Worldbuilding / Obojima
Obojima: designing a fantasy city that feels lived in
Inside Yatamon’s illustrated streets: graffiti, a swordfish submarine with a furnished interior, and a creature that begins with a cooking pot.
Read the story ↗Art, process & the people behind it.
Digital painting, concept art and the tools shaping creative work.
BEHIND THE SCENES / ART, FILM & TOOLS
23 stories to exploreFrom the art world.
Worldbuilding / Obojima
Obojima: designing a fantasy city that feels lived in
Inside Yatamon’s illustrated streets: graffiti, a swordfish submarine with a furnished interior, and a creature that begins with a cooking pot.
Visual worldbuilding / November 2, 2026 · 3 min read
Upcoming / Adobe MAX
Adobe MAX 2026: what to watch if you paint and build worlds in Photoshop
A focused MAX 2026 viewing guide: the scheduled Photoshop session, what an editable workflow should preserve, and where AI fits in the advertised programme.
Event preview / November 2, 2026 · 3 min read
Concept art / IO Interactive
007 First Light: from concept art to Bond’s visual language
Moneypenny’s overlooking office, Q’s furnished workbench and Patrick Gibson’s likeness: specific design decisions from IO Interactive’s artists.
Art Blast retrospective / September 29, 2026 · 3 min read
Concept art / LAIKA
Wildwood concept art: silhouettes, character studies and a house built from drawings
From Thibault Leclercq’s Prue studies to the drawings and miniature of her house: following Wildwood’s artwork into physical production.
Concept art / visual development · 3 min read
Creature concept / DC
Clayface concept art: Carlos Huante’s early explorations of a changing body
Carlos Huante’s early creature studies, James Watkins’s account of seventeen iterations, and the architecture designed to make Gotham oppressive.
Early concept exploration · 3 min read
Production design / Perspective
Masters of the Universe: designing an Eternia that could be built
A 460-image design compendium, characters that influenced the story, and the practical limits of Castle Grayskull: Guy Hendrix Dyas’s production account.
Perspective · Sep–Oct 2026 · 3 min read
Animation design
What Wing It! can teach you about readable cartoon poses
How Blender’s artists arranged the cockpit around the characters, used paintovers during lighting, and finished the poster in Krita.
Archive study · 2023 · 3 min read
Environment design
Charge: making materials tell a character's story
Einar’s scavenged arm and possessions, Hjalti Hjalmarsson’s tightly limited previs, and Simon Thommes’s production materials give Charge a specific design logic.
Archive study · 2022 · 3 min read
Concept art archive
Spring: what an environment concept needs to explain
David Revoy's published Spring paintings show how environments, characters and story development meet before a film is finished.
Archive study · 2019 · 4 min read
Painting workflow
Your first Krita animation: build a small loop with clear poses
A practical introduction to frame-by-frame animation: keyframes, holds, onion skins and a manageable first exercise.
Practical guide · 4 min read
Drawing and perspective
Draw into a 3D scene: a Grease Pencil workflow for concept artists
Matias Mendiola's documented workflow shows how rough drawings, simple meshes and a camera can help solve an environment together.
Archive study · 2019 · 4 min read
PHOTOSHOP / WORKFLOW
Photoshop’s new adjustment layers: protect the atmosphere
Clarity, Dehaze and Grain are now editable adjustment layers. For painters, the interesting question is where to leave an image alone.
2026 feature spotlight · 3 min read
PAINTING / BRUSH CONTROL
Opacity vs flow: make your Photoshop brush predictable
A short, repeatable brush test explains why some strokes build smoothly and others leave unexpected bands.
Practical guide · 3 min read
PHOTOSHOP / LAYER WORKFLOW
Clipping masks or layer masks? Give each one a clear job
Keep character colors inside a silhouette, revise edges and avoid repainting the same boundary every time.
Practical guide · 3 min read
VISUAL STUDY / COLOR & LIGHT
One place, two moods: a lighting study with Monet
Two paintings of Rouen Cathedral offer a practical starting point for designing lighting variations without redesigning the scene.
Practical guide · 3 min read
CONCEPT ART / REFERENCE STUDY
Before you design a moon base, study a real lunar photograph
Apollo imagery offers more than a science-fiction mood board. Look for scale, function, material changes and the evidence behind each shape.
Practical guide · 3 min read
Visual development / Lucasfilm Animation
Janix: a Star Wars city built with the hand of the artist.
Lucasfilm's artists explain how real brushstrokes, local painting studies and a carefully mapped city shaped Maul – Shadow Lord.
Source feature · 7 April 2026 · 3 min read
Software update / Krita
Krita brings animation and timelapse exports to Android.
The 5.3.4 update adds a practical finishing step for tablet painters, alongside recorder and interface fixes.
Release · 15 September 2026 · 3 min read
Workflow / from the archive
Blender’s storyboarding tools put drawing and timing together.
A closer look at the storyboarding workflow introduced in Blender 5.0—and why a painting student might care.
Archive · Blender 5.0 release, 18 November 2025 · 3 min read
Latin America / Animation community
CCS Animada: Venezuelan stories take the next step
Caracas Animada’s fifth edition connects illustration, emerging projects and an animation community looking beyond the finished image.
Community spotlight · October 2026 · 3 min read
On our bookshelf
The Art of RamonN90: character, colour and everyday stories
A closer look at the gestures, props and crowded compositions in Ramón Núñez’s art, with the publisher’s previews, interview and book links.
Project spotlight · 4 min read
Practice / community
Inside 30 Desk: Ramón Núñez’s 30-minute painting workspace
A closer look at Ramón Núñez’s timed painting workspace, its sharing tools, and his advice on practice and honest review.
Project spotlight · 3 min read
From the studio
Give your references room to connect.
URef brings references, notes and creative connections into a shared workspace.
Project spotlight · 1 min read
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