November 2014
Featured Artist of the month: McLeLun
introduction
Known
as
McLelun on the internet and called Lun by his co-workers and friends,
Lun is a digital
artist, programmer and interactive designer who has despite his
disability, work as a digital artist and background artist thanks to persistence and colour
picking
tools.
Yep, he can't see reds and green but the colour picking tool saved the day. If it wasn't pointed out repeatedly in many places I might've never noticed it. I had first found McLelun when I was browsing artworks on Deviant Art, and was impressed by the use of 3D for making a 2D background for an artwork which featured characters from 'Baccano!'. Normally, we use 2D to make 3D environment art instead of the other way around, so I was curious about Lun's art, and wanted to know how long it would take for a person to actually learn till the kind of skill that Lun had displayed in his art gallery.
When he had graduated from his programming course, he decided to pursue a job which is more related to his interest, and landed a job in a game company. Now he is contracted with RND studio, and mainly dealing with video special effects, animation using Blender.
Some of the flash based games he made had been inspired by popular games such as Flappy Bird, and some had really Malaysian feel to them, such as What Da Food, which would hopefully remove the problem of choosing between many types of food in restaurants.
Yep, he can't see reds and green but the colour picking tool saved the day. If it wasn't pointed out repeatedly in many places I might've never noticed it. I had first found McLelun when I was browsing artworks on Deviant Art, and was impressed by the use of 3D for making a 2D background for an artwork which featured characters from 'Baccano!'. Normally, we use 2D to make 3D environment art instead of the other way around, so I was curious about Lun's art, and wanted to know how long it would take for a person to actually learn till the kind of skill that Lun had displayed in his art gallery.
When he had graduated from his programming course, he decided to pursue a job which is more related to his interest, and landed a job in a game company. Now he is contracted with RND studio, and mainly dealing with video special effects, animation using Blender.
Some of the flash based games he made had been inspired by popular games such as Flappy Bird, and some had really Malaysian feel to them, such as What Da Food, which would hopefully remove the problem of choosing between many types of food in restaurants.
Without further ado, we will go into some of the topics covered during the interview, such as the challenges of working in the creative industry, what happened to the Sunsastera film, what other skills should an artist have besides technical skills.
Working in the creative industry
Lun starts his day a little late, sometimes going to his office by 11 o'clock.
His job requires him to converse with clients, discuss ideas with his boss as he works at a small agency. There are pros and cons to this. For example, he gets more space to think about the sort of creative executions they plan to make.
After working in the industry for awhile, he realized that having a good portfolio is much more important than the years spend in education.
What does a good portfolio entail? Suzanne Helmigh, a concept artist, shared her knowledge on how to get a job and what to include in a portfolio in this post. Helmigh pointed out that artists shouldn't show many artworks, as we will always be judged by our worst piece. Instead, show the work that is suitable for the company we'd like to work for.
Lun has never regretted choosing his interest over well paid jobs, even though his former classmates has better paid jobs. "My job allowed me to do more fun, creative things compared to their job. They just keep doing the same kind of things." he said.
With years of experience on social media, Mclelun commented that Facebook has the best reach to Malaysian in terms of building an audience because Malaysians spend most of their time on facebook.
Although, before getting started with your Facebook page, we should read up on how to treat others on social media platforms in this article.
His job requires him to converse with clients, discuss ideas with his boss as he works at a small agency. There are pros and cons to this. For example, he gets more space to think about the sort of creative executions they plan to make.
After working in the industry for awhile, he realized that having a good portfolio is much more important than the years spend in education.
What does a good portfolio entail? Suzanne Helmigh, a concept artist, shared her knowledge on how to get a job and what to include in a portfolio in this post. Helmigh pointed out that artists shouldn't show many artworks, as we will always be judged by our worst piece. Instead, show the work that is suitable for the company we'd like to work for.
Lun has never regretted choosing his interest over well paid jobs, even though his former classmates has better paid jobs. "My job allowed me to do more fun, creative things compared to their job. They just keep doing the same kind of things." he said.
With years of experience on social media, Mclelun commented that Facebook has the best reach to Malaysian in terms of building an audience because Malaysians spend most of their time on facebook.
Although, before getting started with your Facebook page, we should read up on how to treat others on social media platforms in this article.
Most commonly asked question:
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Creative Process
Usually, Lun starts off his work by going through references, either photo or artworks. Depending on what type of work he is doing, how he starts on the artwork or project will defer. Colour references are very important to him, since he is handicapped in that area (unable to see certain colours) . Sometimes he even does a simple 3D environment simulation as a base to start off his 2D artwork.
Lun's current inspiration is Shinkai Makoto, an animator who had single-handedly drawn feature length animations before. Some of Shinkai Makoto's works include Kotonoha no niwa, Hoshi no Koe or Byôsoku 5 senchimêtoru. Shinkai Makoto's style is reflected in Lun's works- from the realistic backgrounds to the colour scheme (see the embedded video in the twitter post).
Lun's current inspiration is Shinkai Makoto, an animator who had single-handedly drawn feature length animations before. Some of Shinkai Makoto's works include Kotonoha no niwa, Hoshi no Koe or Byôsoku 5 senchimêtoru. Shinkai Makoto's style is reflected in Lun's works- from the realistic backgrounds to the colour scheme (see the embedded video in the twitter post).
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Besides drawing, Lun blogs about his digital paintings, posts on art tutorials, animation and flash based games. Here are examples of his blog posts:
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Final words
Lun is actually pretty busy with his own projects right now, but he reminds those who are seeking to work in the industry to not forget their
own goals and continue working towards it.
Read more about Mclelun in an interview done in 2011 by Ikhwan Nazri, written in Bahasa Malayu.