Joo Lienne Liew

Review

Tell us about yourself: Who are you, what do you love to do and where are you from?

I’m Joo (Juu), an Australian-Chinese game artist with a passion for concept design and illustration! I graduated in architecture from the University of Melbourne back in 2020 and pursued game art shortly after. I love celebrating lore through illustrations and spend a lot of my free time studying design psychology and sketching.

My art is heavily inspired by games, the media I consume and life experiences– although it’s often a very subtle implementation. A lot of my artworks are done in a stylized way with both eastern and western influences, including oriental ornamentation, Art Deco and on the architectural side of things, Brutalist/Monumentalist building design.

What were the biggest problems you faced when you started as an artist?

When I started as an artist, it was very difficult for me to translate my architecture background into characters.

I was also taught in a traditional way in that construction plans, drawings and models were done by pen and paper, balsa wood and foam core. I was very much behind, for someone born in the digital age and didn’t realize this until graduation. Anatomy and perspective were challenging to me and 3D modeling was incredibly confusing! It still is, but since then I’ve taken the plunge into finding ‘comfort in discomfort’ and have been focusing my efforts into learning more 3D, some animation and other skills related to art.

There is so much content to research out there that it used to be daunting for me but after some time, I’ve become accustomed to it and even feel odd if I find my learning stagnating. I am always looking for the next challenge now when it comes to games, for both art and design!

You’ve Lost, Friend

Lore-focused piece I did during the duration of CGverse mentorship with Santiago Parra. It primarily focused on narrative building first, then later into the more complex rendering process. Thank you Santiago and CGVerse for a valuable and informative experience!

Why did you decide to sign up for CGVerse online art school?

I decided to sign up for CGVerse because I felt I was stagnating in the quality of my art and wanted a push to get past that barrier. I could see mistakes and what felt ‘off’ about previous works, but was unsure how to properly evaluate in order to improve or fix those mistakes.

The Illustration Mentorship was beneficial as it gave a specific time period that was not too long nor short, to complete a portfolio piece with valuable feedback. The focused feedback was also another reason I chose to sign up, as I thought the course would offer constructive critique on the technical side of things.

Essentially, I wanted to be shoved forward in my skillset but was unsure how or which direction I should be pushed to. The course gave a perfect opportunity for that.

What did you do during the mentorship and what helped you on each task?

The mentorship was illustration-focused, but I was able to learn and apply some design aspects to the project.

In the beginning, we started with narrative application, covering how to evaluate a narrative point more deeply and apply that to the drafts.

The initial stages were discovering habits that could be fixed or improved– extra steps in the process that were to be included or excluded in order to be more efficient for a quality piece. Santiago advised and helped guide the project in design thinking and process refinement throughout, which was very helpful when it came to finding optimal color schemes, lighting setups and got me through the intermediate stage with personalized feedback.

There was also some extra feedback relating to rendering and presentation, as well as material demos that really helped with knowing which parts of the illustration required more finesse and planar additions, more rendering, etc.

How was the mentorship for you?

The mentorship was a wonderful experience and I really enjoyed it! It was very different from how I experienced other forms of tertiary /post-tertiary education and the personalized feedback and critiques allow us to pick up on bad habits and reach solutions faster.

There have been habits I was aware of, but again, unsure how to address them. The mentorship really helped zone in on those issues and take the necessary steps to methodically resolve them. Of course, it takes time to perfect and amend the issues present in my art and skills but ultimately the mentorship provided valuable learning that I will be conscious of and take forward into my future works.

What would you say when you recommend us to an artist?

My short answer: if I were to recommend CGVerse to an artist I meet on a busy street, I would emphasize that the personal feedback critiques are highly valuable and the amount of time for these sessions are very much worth the time and effort.

However my long answer would include that and also include that the mentorship does give the opportunity to also develop social connections with not just the mentor but also with other artists who take the course.

There is a community willing to learn and a smaller class does help create an enjoyable, intimate setting to foster positive relations with both one’s work and fellow peers.

If you want to improve your technical and narrative skills, grow your network and enjoy lots of constructive feedback, then this is definitely a good opportunity here.

What are your next steps?

My next steps are to take what I’ve learnt from the mentorship and apply the skills to all my work from now on, in particular having a stronger focus when it comes to larger illustrations.

I’ve realized even if the mentorship focused on one main style of work, a lot of the learning can still be implemented to other styles that might be similar in the process-making despite a different outcome.

I’ll also be continuing to delve further into 3D as it can help with concept art and illustration, particularly in the beginning-middle stages of the process.

I will also be focusing more on illustration moving forward, for a change of pace from design and to develop more technical skill.