One thing that has really helped me many times is never to be afraid to take on any task, small or big
1. Let's begin with telling a little about yourself.
Hi everyone! My name is Henning Ludvigsen, and I’m a Norwegian digital artists currently living and working in Athens Greece as the AD of a computer development company. I love painting, so besides working with fantasy related art during my fulltime job, I’m working on my personal projects and freelance stuff during evenings and weekends. I am to be found writing articles for the sci-fi and fantasy art magazine, ImagineFX, and I frequently work for Fantasy Flight Games for their trading card and board games which I enjoy very much. I am also running the art community called Pixelbrush together with my sweet girlfriend and fellow artist, Natascha Roeoesli.
2. How do you go about creating your pieces; what is your general creative formula?
I am not sure if I have a specific formula for creating my pieces, but I do have a pretty much set workflow that I tend to follow more or less the same every time. However, this doesn’t mean that I’m satisfied with every single piece I create, hehe.
I tend to start off in greyscale only as I prefer starting out working on shape exclusively before even having to think about colours. Once I have a decent greyscale version up, then I apply rough colours, and the re-render the piece again and again and again until I’m somewhat satisfied. I love realism, and tend to study this as much as I can.
3. Whom and/or what do you find inspiration from?
I guess that my first inspiration for creating fantasy-related art comes from watching Boris Vallejo’s art when I was younger. Nowadays I find inspiration from many artists and art works. I especially enjoy the style of Michael Komarck, Todd Lockwood etc. nowadays. Still, when I see a beautiful piece, No matter who made this can really influence my artistic muse.
Music, movies, and everyday happenings is also a place where I find my ideas,
4. On the subject of your artistic style, who influenced you to start and who influences you today?
I don’t think anyone specific has influenced my style. Or at least no one I am aware of. I tend to try and find my own way of doing things, and this applies in most aspects of life I believe.
5. Besides creating this beautifal art, have you any other Interests/hobbies ?
Indeed, but they are all kind of related I guess, hehe. Fantasy art related stuff during my fulltime job working on the MMORPG called Darkfall, fantasy related painting when I’m home, writing articles for ImagineFX, and doing freelance work for other companies is great fun. When it comes to hobbies I am so lucky to share interests with my girlfriend and we tend to watch a lot of movies and TV-series (on DVD) together, besides painting together of course. I also enjoy shopping (yeah, I’m a real catch), and love playing board games and playing role-playing games with my friends, which is something we to once per week.
Oh, and I think beer is interesting :-D
6. What are your tools/programs of choice?
I exclusively use Photoshop for my paintings, and even if I’ve tried other painting packages I just can’t seem to get used to the interfaces. Having that said, I’ve been using Photoshop for over 14 years, so it’s as good as glued into my mind and hard to change I guess, hehe.
At work I’m using 3D Studio Max and a few other programs, but this is not really related to my paintings.
7. What tips could you give to aspiring artists, traditional and digital alike?
One thing that has really helped me many times is never to be afraid to take on any task, small or big. Even if you might think a project is too big or complex for you, just jump in with both legs and you might just surprise yourself and the ones around you how well you’ll end up as working under pressure might just take you to the next level of achievement.
Also, painting A LOT is important. If you’re not already packed with work, try to give yourself daily tasks like painting every day. You could for example make sure to create one speed painting every day, at least.
8. What are your plans for the future?
It’s really hard to make plans with my current life, but I have a lot of hopes. Being a Norwegian living in Greece with my Swiss girlfriend, and not even knowing when we will be done here or when or where we will move once this project is over can be complex even to think about. Still, I hope that I can continue to make a decent living from what I love doing; working with computer games graphics and digital painting, and that Tascha and I will find a nice home for ourselves where we can do a lot of work in our super-high-tech office, hehe. I’m also hoping to create some books sometime before I grow old and whither away, so something in that direction sounds good to me.
9. How is life in Greece compared to your home Country
Greece is a very nice country, and especially the islands for vacationing. Living here is different as I am kind of used to Norway which is pretty different in many ways. Things you don’t think much about might be more complex down here, like banks and how they work (or don’t work), language is difficult, the weather is COMPLETELY different and I kind of miss having noticeable seasons. Still, summers here are great and the islands are close. I do miss my family and friends up in the cold north, though.
10. And finally, if you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what 5 things would you wished you had taking with you?
1: My MP3 player and lots and lots of batteries
2: A sketch pad and pencils
3: A tent?
4: My Rambo knife I got as a kid. It’s awesome!
5: My Call of Cthulhu board game.
11. Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions, we wish you nothing but success in your future.
Thanks for having me Billy, I appreciate this very much and wish the same for you, yours, and your members :-) |
