Environment Concept Art - Frell

Sharing my design process for the small village called Frell from my personal IP "Haven".

I hope you guys like it, despite my frequent rambling :D
Thanks for watching!

[gradyfrederickart]

Hey everyone, just wanted to thank you all again for your comments and your feedback, it really does mean alot. I hope to release more content soon once work slows down a bit. You guys are the best!

[ernesin]

man.. you just gave us like.. an AMAZING MASTER CLASS. Thank you so much for sharing!! for real!

[superpyrrhocorax]

I know this is 2 years old but it's helped me SO MUCH, thank you for posting it

[Thesamurai]

I can render in black and white, I can also do color. But for some reason going from black and white to color is really difficult for me, the colors end up looking so uncanny and unreal in an unpleasant way.

[TangomelonArt]

I'm not used to doing environmental painting and I've been trying something new. I've been stuck on a painting for the last couple of days and this helped me so much. You explained the process very well and I'm glad you show the whole process including the reality of going back and redoing things that don't work right away because that's something people struggle with while they're learning and it's nice it hear that it's okay.

[boooo]

As I child I loved being in nature and I sketched and painted all day every day but during my early teens, for some reason, I just stopped. After I had finished school I had difficulties deciding how to move on and, looking back at my childhood interests, I decided to enroll in an ecology program in university and right now I am working to finish my PhD thesis in plant physiology. Sadly I have been struggling with mild depressive periods over the years but recently I finally figured out the reason. It's all because back then I chose the wrong path. I do love nature, but it's the atmosphere, the magic, the wonders that inspire me - not the cold mechanistic science. Since I realized that I picked up pen and brushes again, treated myself with a nice graphic tablet and started painting again. It's indescribable - I suddenly feel alive again. It is a bit as if I snapped out of a decade long half-awake delirium.

That being said, I would like to thank you, Grady, for all the content you put up on YT and artstation. Especially the Environment Design courses on Artstation proved to be invaluable for me. I learned so much and am able to finally channel my creative energy a bit better. And the videos and samples of your creative work give me something to look up to. You manage to capture the atmosphere, the magic, the wonders, that I crave so desperately, just masterfully. Thank you!

[Anthween]

Omy jehesus, this is like the definition of a hidden gem, thank you so much for taking the time to make this tutorial!

[LiMaking]

I really appreciate all this. I'm about to start on a concept for an application to a game creation art course, and I already felt stressed even though I have almost 2 months do make it. They don't even need to you actually have taken art class to apply, but I didn't get in last year and was only a reserve, and now I've finished 3 art courses to apply again. stakes feel high. Seeing you allowing yourself to be so free about it makes me more calm, and makes me allow myself to think about having fun with it.

[gasmasksamurai]

LOVED the whole video!! Something that stood out is that you legitimately gave us the full experience - Even though you called the detail-adding process the "most boring part" you still left it in. I can't even begin to express my disappointment at any artist that just skips a BIG chunk of the process and says "Alright here's the finished piece, no one wants to look at 3 hours worth of detail work". Well, me and all my creative friends definitely take a lot of notes from that specific part of the process. Watching you work is a grand experience! Cheers!

[Sharp_Calidore]

Mate you improved like crazy that year, these are like world class paintings, keep up great work 🎉

[tybertimus]

As of recently I finally have a reason to finally push into environment art. I've been combing through the internet looking for good starting help, and I ended up here! Glad I did. I hope you continue to share what you can/will with us.

[filipathomaz]

Hey there! I recently just stumbled upon your videos here on yt and it was with great interest that i watched them all.

I'm an aspiring videogame artist. I'm still a student completing her first year in college, and just like I thought, I really absolutely love creating concept art. It has always fascinated me not only looking at game concept art, but also reading the notes left by the art directors explaining some decisions made along the way.

And maybe this is a bit personal, but I guess there's this one thing that I'm still trying to wrap my head around. College isn't like in highschool, where you have assignments that you have to do a certain way because that's what you need to do for a class, only for that work to be unrelated to the real world, in a way. So far, after this first semester, I can happily verify that that's not the case in college. If feels like I'm being taught how to properly do things, because that's the steps everyone else follows in the work industry. It's not just because I have to do things a certain way for an assignment, no. It's because this is the work process that everyone should follow.

I've watched your commentary videos, and honestly it is so gratifying and still mind blowing to see you start your projects with a moodboard or a couple of reference pictures, and then moving onto thumbnails, doing silhouette work and then color studies, not only for the environment itself but then for other assets like houses and so on and so forth, and hearing you talk about how important this all is for the creative process. I don't know if what I've said makes sense to you, but it makes me so incredibly happy, and i admire it a lot.

I don't know if you're ever gonna read this, but I have 2 questions for you. One, I know you've come a long way to get to where you're at right now, and I'm sure you still see a lot of room for improvement in your own artwork. You've quickly become an artist that I admire, not only for your art, but also for being relatable in a way, considering the point i made above. I was wondering if you'd ever consider making a video showing some of your early concept art, so we can sort of see the baby steps you took to get to the level where you're at right now. I'd be really thankful, and it'd be something inspiring for me.
And my question no. 2, is if you'd have any tips for coming up with different thumbnails when you're trying to come up with a solid idea (if you'd prefer, this could be talked about in a video too). In a way, how could we expand on our creativity? Is it just through references? Because there are a lot of things that are purely fantasy/ things you don't see in the real world, so how does one get to those ideas?

Again, I don't know if you'll ever see this, or respond to this, but if you do, thank you for reading, and thank you for contributing with your work.

[torilewandowska]

I've been really enjoying your videos on ArtStation Learning and I'm so happy to see you have a youtube channel! Really love how you talk about the process and thoughts behind everything. It all just makes so much sense. In the ArtStation series, you've mentioned that in your personal projects you like to take time and paint everything by yourself but I'd love to see how you work with photos as well when you want to speed things up!
Anw, great work!

[dominikmueller]

This is absolutely amazing, I myself - as many others here - try to teach themselves art and how to get good enough to make a living, your videos are an absolute tresure trove of inspiration and learnings, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and processes! I hope you know how much impact you have on people like myself!

[Rook]

Wow. I need to learn how to sketch like this. I love how you were able to pull off so many interesting sketches.

[DrDellov]

You made amazing job with commentary and painting. You said a lot of things that're important in environment concept art. I'm glad I found you and waiting for more videos ! Ofc for raw paiting too !

[MoeWanders]

One of the best, most informative art videos I've seen. Thanks so much for this!

[tokyorose]

Great video man, thank you so much for putting this content out there. You summed it up really well when you talked about seeing something, even if it seems similar, but from someone else’s perspective. It’s those times for me where a tip or technique that I may have heard mentioned before but didn’t resonate all of a sudden just clicks. And discussing what it means to “work fast”. There’s so much value in observing other peoples methods. Beautiful work and style. Thanks again.

[acidboards]

I saw this painting on Artstation a few days ago, really happy to find this video being shared in a small artist discord server. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and process.

[zonko]

This video is great, I love how you showed and explained the whole process of designing the piece. So many "concept art" videos on youtube are just 30 minute speedpaintings from a blank canvas without commentary or design process. I'd be interested in the black and white to color video you mentioned as well. Keep up the great work, I look forward to more videos!