New website and blog

AK-ART studio got itself a new website! You can check it at the usual URL: www.ak-art.net

Also, the new site features "News" section, which has a blog-like format and where all the news, tips, short articles, case studies and such will be published from now on (as an addition to AK-ART's Facebook page). It's also possible to give comments, "likes" as well as share them on social media. That means that no new posts will appear here. That's right, time to kiss Blogger goodbye. It's perfectly fine and has been for all these years but in this situation there's no point keeping it up to date anymore. All the old posts will be still here, so if anyone for any reason wants to access them, just browse.

There's a lot of things coming down the pipe and a lot of exciting stuff is waiting to be published (once NDA's clear) but for now I can't say much, as usual. Either way, it's a new stage for AK-ART and there can only be an expansion from now on.

See you on the new website!

What's coming up?

So, what am I up to in 2016? Well, apart from U7, which is my long-term gig (and seems it will remain so for many months to come), there is a couple more things on the plate...

Some large-scale awesomeness: after "Downtown" project, prepared for a night club in Shanghai, I'm slowly finishing another, similar project - three huge illustrations/matte paintings, with the widest being a triptych almost 30k pixels wide. Once the artworks are printed (in several layers for extra depth) and installed, I'll share some of the images.

Since my Shade3D intro was warmly received and folks behind the app are super nice, I've started working on a five part tutorial series, Advanced Concept Art Series, where I will take a closer look at Shade (among other apps). It's going to be a long, info-packed and very thorough 5-part concept art series that will present several different pipelines used for concept art development and presentation. In each part, I’ll be working on a different image from my personal artbook “Razordome”. You can find more information on my website, in the "Store" section.

So, quite a bit is coming up and bigger changes related to AK-ART are down the road. What changes? You'll see :)

Interview for Shade 3D online

Welcome in 2016!

Interview for folks at Shade 3D is online, you can check it out here. I talk about my personal pipeline, concept art in general as well as the work on the latest project, "The Universe of Seven".

UPDATE: The interview is also available in Japanese here.

New, long interview coming soon via Shade.jp

Since I used Shade3D on U7 project quite a bit, an interview where I go about my pipeline and concept art in general will be featured on the Shade website. Along with it, a couple of new concepts and screenshots taken during their production, providing a bit of "behind-the-scenes". Link to the interview coming soon!

Refreshed portfolio

Had to make an unexpected and swift portfolio service change. Behance Pro, I've been using without any issues for two years, is going to turn into Adobe Portfolio that forces you to buy subscription for any of their CC plans. Since China is boycotted by Adobe (and has been for years), I got an email saying that I can't get any of CC's and I can find myself a new service. And I better do it fast before my website is shut down. How nice... ^_^ Fuckers.

Anyway, I already moved to Squarespace (URL stays the same, obviously, www.ak-art.net), which seem to be pretty decent although customizing takes a bit of work. So, for now, portfolio is a bit raw but when I finally manage to find a while, I'll fine tune it a bit for sure.

'The Universe of Seven' announced

Sooo, here’s the reason for all that recent teasing and really long break in posting anything relevant. From October 2014, I’ve been a lead concept artist on an upcoming new franchise ‘The Universe of Seven’. This exciting IP will be released gradually in form of books and games, with the first wave to hit throughout 2016 and 2017. You can check some of the concepts prepared for U7 in my Behance gallery and for more information + art visit official website: http://www.uof7.com

More stuff and info will be released gradually, as we will work on the project development. In the meantime, you can check out the goods we've prepared so far and make sure to Subscribe to stay up to date with the incoming ‘Fall of Kyos’. All hail the pinz!

On official Shade 3D channel

Official Shade 3D Channel on YouTube picked up my Gumroad tutorial and started publishing the clips, couple of them at a time. So, if you want to check them out without downloading them (in 1080p), you'll be able to find all of them there soon.