Artist PROFILE
Dan Franke
LOCATION: Germany
Dan is a director and VR artist based in Germany. He’s the co-founder of Studio Syro, a virtual animation studio with an international team of artists. He’s working on the second season of Tales from Soda Island, the world’s first VR series that’s entirely created in VR. studiosyro.com
When we came to make our new VR animated short Namoo, which we call a narrative poem brought to life, Oculus Quill was the obvious choice to achieve the painterly look we wanted. Quill is a VR painting and animation software created by Smoothstep, which enables you to make art in a virtual space, in 360 degrees. It’s quite amazing and not too challenging to pick up and begin having fun with.
Imagine not being limited to painting on a 2D surface such as on a drawing tablet, but in 3D and all around you, and then taking your creations in your hand and moving them through space to animate them. This is what Quill offers, and while we’ve used it to create our movie, it can be used for all sorts of VR art and animation projects.
In the following 10 tips I’ll walk you through some key capabilities of Quill and the things to keep in mind when creating a VR film like Namoo. We’ll look at sketching in a 3D space, using the software to storyboard, animating frame-by-frame… all sorts of tips and techniques to get you started.
Jan Wessbecher
Dominic Carter talks to the visual artist about creating his own comic and why sketchbooks are great for creative experiments
Kyounghwan Kim
The Korean character concept artist speaks to Dominic Carter about staying open to ideas and the value of drawing regularly
Slawek Fedorczuk
Dominic Carter talks to the concept artist about what keeps him motivated and the advantages of using physical sketchbooks.
Raquel M. Varela
Raquel is inspired by magic, fantasy and fairy tales. She loves designing female characters from distant worlds. \"My greatest reference is Loish's art, thanks to her I learned to draw the movement and fluidity I like to convey.\"
Estrela Lourenço
Estrela is a children's book author and illustrator. Her work is influenced by her background in character animation and storyboards for clients such as Cartoon Network, and she channels comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes.
Daria Widermanska
Daria, also known as Anako, has been drawing for as long as she can remember. Inspired by Disney and classic anime, she loves creating new characters and often finds that a single sketch can spark a unique story.
Allen Douglas
Allen has been painting professionally since 1994 for the publishing and gaming industries. Inspired by folklore, he distorts the size, relationships and environments of animals, and calls his paintings 'unusual wildlife'.
Thaddeus Robeck
Thaddeus has been drawing from the moment he could hold a pencil, but it was the 2020 lockdowns that gave him the time to focus on honing his skills.
DRAW FASCINATING SYMBOLIC ARTWORK
Learn how JULIÁN DE LA MOTA creates a composition from his imagination with a focus on crafting figures, volumetric modelling, and light and shadow
First Impressions
The artist talks about his journey into the mythological world
