The artist's journey - Craig Mullins Interview - Art Department Podcast
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2022
- For this episode we have legendary artist and designer Craig Mullins as our guest. He shares with us how he navigated the commercial art industry throughout the last three decades, what drives him these days and where he sees himself and the industry going in the near future.
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Craig Mullins
www.goodbrush.com
/ craigpmullins
/ craigmullins3
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Audio version:
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Emmanuel Shiu
www.eshiu.com
/ emanshiu
Jan Urschel
www.hendrix-design.com
/ janurschel
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/ artdepartmentp1 - Фільми й анімація
so happy that hes more active on social media now, all those juicy artworks
Indeed, can never get enough!
An absolute legend.
I first learned about him when I was a kid thanks to what he did for Halo 2, I have such a vivid memory of just looking at his Master Chief concept art because I found it so badass yet elegant, his choice of color palettes and his lighting choices were also always perfect and they still captivate me to this very day, his contribution was part of the many wonderful things that made me a fan of the franchise; I wish that he someday does some more stuff for Halo.
Thank you for making this a reality; I’m so glad that you got to talk with him, your interviews are always great, especially because, unlike other people, you know what to say and you know when to say it, alongside that, your questions usually make the Interviewee be willing to answer in a very informative way rather than just saying the bare minimum, we the audience appreciate that a lot!
I had the same impact but with his paintings in an older game, Marathon 2. You knew you were watching some good ass art.
Even though I got the impression you didn't necessarily appreciate broader strokes that Craig made in this conversation... I thank you guys for this interview, it was great to listen to! Also, Craig, if you're reading this - you might be interested in what Roger Penrose has to say about consciousness, perhaps there's more to our minds than we give them credit for. Thanks!
Thx!
Craig has been on a level of his own and that for a long time. Can't believe you got a paint over from him... Great interview.
I'm happy this interview is so recent, Mr Mullins gives his views in such interesting topics. Mr Mullins if you see this, You have always been a inspiration! Thank you for being awesome!
The man, the myth the legend.
:)
I can't get enough of Craig Mullins's wisdom. Thank you for doing this interview.
1:01:12 "My work may be complex in terms of the paint and paint texture, but within the shapes and the texture, the contrast is fairly low so the overall shape language is strong"
craig carried this interview sooo hard
why?
not really he rambled and went offtopic half of it.
missed u guys a lot, ur podcast matters so much thank you
Thanks for listening!
Thanks for sharing this! I really appreciate Craig's honesty.
Great episode! Thank you guys, always so inspiring to listen to Craig Mullins's open mindedness
Glad you enjoyed it!
Nice to see a new episode, thank you guys!
You're welcome!
great interview!-thankyou Mr Mullins...especailly about art market and real values in .."influence of what comes later..",etc...brilliantly said.
thank you for the interview)
many thanks!
You're welcome!
fascinating guy! thanks for this episode.
Thanks for tuning in again!
One of the most memorable parts is Craig's advice on what to do when facing an artist's blockade: try to expand vertically, learn stuff "you don't like". (That's a hard one though.)
Thanks for this. It'd be great to have a second part with Craig
Haha sure if he wants to come back!
really inspiring words from such a great mind. always been my go to artist to lookup if theres something i dont know how to approach. so im glad hes not gonna come screaming at me 🤣
How’s life?~Art!Thank you!this is unreal edition- take care.
thx :)
I'm missing you guys
Thank you for this interview! I wonder if the forum still exist in archive form?
Not that I know of
I kinda wished to hear more about his ideas how to use AI. What does it mean, if a software comes up with a great composition and color palette. Even as a professional artist I think there is a sertain feeling of "yes, well, I can finish this work, adding my own last 20% to it. but it wasn't my idea".
Imposter syndrome striked back hard here, even though it suddenly opened up a whole sea of creativity and ideas to me
So basically you wanted his permission, to tell you it's fine and that you're not a fraud. Of course you're a fraud, and everyone using AI is. It's not 'creativity' when you put the last 20% over something that's given to you automatically and say that YOU painted it because you hardened a few edges. The same way throwing paint at a wall is not a creative act. The same way you cannot add the last 20% to a Sorolla painting and call it creativity, let alone 'yours'.
Sorry to be unkind, but I already see too many delusions brought by this AI gimmick, the mindless concept art mentality that only the results count. Do whatever you want, but accept that you will always be in a bubble and you won't get the respect and approval you seek, particularly from people who have devoted their entire lives to mastering craft.
Reality checks seem to be old fashioned nowadays, and the 'pretend it doesn't happen because everyone else does it' was always at the forefront of the concept art community.
If this is the future of digital painting, I will happily seek another form of art that has not been plagued by bs.
(If we should only be positive and stuff and pretend shit does not happen, please delete the comment, and no worries, it's my last)
@@kdoggdracul Hmm I mean we have the audacity to use a computer to "paint" stuff, bash photos, 3D models even fully designed asset packs neatly arranged to be copy pasted in, the bar regarding such things was not exactly high, it was pretty damn low.
If anything it might come up with some decent ideas for once :D
@@f16madlion I utterly and completely agree.
It was low, it will always be low, and digital painting is kind of a kindergarten anyway (you wouldbn't see "daily llUncHbReaK sKetChes" on Instagram otherwise), no wonder why most traditional artists consider us frauds (and in many cases they are right). But those Midjourney bs images that look exactly the same (which won't necessarily be a problem for concept art, it all looks the same anyway) won't raise the bar any higher.
The problem is that at least my mom can't digitally paint and use all those photos and models you mention, you have to have at least a bit of knowledge to use them, that way you can at least dare to call yourself "artist" sometimes. AI removes that need, my mom can use any AI program. Is she an artist?
Effort is a huge part of any human achievement, as limited and shallow as this species is. You won't buy tickets at an AI concert over Metallica, and you won't root for AI Dota teams battling each others in tournaments. There is no connection, and no effort there. Effort gets respect, which also may be old fashioned nowadays.
That aside, I've been in Craig Mullins' classes multiple times, watched all his assignments, and plenty of other talks. He has a lot of wisdom to share, unfortunately he is not the most articulate man out there, and says a lot of contradicting stuff, so you have to read between the lines. With all due respect for him and his accomplishments, and I do not say that lightly, he is the very image of the tortured artist, making everything sound like a struggle and a prison ("draw every second", crap like that). He is chasing the ghosts of the old masters, completely obsessed, ghosts that he will probably never catch up to, because the times are different and digital art will never be appreciated. (he wants to do NFTs after 30 years of such a career because there is no way you can actually get real money in this scam "dream job", in most places in the world)
I appreciate hearing him, but would not care a cent for his approval, for art doesn't have to be a torturous journey and all that elitistic crap is for people who shares the same dreams or have a big ego to stroke.
@@kdoggdracul It wasn't till i saw Dalle-2 stuff that i could remotely envision an AI taking on work from human illustrators and designers (midjourny not even close). I've seen some designs for a batmobile it spat out that are utterly convincing design wise, the forms, stylisations, understanding of auto body design, materials all it really needed was some clean up.
I've seen it do as Mullins would say "anachronistic" paint approaches that are extreemly difficult to fake with photobashing techniques it literally got the strokes and simplification in, it has no doubt injested every painting Sargent and Sorolla ever made.
Being replaced by a layman who can draft a decent prompt and has some taste is terrifying. I mostly expect though it will "add on" to what concept designers currently do, I think there will be a lot more iteration and exploration expected is it will be significantly cheaper and easier to do so, which could lead to objectively stronger designs.
I have allways valued mullins focus on fundamentals though, drawing ability is so rare and today with all the crutches under developed in a lot of us, will have an edge to seamlessly go from one to the other it gives such facility in many areas.
If Craig Mullins ever approved of my crap painting, well i would care a lot about it haha
@@f16madlion I, too, have seen DALL-E 2 stuff that no human can do, especially not in a matter of seconds, and impressive as they are, I cannot consider them "art", in the way that I understand and accept the term, meaning not in production terms.
There is no reason to believe that AI won't evolve to take work from concept artists and illustrators, and a lot of other jobs. You can watch plenty of talks about it and Yuval Harari has some good ones on the matter, although not focused on art. Until that happens, the salaries, which are already kinda low in the industry, secretary level, will eventually get even lower, since demand will increase. This is not rocket science, it's how economies work and the next logical step.
There is no way a human can compete with such a machine that can channel the work of everything and everyone on the internet in a matter of seconds. The only reason why machines cannot create "art"is because they are not sentient and do not have feelings (yet), but I understand that Google's AI is past that point. Soon, as Mark Manson hails, we would have our new gods here, and it's not really a fatalistic view.
AI is both a wonderful and a scary opportunity, but looking at the human race and its decisions as a whole, you wouldn't bet much on the wonders.
As for Mullins approving of paintings, it would be rewarding, of course, for anyone, as any praise for a master would be. I was more talking about the lifestyle he preaches and that comes out from many of his talks. This is a man obsessed by art, who lives and breathes for art. I am not really like so, I also enjoy doing other things, that's why I cannot take his advice completely and it is not for me (it's ok, we're chemical creatures, dopamine and the state of flow is the same, no matter how you get them). On fundamentals and drawing, I completely agree, that's the basis of everything. I learned that the very hard way.
If you do enough paintings, I believe it is impossible not to have at least one that even Craig Mullins would approve of.
I had my share of feedback from some big names, and, as you may expect, the feedback is wildly different from person to person. Do anything, explore, enjoy yourself, and care less about the rest. This is what Mullins preaches as well, minus the enjoyment part. :)
I wanna see Paul Richars ! and please make him draw something live)
Craig Mullins talking about trying to study art that you hate and understand its success makes me wonder if he has a specific folder for super sexy anime girls with giant forelocks studies 😆
I do indeed
Release it as NFTs!!! :)
Jan did you think is smart to take your learn squared course with blender? Because its with modo/octane and cant follow along..
Damn!
hahaha :)
@@artdepartmentpodcast Thanks for this huge episode! Really appreciate!
The most important part 1:03:46
Agreed! :)
Do you still have the ocean paintover spooge did for you, i’d love to see it :)
It's on Emmanuel's twitter!
@@artdepartmentpodcastTaught the ol atmospheric fog trick by craig mullins, hehe :D The before is pretty interesting!
39:28 AI question
I really love Craig's art but my god, the comments on A.I freeing up wealth to slosh around to everyone else is so ridiculous. Trickle down economics isnt real, you think the hedge fund manager at stability A.I is going to be making sure all the artists he stole off are all good? Machines also do not learn like us, they havent re created a human brain, it goes through the internet and literally rips pictures according to the prompts it receives, it has no style of its own, it has no imagination. He is so way off on the A.I debate its hard to listen to
You’re completely wrong, speak like a frustrated person, if you had any confidence in your work you wouldn’t even be concerned about it, he adds much more of things I already thought but nobody said, you just like everyone else just say it steals from artists, which he said the obvious that we do too and the ai and human learning process is the same, and that will eventually replace and kills us all, which is completely naive and unfounded. He was one of the most prompted artists to copy and still reacts normally to all this, while other are so afraid they want exclude ai completely, I don’t like ai, but you should quit your little frustration cause you’re not adding anything
Man I wish you were wrong but God damn creg sounds like a fucking boomer that hasn't learned the first thing about how this technology works but hes seen a lot of movies so he's over here talking about Sci-fi plots instead of the actual technology that exists in our reality.
Never meet your heroes
Seems like he based his opinion of AI off of an episode of some TV show as opposed to material reality. Comparing chat GPT to somebody like Cortana from the halo video games is laughably stupid one of them is not even close to conscious and is the exact same technology on your keyboard that predicts the next word and your sentence, and the other one is literally indistinguishable from a human being in terms of brain function.
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