Hey folks!
I've been away for a while, absolutely swamped with work and raising my two small children, but I currently have a week and a bit off from work which I'll be spending streaming some personal work and D&D comms (and maybe a little game dev) over on Twitch if you'd like to come spend some time and ask some questions.
www.twitch.tv/samsantala
I hope you've all been doing well, and have had a good winter :)
7 - 0
Hey folks! a couple of you may have seen me fumble an upload of a video I was trying to get onto YouTube Shorts that kept going onto the main channel (Apparently the limit is 60 seconds so they really do mean shorts)
I may try to edit the video down to 60 seconds or less, but for those of you who saw this or saw it got deleted before they had a chance to watch it, I apologize.
It's up on TikTok and Instagram though, so if you're really curious and can't wait for the tighter edit, it should be available there :)
Thanks everyone, and I hope you've all been well <3
11 - 2
~ LOOKING FOR VIDEO EDITORS ~
Are there any video editors out there that would like to help me create videos? :) My schedule is exceptionally rammed, so I'll take any help I can get really <3
If you're interested reach out to me at samsantala@gmail.com
12 - 0
Hey folks, it's been quite a while.
I've recently found myself with a bit more time and I was thinking of dedicating some more time on this channel, but I have some longer-term goals I'd like to achieve and I wanted to see what you folks thought.
How would you like to see some smaller focused videos on the principles of art and design (i.e. Colour theory)
And how would you feel about me dedicating some time to dev-logs as I record my journey making games myself?
What would you like to see?
6 - 2
Hey folks, so I don't have a lot of time right now to work on much that's personal, but I've been working on a dragonborn head sculpt I think I'll sell as a base for folks to use when drawing more draconic characters.
I use Zbrush to sculpt references like these from time to time, but doing something of this detail... I certainly feel rusty.
I think I'll write a tutorial on understanding how to apply anatomy and facial expressions to animalistic faces as well :) I hope you don't mind the wait too much for more videos, But I'd love to have your input if you have any thoughts!
11 - 0
For the folks in the UK, I got invited to Develop: Brighton in July to present a talk, which I've decided to focus on the fundamentals and appeal of creature design. If any of you end up going to this game industry event maybe I'll see you there :)
www.developconference.com/whats-on/speakers/speake…
4 - 0
Ukraine Post:
So we're on day 4 of a major war in Ukraine, and as someone who is only 200km from the Russian border in a non-NATO country (Finland), this topic has been extremely important to me and I've been very loud about it on Twitter.
I'm not going to flood this page as I don't think it's the format, but I want to offer some resources for those who may be interested in learning more or want to help:
Live updates:
- www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-60542877
- www.reddit.com/live/18hnzysb1elcs (Less curated, some events not confirmed)
- liveuamap.com/ (Live map)
Suggestions on how to help by the Official Ukraine Twitter Account (Inc donations):
- twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1497294422354055171
35 - 0
Wanted to let you all know the next episode of Concept Field Guide is now scripted :)
I'm also going to start doing some more art tutorial videos, something to help those that might be interested in art and want to know some of the principles.
I'm currently trying to research ways of making that visually interesting and studying other examples. I think production quality-wise it will be lower than the Concept Field Guide videos though, and should focus on principles rather than being something casually watched, so hopefully will be easier for me to do.
I hope this is something some of you will find interesting and useful, or at the least, not a bother :P
26 - 4
Hey folks, I wanted to share part of this backend process with you.
Some of you might have noticed I've been toying with the thumbnail for my most recent video. I'm still new to YouTube so I'm trying to figure out what works. Before my upload, my channels click-through rate (That being how many people are shown a video of mine and click-through to watch it) was around 5-6%
From what I've researched, I hear about 4% is pretty good. But once I uploaded my Pokémon video this crashed to around 2%
I took some advice from other partnered YouTubers and it actualy got worse down to 1%
So I went back to a design I had originally mocked up beforehand, to see if this has any effect.
As you can tell... it had a *bit* of an increase :P
Anyway, I just wanted to show you this because it taught me a lesson as to just how important thumbnails are to getting your video actually watched.
I don't think this thumbnail format is final, but I also don't imagine it changing TOO much beyond it either. Anyway, I hope you found this interesting :)
30 - 2
Thanks for all the love on the latest video everyone! It didn't do as well as I'd hoped, which I was also sort of expecting (I think the Metroid one was a bit of a fluke in terms of views and attention).
but it was a real learning process too. I updated a lot of the visuals and I might update them a bit more, I'm still researching and trying to find a good medium to explain what I'd like to talk about.
I also don't think I'll be working on something *so* extensive as the entire Pokémon style for a while. This video skipped over a lot of things that I think are interesting, but my skills in knowing how to make all these points interesting in a video format are still developing.
What's next?
I currently have a long list of ideas that vary wildly. I'm going to go back to the drawing board somewhat, test some ideas and see what I think works. I might focus on a particular design again like I did with Metroid's Varia Suit. so if you have any suggestions I'm all ears :)
Thanks again and have a good week!
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I'm a professional concept artist in the video game industry specializing in creature and character design.
I've worked with clients and projects like Disney, Guild Wars 2, Rare, Ubisoft, Legends of Runeterra, & The Dragon Prince, and on this channel I talk about art and design in games and entertainmnt :)
Thanks for checking out my channel.