concept central

He's  French, he likes the hip-hop culture, and his art kind of objectifies women. His day job at Steambot Studios has him working on the most interesting franchises out there. He's Joel Dos Reis Viegas.


He studied at prestigious Les Gobelins, an experience he describes as "...something unique for anyone who wants to be an talented artist". He said it's known as one of the best animation schools in the world.



Well, guess what happens when someone who has a background in animation enters the concept art world. Yep. His drawings are full of beautiful gestures and powerful emotions!!!!


He uses all kinds of apps, like Artrage for color blending, Painter for those large, painterly strokes, and Photoshop for everything else. He also has above average 3D skills (which greatly complement his work), thanks to the wonderfully intuitive Mudbox. What a guy.

Of course, he wouldn't be where he is if he didn't develop discipline. It's said he worked as in-between animator and storyboarder for an Animation studio in Paris called Alphanim. Very interesting!


According to an interview at CG Channel, one of the most important skills an artist can learn is to control one's creativity, as a flow, and to be productive even when inspiration goes up and down. That's discipline for ya'!

"I have a fascination for explosive and controversial characters and I love to paint these. It could be a punk, monster, warrior or serial killer; I‘ll try to paint with the most appealing rendering possible" The guy never runs out of inspiration. Deform reality, observe, and all that jazz.




"...Hip hop is my culture, I grew up listening to rap music and looking at graffiti. It still influences my art. Sci-fi is everywhere, all the concept artists I know already painted sci-fi in the past, so I thought mixing both universes could make something interesting." That quote, my dear readers, was directly lifted from CG Channel.



His advice to all you wannabes and amateurs. A little something he learned from all those conferences and setting up his own lil' studio with a couple of concept art heavyweights: "Teamwork is the key when you start a structure with your friends. Its important to be able to see their skills and to learn from them."



"The other advice is be respectful with your friends, don’t think because you are friends you can be less organized or use less clear communication. You should treat each other like colleagues to keep good working relations. This is the key to succeed in creating together."

Interested? You might be. So go rummage through the archive through his blog (doesn't get updated often), or better yet, his deviantART.

Oh, and just so you're aware of what other graduates of this "Les Gobelin" churns out, why don't you watch some of these animated shorts?

Voodoo. Exquisite animation. It is what it is!


The classic Pyrats, which I featured already once in this blog. I didn't know it was animated by grads from this school. Took seven months, and was shown on an animation festival in 2006. Still awesome.


Traintamarre. Great mood. You may have not noticed, but I love 2D animation.