Featured Interview: Tyler Edlin

If you're looking into getting started or improving your digital painting skills, you've come to the right place. Every week we feature some amazing artists and this week is no exception - we're chatting with artist, mentor and tutorial maker Tyler Edlin.

Feast your eyes on the gorgeous art below and keep reading for the full interview. Don't forget to check out Tyler's painting and concept art tutorials on his Cubebrush store!

Q. How did your life as an artist begin?

Mostly in college when I started taking basic courses in fundamentals: drawing, painting, and design based courses. All traditional of course. Then I discovered Feng Zhu Design, Gnomon videos and bought them with whatever money I could come up with.

Q. What were some of your early struggles and how did you power through?

My early struggles had to do with value. Things just never looked right. I Had to do more studies and work more in black and white before I could jump to color. If you struggle with something you have clearly identified its could to come up with strategies where you can practice that weakness in an isolated manner.

Q. What is your personal definition of success in art?

I Think it means being satisfied with a body of work you created. Superficially a large part of art can be measured in terms of popularity. How many likes, shares, and comments one receives on their work, and it feels nice we all want recognition for our hard work. But to me it really is taking a step back, evaluating your own images and deciding whether or not you are happy with how it turned out. Whether you learned something along the way and can honestly say you are proud of it, that's success to me.

Q. Young artists often ask how they can get better faster - other than practice, what is one thing you can think of that can help speed up the process?

To assess and learn the reoccurring mistakes and pitfalls you are making. Once your weakness is acknowledged then specialized strategies can be created to get over them, Just logging hours drawing X amount of hours daily without a plan will not lead to the quickest growth.

Q. If you had to choose only one for the rest of your life : Characters or Environment?

For me that would be environments I am not that great at character work.

Q. How did you get started providing mentorship and tutorials?

Well I did YouTube tutorials for years and really enjoyed it and they were received well. So naturally I started making small more in-depth tutorials for various sites. And eventually began to teach on my own in a 1 on 1 way. It wasn't till recently I began teaching a classroom base structure with CGMA.

Q. Finally, what do you have in store for 2016 art-wise?

Many things... Learning some 3D, working on my Sunderfall world and filling out the weaker areas of my portfolio.