from his videos.
In terms of his art, his most recent video about his development of his new original character, Miracle, he describes how “I wanted her to embody everything that my channel is about and she turned out quite special.” and how he’s excited for her to be in his book that will be released next summer.

Unfortunately, for Ross, I couldn’t get an interview with him, but thankfully his executive returned an email to say that he was busy with a very tight schedule and back-to back projects. Which I understood, but I tried again and asked if there was any way if he’d be able to answer some questions in his free time. Still unable. But I appreciated the answer and Ross’ luck for his large projects.
Even though he’s mainly YouTube famous, many people wrote and interviewed him on YouTube and some articles, which were a pleasure to listen to and read, despite how I already researched about him for Task one of Futureproof, these sources were an advantage for me to learn further about Ross.

Reference:

Academy of Art University (2016) ‘Concept Art Panel: Ross Tran’ YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoTDSpxtKc0 [Accessed 17 November 2019].

Patreon (2018) ‘Creator Tour with Ross Tran | Illustrator and Youtube Creator’ YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjJwcHCL6Uc [Accessed 17 November 2019].

Blender Guru (2018) ‘'How I learned to draw' with RossDraws’ YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxVfsG8srqA&t=2564s [Accessed 4 December 2019].

Gary Evans (2017) Meet the artist drawing millions of YouTube views [Online]. Available from: https://www.creativebloq.com/features/meet-the-artist-drawing-millions-of-youtube-view [Accessed 2 January 2020].

Frederic Remington

Frederic Remington was an American artist born in 1861 and died in 1909. He was also a painter, illustrator, sculptor and writer who specialised in depictions of the Old American West, specifically concentrating on the last quarter of the 19th century American West and images of cowboys, American Indians, and the U.S. Cavalry.

Frederic Remington’s father was a newspaper editor and postman but two months after Remington was born, he had to leave to fight in the civil war.
Young Remington grew up hearing epic stories about his father’s life in the cavalry on the Western Campaign.
After four years of battling in the war, his father came back and distinguished Lieutenant Colonel.
Remington’s father enrolled him in military school when he was eleven and he hoped it could lead to a military career for his son, but Remington did not enjoy the field of violence and war, and instead yearned for good times: hunting, boxing, football and riding horses were his activities of choice.
The times he drew, his sketchbooks were filled with drawings of horses, soldiers and cowboys and epic battles with Native Americans.
Frederic Remington had no desire to live a life of hard labour. He has simple ambitions to be a journalist like his father and to work on his art on the side.

Frederic Remington

He decided to attend art school at Yale University where his father rejoiced in his son’s playing in Yale’s football team. But when his father fell ill from tuberculosis, Remington left school to tend to his bedside.
His father passed away a year later and Remington refused to return to art school and started working for his uncle for some time and visited his girlfriend, Eva Caten, at the weekends. But after her father rejected their engagement and a string of failed short lived jobs, Remington decided to head West.

As he lived in the West, he lived off of his inheritance with little responsibility or obligation, Remington travelled the vast prairies saw the shrinking buffalo herds and visited the open range he imagined so much as a kid.
Remington decided to invest the rest of his inheritance in a sheep ranch in Kansas. He spent a year at the investment trying his luck working as an actual cowboy but he soon realised he realities of working on the frontier: rough and quite tedious.

So Remington moved back to New York with little money left. He started painting and sketching and earnest and after years of emotions of no direction and uncertainty, his success started to rise and became recognised at the age of twenty-five.
His mythic drawings of cowboys and Native Americans proved popular with the American public and his illustrations adorned the covers of prestigious magazines.
Remington enjoyed the attention, he adopted the persona of a Wild West cowboy, sharing the wildly exaggerated stories about working out West, failing to mention how actual cowboys just thought he was lazy through the Spanish-American war. Remington got to work as a reporter and illustrator but it was there that his youthful heroic conceptions of war were shattered by its violent and brutal realities.

Returning from war and seeking rest, he spent time in his island retreat on the St. Lawrence River he desired to be more like the Impressionists, painting in the open air but he was bound to his studio from his declining health.
On December 26th 1909, Remington passed away from appendicitis leaving behind a body of work that included more than 3,000 drawings and paintings twenty-two bronze sculptors, two novels, a Broadway play and over 100 articles and stories.

Frederic Remington lived in a time that saw the last dying years of the Wild West and he took to commentating it in paintings and sculptures, turning the old tales of cowboys and Native Americans into legends.

Frederic_Remington_-_The_Flight_-_Google

Observing Remington’s art, they appear to be similar to all of his works. The majority of his art consist of mostly cowboys and horses, but some also include the battles between American soldiers and the Native Americans, wild western animals such as wolves, bears, bison, cattle and moose. Overall - the Wild West. His art mainly portrayed his inspiration of the Wild West ever since he grew up.

In terms of how Frederic Remington’s work is iconic and what he says about his projects, Theodore Roosevelt observed Remington’s work in Pearson’s Magazine in 1907 saying:

“He is, of course, one of the most typical American artists we have ever had, and he has portrayed a most characteristic and yet vanishing type of American life. The soldier, the cowboy and rancher, the Indian, the horses and the cattle of the plains, will live in his pictures and bronzes, I verily believe, for all time.”

Not only earlier have I explained about how Frederic Remington was recognised for his western art, but he’s also iconic for his work that have their particular pace in each of his artwork with his use of colours and position of the horse and cowboy.
For example, the art A Dash for the Timber from 1889, the reason why people become quite absorbed into the scene of the art is because of the vibrant use of colours and the position of the horses. By the use of colours and the orientation of the canvas (landscape), it makes the art appear cinematic and fun to watch - yet a still image full of life and action.

A_Dash_for_the_Timber_by_Frederic_Reming

In comparison to Remington’s other artwork, The Fall of the Cowboy, 1985, has an opposite approach when observing the art. The colours are sombre and monochromatic, and the way Remington gently approached the canvas to represent a scene of a quiet day and possibly an end of an era.

The observers explain how all of the figures are still, as if there’s no wind and almost no sound. Furthermore, by how Remington was inspired by the environment and lives of a cowboy, Remington really approaches this in many of his artwork, as well as this one, by how he painted the folds of one of the cowboy’s thick pant leg, the heaviness of the chaps and their fringe, the worn quality of the hat, which is a clear love of materiality of the life of the cowboy. By Remington’s use of techniques and his methods, through his works, they clearly show that he knew his equipment and how to use them to create proficient and detailed art to express his inspiration of the Wild West to the Eastern parts. The use of oil paints with brushes, modelling bronze sculptures and illustrating for magazines.

Even though Frederic Remington was from the East - New York, the way he studied for his wild western art was by observing cowboys and their wild actions, travelling to the west and purchasing some items that represent the western environment and brought the items and studies to his studio to be redrawn and studied further for his art.
With this, he illustrated for the eastern parts of America - hence his popularity and recognition as a fascinating artist of New York, because of how he brought the West to the East.

Despite that I, obviously, couldn’t contact Frederic Remington… as of his amazing Western work, many people wrote about his life and history for me to gather sufficient information to meet the criteria. However, since I developed a liking for the Wild Western culture, as well as adding another activity to my bucket list to take a road trip across the Arizonian desert with a vintage Mustang, it was a pleasure to learn about Remington’s bringing from the West to the Eastern states with his art.

Reference:

Philinthecircle (2014) ‘Remington Biography from Goodbye-Art Academy’ YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHQ9gSyhzvk [Accessed 8 December 2019].

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (2015) ‘Fredric Remington: The Illustrator’ YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlPCy0Ym27c [Accessed 8 December 2019].

Smarthistory (2018) ‘The end of an era: Remington's The Fall of the Cowboy’ YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pceF0jIyxk4 [Accessed 8 December 2019].

Frederic Remington (2002) FREDERIC SACKRIDER REMINGTON [Online]. Available from: http://www.frederic-remington.org/ [Accessed 8 December 2019].

Google Arts & Culture (2011) Frederic Remington [Online]. Available from: https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/frederic-remington/QR1upDRu [Accessed 8 December 2019].

Thayer Tolles (2010) Frederic Remington (1861–1909) [Online]. Available from: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/remi/hd_remi.htm [Accessed 8 December 2019].

Jordan Grimmer

Jordan Grimmer is a concept and 2D artist, mainly of environments, and a book and album cover illustrator with five years in the games industry with AAA and mobile experience. Jordan also had recent in-house positions with Kobojo Ltd (2008), Lionhead Studios (1996), Leading Light Design (date unknown), and Another Place Productions (2012). But currently he’s working as a freelancer and is open to job opportunities within his category.

What was his first job? - How did he progress?
Jordan Grimmer started learning about concept art at around 2008 when he joined a video games art university course. But as he learned through university, his parents were willing to be patient with Jordan to successfully learn and break into the industry without being forced to take “any old job that I didn’t want to do”.
After he left university, he became convinced that he could make money from being a concept artist. Once he received some freelance gigs, he knew that the beginning career was something should pursue doing.
Jordan’s first paid gig was for a book cover which he felt proud when it was finished and earned money. He explains how “it was a great feeling but I definitely priced myself a bit low”. In that matter, Jordan informed the interviewer and concept artists doing freelance that if they think their art is professional, then they must price their art professionally before regretting the hard hours, work and effort towards the art.

What jobs did he have since?
After participating in freelance, Jordan began working at Kobojo from an interview invitation through DeviantArt and contacted each other via Skype. However, with experience of working at Kobojo for two years, he also started working at Lionhead Studios which he took a more conventional approach of applying for the job. And after working there from March 2016 he worked for Leading Light Design for a year, and another year at Another Place Productions, and is now back in freelancing and looking for a job at a studio.

What is he doing now?
Now, Jordan pursues with concept art as a freelancer, except still looking to work in a studio.

Jordan Grimmer

Is there anything iconic about his work?
Even though Jordan Grimmer is not as famous and recognised as the other concept artists such as Feng Zhu who is known to be one of the top concept artists who even owns his own school that teaches concept art and other major online tutorials. Jordan’s work is recognised for immersive environment designs of all kinds: sci-fi, cyberpunk, fantasy, deserts, forest, ruins, etc.

What did he say about his work?
Jordan claimed that he can be in a “rut”, he likes to look back through his previous artwork from when he started digital drawing as it helps him see the times when he improved over the years and see “where I might have learned a technique that would affect work in the future”.
However, for Jordan, it’s hard for him to feel improvement until he has taken a step back on what he’s created and couldn’t tell whether his current work would have been classed as professional, until in 2015, he realised his efforts and mind of design and thought “my work has reached a stage that I would call “professional”’.

Are his projects similar or varied?
His portfolio features mostly environment concepts, however, other varieties of work are not particularly conducted, so Jordan is mainly known for his precise environment paintings. Jordan was never a fan of painting characters because they were “something I found more daunting at the time, so I clung to environments instead”. He opinionated that “with characters I personally feel there’s a smaller margin of error. When something looks off it’s much more apparent. With environments you could create a huge sense of scale simply by putting a tiny man somewhere in a mess of brush strokes and it would look cool. That’s something I did a lot when I first started messing around in Photoshop”.

How does he organise his work?
When Jordan worked at Kobojo, a typical day was working with the design team that gave Jordan and his team a rundown of what the designers wanted to see in the game’s levels, which Jordan and the team then would plan and conceptualise ideas. Then refine the concepts into usable assets and then import them into Unity.
But in terms of his current position as a freelancer, the more hours and effort of work he applies to an art piece, the more money it will cost.

What techniques does he use? - How did he progress?
Jordan grimmer improved his art by reading through books of Colour and Light and watching online tutorials from James Paick and Feng Zhu, as well as free tutorials on YouTube.
Quite recently, he watched tutorials from Eytan Zana and Shaddy Safadi’s tutorials which “have been a big help in changing the way I start and build my paintings, concentrating more on shape and composition before rushing into the details”.

As well as this, as I watched one of his concept art productions of a fantasy landscape, he uses images and modifies them to be blended in within the painting to create a vision of precision and detail to create a satisfying beauty of the landscape’s elements.

Overall, even though I didn’t receive a reply from him for this project, I managed to gather sufficient information about his profession and his experiences around it.

Reference:

Jordan Grimmer (2016) ‘Sketching a Fantasy Landscape: Digital Painting Time-Lapse’ YouTube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ejwLBnWxA [Accessed 1 January 2020].

Concept Art Empire (date unknown) Artist Jordan Grimmer Offers Tips & Truths From His Concept Art Career [Online]. Available from: https://conceptartempire.com/jordan-grimmer-interview/ [Accessed 1 January 2020].

Jordan Grimmer (date unknown) About [Online]. Available from: http://www.jordangrimmer.co.uk/about-ba [Accessed 1 January 2020].

ArtStation | Jordan Grimmer (date unknown) About [Online]. Available from: https://www.artstation.com/jordangrimmer/profile [Accessed 1 January 2020].

Back

Specialisms