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Sketching from the Imagination: Varun Nair

Varun Nair, final year student at Gobelins, l'École de l'image, shares his thoughts on drawing, character design and a few tips on how he works...

Varun Nair, final year student at Gobelins, l'École de l'image, shares his thoughts on drawing, character design and a few tips on how he works...

My name is Varun Nair, Im twenty five years old and from India, currently Im a final year student at Gobelins, Paris. I am also a freelance character designer and a visual development artist, and last summer I interned at Blue Sky Studios.

I grew up drawing a lot as a kid, ever since I could hold a pencil. It has been a childhood hobby to draw and has eventually turned into a career now. I am also really passionate about storytelling, and since I am not really good at writing stories I prefer to tell them through pictures.

Inspiration & ideas

I find inspiration for my art from the things I see around in my life; the old guy in the Metro who sits in an interesting position, or perhaps a stray dog who is looking for food. Even though I do not observe with the intention of using it for art, these things eventually find their way into what I draw subconsciously. I also take inspiration from the works of other artists on social media platforms. I prefer to take notes and write down ideas on my phone. An idea can come to you at any point and I usually do this when I am not in a position to draw.

Materials

I prefer to draw on paper initially when I am exploring the idea. Eventually I would move to Photoshop for the final sketch and rendering. I also enjoy drawing with ink from time to time.

Sketching techniques

My workflow in a nutshell is from small to big. Once I have an idea of what I want to draw I explore the idea in really small thumbnail sketches. This helps me to try out different possibilities to try out the composition, posing, shapes etc. There is also a lot less pressure, since I don't spend more than three minutes on one thumbnail. Once I find a thumbnail I like I take it forward and scale it up in Photoshop and start drawing over.

Top tip: Give Extra

One of things that really helped me a lot in my artistic career so far is the habit of giving more than whats expected of you. Its especially important for new people, like myself, in the industry. It could be a freelance project or an internship, but the client can always tell if you were passionately working for their project or not.

This helped me a lot during my internship at Blue Sky studios last summer. I made sure that I do what my supervisor had asked of me, and then if I had the time I also put in a bit extra to show the ideas that I thought would work. In a few cases some of them did end up being accepted.

Related links

Take a look at more of Varun Nairs work or ask him a question on his tumblr blog
Grab a copy of Sketching from the Imagination: Characters
Follow Varun on Instagram
Check out Varuns portfolio

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