Illustrator And Concept Artist Jean Roux Shows Us His Work
Who is Jean Roux and what do you do?
Jean is a tall, strange chap who spends far too much time in front of his computer fiddling around with art and stuff. He’d like to spend more time in the ocean surfing but his PC doesn’t like salt water and it’s hard to multi-task out there. He’s also going to stop talking in the 3rd person as it’s getting a bit awkward. I work as an Illustrator and concept artist for the entertainment industry, specifically for movies, novels and games. Thanks to the internet I get to work from home but still have clients from all over the world.
How would you define your style or art?
I’m going to go with Painterly Realism. As my work entails creating realistic versions of things that don’t really exist, being able to portray a fantasy or sc-fi image as believable is the main goal of my art and is what influences my style the most. While I work mostly in a digital format, I want my images to look like classical oil paintings. Having studied 3 years of fine art, I have a solid background in traditional mediums and now I translate that over to digital painting.
What inspires your work?
I’m inspired the most by all the great artists out there in the entertainment industry. Thanks to all the various websites and social media platforms, artists from all over the world are sharing more work than ever before, so seeing them do their thing is always inspiring. Being able to see the design process and the idea creation behind the movies and games I enjoy is also very inspiring. Actually in general, seeing good art is inspiring to me. I know about all the hard work and effort that goes into building the skills necessary to create these great works, which for me, is good inspiration in my own studies. Also Bob Ross – whenever I’m down or struggling with a picture, I often just listen to Bob talking about painting happy little clouds and trees!
What are you currently working on?
Apart from the usual work stuff, I am busy updating my portfolio with more fantasy works. I’m a big sci-fi fan but you need to show versatility in your work so I am concentrating on that for a while. I am also constantly working on improving my art skills, so there are lots of studies being done. As far as personal projects go, I am working on a graphic novel called “Escapade” with is surprise, surprise, a sci-fi based story. I am still in the early stages of development on it and I am finding out that doing a sequential art story is a whole new game that you get to play on the hard level setting. A long term project that I am working on is seascape oil paintings. This is part of my retirement plan, figured by the time I hit 65 I’ll be pretty good at them and will only need to do maybe 2 a year to pay for my upkeep.
What advice would you give young creatives looking to do what you do?
Maybe get yourself a calculator and study accountancy, this artwork business involves way too much hard work and not enough bling bling. However if you still insist on taking this path I’d say: Keep your chin up, practice, practice, practice… the hard work pays off eventually!
Where can our readers follow your work?
my portfolio:
http://jeanrouxart.carbonmade.com/
More variety of images:
http://jeanroux.deviantart.com/
my sketchbook post I’ve had over the years where you can see all the time spent painting and drawing:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=118521
MC Hammer or Vanilla Ice(who do you prefer if you had to choose?)
Ugh, I’d like to say MC Hammer but seeing as I had a Vanilla Ice record as a kid and knew all the lyrics to Ice Ice baby; it’s going to have to be the Vanilla guy.
