Florent Lebrun on Painting Your Future the Way You Want It

OK. So, I m a thirty-two year old french guy who’s been living and working in Montreal for the past five years. I used to work as a matte painter for feature films, but now I’m working as a concept artist at One Pixel Brush.

Honestly, maybe I was introduced into the digital art world a little later than I should have been. I joined a VFX school in my home town when i was twenty years old, allowing me to discover a whole new world with 3D, animation, compositing, Photoshop, etc… everything was quite new and pretty exciting! I learnt to use my first graphics tablet here, and went on to make my first digital painting. After that, I got really hooked on matte painting and started to work as a matte painter after school. Not so long ago, you’d find that nothing’s really changed since then, but all’s different now.

I had a growing interest in concept art, and that interest was becoming much more prevalent as I improved my skill-set. I started to paint again and I felt that I was having a lot more fun doing that. From a more technical side, I guess it was a smooth transition because I learnt to use photos during my time, and concept art nowadays has a lot to do with photo-bashing. Still, there is that extra bit of fun, so I was instantly hooked.

Lastly, matte paintings are a long and painful process. You can spend weeks—even months—working on a single image, and you can expect the client to ask you for lots of retakes. I think that concept art is a lot quicker and more reactive (at least in my experience).

I love it, man!

I was working to tailor my portfolio to get the job at OPB.

I’m going to sound really cliché, but when I arrived in Montreal and started painting again, I decided to play The Last of Us. That game was a real game changer for me, and it opened my eyes to the fact that this is what I really want to do. The game was stunning and the concept art for it was out of this world, so I made it my mission to work on a project like that. This is when I came across One Pixel Brush.

I began sharing my work online and go in touch with Shaddy Safadi. It all happened very naturally, and I feel amazing now that I’m finally working there. They’ve got great projects, an amazing team and a solid art direction.

Learn Squared is an incredibly cheap class if you consider what it is that you’re getting. Learning so much new information from real professionals is always going to be a positive experience. I also bought two of Jama Jurabaev’s classes, and yes, they were also amazing.

I never took any other online courses, but I feel that as long as the ones that teach it are active professionals, it’ll continue to be the best! CGMA looks really great as well, you can take classes with artist like Aaron Limonick or Kalen Chock, I mean, just the idea of learning from them is amazing.

If I had to move to a school, I would probably pick Brainstorm because of the teachers.

Of course, there’s also simpler ways to learn, like Gumroad. It’s actually amazing if you compare what we have now to what we had ten years ago.

But Learn Squared is my #1 choice for online courses.

I was inspired by the work of Paul Chadeisson when I decided to make my newest piece. He is creating these immense structures, and i wanted to do the same.

I don’t really have a rigid process, so I like to test different things almost every time. For this, I wanted to find a way to do it in 3D. I mainly used Modo, meaning that I’m able to pick a different composition as many times as I’d like. I usually use a simple render, here, I used Modo replicators and basic textures on the meshes, after that, I took it to Photoshop and painted atop the 3D model. I’m now comfortable using 3D-Coat, so maybe I would approach it differently if I was asked to do it again. The cool thing is that there’s a thousand ways to do something. That’s what I love about making images.

I barely tested it, but when i see Jama doing his thing, I always think, “Wow… this will play a big part in our industry for sure!” He’s is a visionary, and he actually pushes concept art in new directions all of the time. I mean, he did it with 3D-Coat already, and a lot of the other things he’s posting do it too. It’s like, he’s pushing the boundaries 24/7 and he isn’t afraid to test new things that other artists won’t think of.

I guess the number of people who inspire me grows every single day. There’s a lot of names I could list, but I can’t really boil it down to just one because I love a lot of different artists who have their own individual styles. I’m more interested in digital artists, so if I was to try and narrow it down, you’d find the guys working over at Naughty Dog, Jama, Paul Chadeisson, Theo Prins, etc… it’s impossible to pick one. They all influence my work in the end, but I tried not to be a pale copy of their work, and I think it’s important to draw a line between inspiration and copying.

When I first played The Last of Us, I was kind of bummed out because I was good enough at the time but didn’t work on it, and it was the game that really motivated me. Now that I’m working on the second one at One Pixel Brush, I really can’t think of anything else. The style and the level of ‘finish’ on the artwork never cease to amaze me. It was my dream project and I’m a part of it today.

Hah, we will see, for now, I’m finally enjoying working as a freelance concept artist. I’ve been looking for that for a long, long time. Working on an amazing project has made me happier, too! Will have to see about next year, I have some projects lines up but none of it’s been confirmed as of yet. After that, I’d like to start a personal project, I imagine that would be a lot of fun!