The Art of Denis Loubet

By Type:

• Cover Art
• Concept Art
• Interior Illustrations
• Animations
• Promotional
• 3D Graphics

By Company:

• Art I've done for myself
• DrawMyCharacter
• Origin Systems Inc.
• Steve Jackson Games
• Portalarium
• Daylight Productions
• Illusion Machines
• PixelMine Games
• Midnight Studios
• Genesis LPMud

• Wacom Graphics Tablets
  I got a Cintiq last year, and I haven't looked back since!
• Corel Painter 2015
  I use this program to create the raw art. Its imitation of traditional media is uncanny. I do my sketches and painting directly on the Cintiq.
• Adobe Photoshop CC
  I use this to finish my art. It's the best for color balancing, titling, and layering effects. The monthly fee helps you avoid the initial investment required by an outright purchase.
• AzPainter2 and AzDrawing
  Barely translated from the Japanese, these two small art programs pack a major punch, especially when you consider they're free! I've used AzPainter2 for inking because it has a line smoothing tool that helps prevent line wobble. That's something neither Painter nor Photoshop have.
• Sculptris
  Speaking of free, Sculptris is an awesome 3D modeling package that handles very much like clay.
• ZBrush 4R6
  What can I say, the ZRemesher feature alone is worth the price of admission in this amazing 3D software.
• 3D Studio Max
  My go-to software for 3D modeling, texturing, rigging, animating, and rendering.

These are pretty much all digital. Done in Painter, I usually sketch out the concept in a brown pencil tool. Then I create a new layer and go in with digital watercolor or my favorite blending tool. A few of them I inked and colored like a digital comic, but I try to stay loose and fast with the concept stuff.

The cover sketch to A Hero by Any Other Name was a fun piece where I tried to work directly in digital paint, without much of a sketch to go on. I think this concept piece has more energy than the final cover, which you can see in the Covers gallery.

Going really cartoony, like with the Scavenger alien sketches and the Boot Hill Savage, is relatively recent for me. I think it was studying work by Mike Mignola and Ben Caldwell that really allowed me to break my slavish adherence to realistic proportions and cut loose. I really think a cartoony style provides a visual shorthand that cuts right to the essence of a character. I relish the chance to do more.