Featured Interview: Tom Lopez

Tom Lopez is most known on Cubebrush as a stock photo packs seller providing awesome royalty free photos at ridiculously affordable prices. Today we wanted to shed some light on his actual career as a concept artist and illustrator.

Keep reading below for the full interview and do yourself a favor and check out his Cubebrush store - you'll be glad you did!

Q. Can you let the readers know what you do and how you got started?

I'm a freelance concept artist and illustrator working in Australia, who also dabbles a bit in photography and photo restoration. I got started about two years ago when I decided this is what I wanted to pursue for a career. I studied digital media design at university before that which was a really broad range of subjects from audio and video production to game theory to graphic design, with a major in 3D animation. After I finished I took a year off to travel and to decide what I wanted to do. After about a year I realized that the only thing I had consistently been doing throughout that time was drawing, so I looked at how I could turn that into a career and here we are. I decided I'd teach myself after seeing how much information was available online and got to work.

Q. Where did photography come in and how does it affect your work?

Before I decided I wanted to focus on concept art and illustration I spent quite a bit of time travelling around South East Asia, Europe and the USA. So when I started using photo textures in my work I had already acquired a large library of photos from these trips. I've always enjoyed photography, although not quite enough that I could see myself doing it full time, so finding a way to incorporate it into my work has been a nice happy medium. Using photos has really helped me speed up my workflow when creating concepts. I've also found that getting outside and taking photos helps to expand my visual library and understanding of different lighting. I find it important to step back from the camera and observe for a bit before I start taking some reference to use later.

I realized not many people were sharing photo reference when I started so I thought it would be a good idea to sort my photos a bit better and share some reference packs for everyone to use. There seems to be a lot more people sharing their reference now which is great, although I might need to get a few new HDD's soon to store them!

Q. If you could master one non-art-related skill instantly, which one would it be, why?

Hmm, that's a tough one. I'm always trying to learn something new so I have lots to pick from. I'm currently trying to learn Spanish so it would be great if I could learn any language instantly!

Q. Aside from practice, what would you say is the most important thing an artist can do to be successful?

Learning how to use your time wisely. I always hear people saying they don't have time for things, but then these same people will play video games or spend hours on Facebook for several hours everyday. There's plenty of time for things if you make time for them. It's very hard to not get distracted in the age of the internet but if you can focus you will have a whole lot more time on your hands to be productive. You won't magically get better as an artist. You need to make time for it, even if that means cutting back on some other things.

Q. Best food?

I can never get enough of my Mum's chicken schnitzels. I've tried to make it but can never get it to taste quite the same. They are heavenly!

A tip I can give to anyone aspiring to be a concept artist or illustrator is to cook food in bulk. I can spend about 4 or 5 hours in the kitchen and make a months worth of meals to portion and freeze. Not only is it a great wallet and time saver but your body will thank you for not skipping meals or eating take away because you don't have time to cook while working on deadlines.

Q. What is the best tip you have for younger artists who want to do what you do for a living?

Don't get discouraged if you think your art is bad. Your work isn't going to be great when you start out, but the only difference between being bad and being great is time. If you stay focused and put the time in to learn you will eventually become a master. This goes for just about any skill. Art is no different. I'm still very much at the beginning of my career and I have so much to learn but putting in the time has allowed me to consistently keep pushing forward.

Q. Any big plans or projects for 2016 you want to share?

I want to travel and explore my own country (Australia) a bit more. I have done a lot of travel overseas but not all that much here. I'm hoping I can get out a lot more and create some new photo packs. Australia has a pretty diverse landscape so I expect to get a bunch of different reference.