Artist Spotlight & An Interview With Lie Setiawan.
Lie Setiawan:
Lie Setiawan is a self-taught 2D artist whose incredible fantasy art has been featured everywhere from Magic the Gathering cards to video games to tabletop game cover art. Now working as a freelance artist in addition to creating art for various studios, Lie Setiawan has a knack for creating lifelike scenes of fantasy worlds. His character design exudes personality and power and brings life to the science fiction and fantasy scenes that make up his portfolio.
Lie’s art inspires the imagination, turning even the most fantastical ideas into a reality. One example of this is his incredible action scene ‘Beyond the Veiled Past” for Paizo Publishing, in which a massive tentacled shark leaps from the cover toward the reader. In addition to full cover designs, Setiawan has consistently put out a wide variety of concept art in different styles, genres, and mediums that never fail to capture the imagination.
ARTIST INTERVIEW:
What City, State & Country do you currently live in?: Jakarta Barat
What is your primary art application?: photoshop
What are some of the other mediums, or applications you use?: blender, used to layout all the assets and mock-up a 3d render for base
substance painter used to texture the assets, Zbrush, mostly useful for characters and creatures, marvelous designer, used for clothing.
What are some of your favorite reference materials?: I loved using shot deck atm for movie ref shots, also the plain old google to look for everything
Do you have any artistic weaknesses that you're actively working on to improve?: I think it differs every time, right now I’m trying to improve in 3d skills, so a lot of it is technical, and revolves around mastering the software tools themselves. Something that I always constantly trying to improve is my lighting :)
What made you want to become an artist?: I loved to draw since I am a kid, and I think I always have an eye to draw what I see. then as I grow up, my main inspiration was the manga, stuff from the clamp, then dragon ball, Evangelion, one piece is something that inspires me a lot.
but I didn’t pursue this path professionally until I saw the stuff done by massive black. that was it, the moment when I say to myself I want to be as good as that.
What are some of your favorite things to draw and paint?: characters, I think I can give a lot of emotion and storytelling to characters, I love the idea that the character actually exist in their own world, and that just makes me feel excited about them
What artistic accomplishments do you see yourself achieving in the next five to 10 years?: I’m hoping to be able to create keyframes for movies, and furthermore, tell stories from my images.
Who are some of your favorite concept artists, or illustrators that you draw inspiration from?: right now, they are jama jurabaev, vitaly bulgarov, Alexander Mandradjiev, Paul Chadeisson, roger deakins
Did you have any professional training? If so, what schools or classes did you attend? If not, what process did you use to achieve your level of artistic talent?: yes I do, I take classes from smart school, with dan dos santos, I also took classes from jama jurabaev, and christopher schiefer. i also learn a lot from various gumroad tutorials.
I always try to break down what I want to achieve and from there list down all the skills needed to learn to achieve that. then after I learn the skills I execute them in my daily work workflow.
What is an interesting bit of personal info about yourself you could share with our readers?: I think I am both logical and artistic, and also not really so into either world :D. Basically, I’m saying I’m a very generic person lol.
What is one bit of advice you would give to an aspiring artist like yourself? Something you've learned from experience along your journey?: be curious, always be willing to reform yourself and relearn to achieve better results, always aim for growth :) cause that’s where the fun is to me.
Artistic achievements? This could include jobs, projects, awards, accolades, etc... Anything you consider significant in your art career. Please also include any links to process videos or anything else you'd like included!: I think from day one till today, there are a couple of milestones I consider important to me, but I would say 2 which are the most exciting ones.
1st is when I won 1st place Hearthstone challenge goblin vs gnome, never saw that coming XD
and then when I got my 1st gig in magic the gathering, I almost scream when I read the email lol.
I think that’s it! hopefully, I will have more moments like these in the future :)
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