Please tell us something about your person? how old are you, where are you from, where do you live and so on.

First of all thank you for showing interest in my work, I really appreciate it! I currently live in the awesome city of Montreal situated in Canada. I was born and raised there. I turned 21 last april so yeah, I'm getting old! Haha

How your beginning look like? I mean how your journey with graphic started? Do you have some traditional background?

Well I've been drawing all my life, participating in art contests when I was in elementary school and such. Of course I didnt start CG right away. I used to draw with pencils mostly, but I did paint the traditional way, enough to know I really didnt like the mess it made! Having to clean my brushes all the time was not my thing.

So during high school I would draw during classes on anything I could find, sometimes even on the desk! I was not listening to the teachers at all. I'm still amazed I never failed any class honestly! It was when I was around 14 that I discovered Photoshop and I pretty much fell in love with it. At first I would only do anime wallpapers and website layouts but then at 17 I decided to try and color a lineart I had done with photoshop and that was it! The result of course was horrible but I really enjoyed it, and even better, there was no cleaning the brushes like traditional paint! I've been working with photoshop since then.

Whats the most important thing when your going to create a new work? and which one are most hard thing to improve?

As weird as it might sound, the main thing I try to do while painting in photoshop, is trying to acheive the traditional look and feel. I really like the textures you get with traditional media even though I hate working with it. Of course anatomy, composition and colors are a big deal, but they tend to become second nature after a while so I dont think about it as much as I used to. even though I guess these are the main things one should try to get right. If your painting is missing any of the three, then chances are it won't look too good!

Why there's a lot of girls characters in your works? what aspect depend on that?

Well at first I started drawing girls because I thought it was the most difficult thing to do and I really had to improve. I had no problem drawing guys at all, basically for a male all you have to know is your anatomy, then draw it roughly and you get the shape of a man, well, sort of. A girl on the other hand requires a lot more attention if you want her to look pretty and feminine. The curves have to be incredibly accurate or else it'll look like garbage. This explains the abundance of feminine subjects in my paintings.

I do have a preference for female subjects even now but for different reasons, one beeing the fact I can draw them without thinking too much and they actually look good. It's always fascinating as an artist, to look at your art once you're done and actually think it really looks nice, especially if it's a good looking girl! You never get tired of that!

Can you desribe your method of drawing? maybe some small step by step ? Some technical issue?

What I do now most of the time is I draw a few rough shapes of the subject and the background, blocking the colors down and the base composition. Then I'll define the shapes more and more, adding details, variations in the color palette and so on untill I'm satisfied with the result. It's the same process for a speed paint, except I'll stop adding details a lot sooner to give the rough style. I also use only a single layer to work on, that way I'm closer to real painting, where you dont normally get multiple layers to work on. It also helps to develop confidence. Same thing with ctrl+z, I don't use it anymore. If I make a mistake I'll just paint over it and start over.

Can you tell us something about your project called "The Eyewitness" ?

This started as a random drawing I made during history class last year since it was boring. I like the sketch so I decided to start and color it. It's funny you ask abou tthis one because I used a totally different technique to color it. I started shading only in black and white, then applied a bunch of overlay and multiply layers on top of it for the colors. Like most of my drawings I kind of make up a story to go along the image as I draw it. I don't really plan anything ahead it just comes to me while I work on it. For this one I had the feeling it would be interesting to have parts of her suit alive, mixed with sci-fi, and a fantasy-like design for the rest of the outfit. I always try to mix up different things that don't normally fit well together, it always gives interesting results!

Do you have some source of inspiration?

Of course, no artist can evolve without external sources of inspiration. My main source of inspiration is the actual world, everything that surrounds me inspires me and fascinates me. All in an artist point of view though ; the colors of anything around me when light bounce on it or when it's in the shadows, the specular of every object, how shiny it is, if it's reflective or not, how things deform and so on. Sometimes in the sybway I'll start staring at someone analysing how his face is constructed, his facial features, how's his skin, the color, the size of the pores in different areas, how shiny it is, the imperfections, etc. I also look at various artists on the internet for inspiration, guys like Dodowa (Kim Young Sang), Kim Hyung tae, Steven Stahlberg and Bengal to name a few. The internet is amazing when it comes to inspiration of references.

What's your advice to 2d artists who would like to improve their work quality?

Main thing anybody should do if they want to improve at a good pace is to draw at least four hours a day, that's a minimum really. Also, always work with references, really important. Start with a rough sketch of what you want to do, a skeleton of your character, to get all the proportions right, then move on to the detailing, don't try to skip steps you won't get good results, never!

How do you spend your free time if you're not work in cg?

I do CG at work, CG at home to work on more personal projects since I really like drawing, if not in 2D I try to spend time on my short 3D film I'm working on. I also compose music on the computer, play piano and drum, and go out and party like an animal! There is nothing like a good beer with the buddies.

Do you want to add something at the end of our conversation?

I'd just like to thank you again for your interest in my work, it's always really cool as an artist to get this kind of attention!

Visit Marc Brunet Gallery at CGTalk.