Interview with digital artist: Uwe Jarling

A Detailed Interview : Exploring Extraordinary Artistic Work on Digital Medium by German artist Uwe Jarling

Interviewer: Ujjwal Dey
Artist being interviewed: Uwe Jarling

Date: 05-March-2009
Issue 03, Vol 01 Freedom Fiction

Uwe Jarling is a professional digital artist and illustrator. His artwork is brilliant and beautiful, capturing moments of fantasy, action and fiction in great visionary detail. Uwe has some incredible digital paintings on his portfolio showcased on his website.

Born in 1968, he has a diploma in graphic design. He started focusing on ‘Fantasy Art’ since the year 2000, and the success is visible in his range and reach of work within this genre. Since 2003 he has almost exclusively painted digitally. He lives and works from a small village in South Germany.

Official website: http://jarling-arts.com/
DeviantArt profile: http://jarling-art.deviantart.com/
MySpace profile: http://www.myspace.com/jarling_arts

At the official website and the DeviantArt gallery, you can buy prints of his artwork on various media. So you could not just hang it in your room but have a coffee mug with his “Fleshcrawl Soulskinner” print waking you up when you goof around wearing a T-shirt with his “Destitute Warrior” print on it.

Apart from the many commercial and professional appearances on Book covers, CD covers (music artists/bands), DVD covers, Video Game illustrations, etc. Uwe Jarling’s paintings have also been acclaimed in various magazines and books on art.

For all his talent and accomplishments, Uwe is humble, generous and very cordial.

Some of the publications that hailed his work:

• Exposé 6 (on international collection of digital art),
• Fantasy Art Now (“the very best in contemporary fantasy art & illustration”),
• ImagineFX (in the feature “100 new ways to paint” and previously in featured art, featured artist),
• “The Art Of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos” (book on art inspired from Lovecraft’s fictional Mythology),
• Exotique 2 (on “world’s most beautiful CG characters”),
• Martin McKenna’s Digital Horror Painting Workshop (in a tutorial),
• Exposé 4 (“a compilation of the finest digital art in the known universe”),
• The New Masters of Fantasy 3 (a collection of fantasy art), etc.

In the following interview, you can see samples of his finest digital paintings in between the question-answer session.

Ujjwal Dey (Dey): Hello Mr. Uwe Jarling and warm greetings from India.
Do tell us something about your latest project that you have completed.

Uwe Jarling (Uwe): Greetings Ujjwal,
First off, please just call me Uwe :-), the whole world just calls me Uwe so you shouldn’t make an exception :-).

The latest projects I completed have been some illustrations for Spiraldirect. They will be printed on tee-shirts or other cloths. Also, I just finished some collectible card illustrations for Fantasy Flight Games.

Right now I start sketches for an album cover for an English record-label; I think this is going to be much fun.
(http://www.spiraldirect.com/), (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/)

Dey: How many hours/ days due you spend on an artwork on average? How does it differ from special projects on high profile assignments/ requests?

Uwe: The time I spend on artwork always differs, depending on the job itself, whether it is a book-cover or an album cover or a more simple card art piece. But usually for a more or less complex work I need one to two weeks, sometimes it even can be more.

If it’s a simple piece I sometimes just need one or two days. As said it always depends on the complexity of the artwork and not the least on the money I get for it ;-).

Dey: When did you start doing digital art professionally?

Uwe: Well, I started my professional illustration career in around 1990 or 1991. In this time I did my art the traditional way, you know using real paint on real paper or canvas. In 2000, I quit freelancing and took a job offer from an advertising agency where I still work as a graphic designer. This gave me the time and freedom to paint what I always wanted, fantasy art. I also discovered the computer as a really awesome painting tool (yes you really can paint on a computer). I experimented some time just for myself to get familiar with my new tool and in around 2003 I did the first commissioned illustration digitally. More and more people recognized my work and more and more commissions followed. This led to the situation I’m in now, I now have two jobs, my job in the ad-agency and at evenings and weekends I do my fantasy illustrations.

Dey: Is your main market the book/ CD/ DVD/ games illustration for companies or individual art collectors/ commissioned artwork? Whom do you prefer to do business with among the two groups?

Uwe: I seldom do private commissions for collectors; I usually just work for my own fun and do free paintings, if time allows it. But most of the time I work for companies, be it in the book-/ CD-/ DVD- and game industry.

Dey: Growing up did you ever envision yourself as a professional artist? What occupation did you, as a child, favoured?

Uwe: Now, I really always wanted to become an artist, as a child I read lots and lots of comics, I loved the drawings in the comic books.

I really never thought I ever will be that good some day to work for a comic publisher or do some book covers or something like that. But as said, I always wanted to do that someday so I just worked on it and as you can see, sometimes your dreams of your childhood come true :-).

I’m really happy to be there where I’m now.

Dey: What is you preferred technology (application/ software/ hardware/ art instruments) for creating your artwork?

Uwe: I always loved to experiment, even in the time I used traditional paint I always experimented with new techniques. Today working digitally, this has not changed, I love to experiment with as much tools as I can get my hands on. Currently I’m in love with ZBrush for example, an awesome 3d modeling tool.

But for the jobs it still comes down to painting things, therefore I mainly use Painter and lately more and more Photoshop.

As for the hardware I really need my Wacom tablet (a pressure sensitive graphic tablet for computers). With the help of my Wacom I can paint on the computer the same way as I would paint with traditional color.

Dey: What tools did you use when you first attempted artwork (artwork could have been digital or canvas/paper in childhood or as an adult)?

Uwe: I started with normal traditional paint on paper.

Dey: Did you train professionally? If yes, with whom?

Uwe: Well I studied Graphic design and there we had some drawing courses. But the courses haven’t been very useful, so most things are self taught. The rest came with the years and with the practice. I still need to learn so many things, but I think that’s the exiting thing about my job, you are never finished, you have to learn new things every day, and this makes the whole thing that interesting and keeps you in the job so long. It just never gets boring.

Dey: How do you keep up with digital art market news and market changes? Is it difficult to keep up with changing preferences in style or technology?

Uwe: To be honest I just do my thing and don’t care much about market changes and stuff.

As already said I still have a job as graphic designer which pays the bills, so I don’t have much stress to be informed about every market change in the illustration industry. I only take the jobs I really want to do anyway ;-).

Dey: How would you suggest an amateur hone his/her craft? Is formal training/ apprenticeship necessary/ recommended?

Uwe: It definitely is recommended, try to get a really good art education and you have half of the bill. I didn’t have a good art education, as said my art courses haven’t been really good, but at least they taught me a few essential things like color theory and things like that, but didn’t go really deep. So I had to learn most things myself, and that’s definitely the hard and more complicated way. And it sure takes longer to come to a result.

So yes, try to get a GOOD art education and your start in the illustration industry will be much easier.

Dey: What do you do in your spare time for recreation? Any hobbies that you find relaxing?

Uwe: Honestly, I don’t have spare time, but as painting is not only my job, it is my hobby I always have recreation when I paint ;-).

Maybe some day I will quit my job as a graphic designer and do my illustration business fulltime freelance again, than I will have more time for other things.

Right now I just need the money from both jobs, so spare time is something I just don’t have. But that’s not really a problem to me I love to work hard and long.

Dey: Obviously many people admire your skilled artwork. Have you considered hosting a “workshop” similar to how authors hold workshops for aspiring writers?

Uwe: Honestly I just don’t think I’m a good teacher, I have to learn so much myself how could I teach other people?

Dey: Does animation attract you or do you prefer digital paintings only?

Uwe: I’m always blown away when I see computer animations and I sure would love to learn more about it, but currently I don’t have the time to learn such complex things, so I think I’ll stay with digital painting for a while ;-).

Dey: How useful do you find connecting to people through your MySpace and DeviantArt profiles?

Uwe: I think without those online communities and galleries, still no one would know me. I started to post in some galleries the time I started my digital paintings and I was impressed how much response I got. I have to say thank you to each and every community I participated.

I still try to upload new art in the galleries but sadly time to do so gets less and less. So I’m currently not really active in the online communities, hope that will change some day as I meet so many fabulous people there.

Dey: Are the deadlines given by your clients reasonable or do you believe you could do even better with a flexible deadline?

Uwe: Before I take a job I always see if I can hold the deadline. If I think I could get in trouble with the deadline I just don’t take the job.

To hold the deadlines is most important! To get there and don’t miss deadlines you really have to arrange your work schedule very, very carefully.

Dey: How important is a client’s vision in your creative output?

Uwe: Well I’m an illustrator, so it’s my job to bring the clients vision to life. But mostly the art descriptions are very vague and you bring lots of your own in every painting.

Dey: Is it difficult to be on call any day of the week or do you set your own working days/ holidays?

Uwe: As already said I love my work so it’s no problem to me. Sometimes if the work just got too much and I’m really worked out, I just take a little break with commissions and soon I’m fit for service again.

Dey: Which is your favourite city/ village in the world from among the places you have been to? Why?

Uwe: To be honest I haven’t been much around yet :-(. I was in England and France and that’s about it. But we are often in Berlin as we have lots of relations there, and if I had to choose a city right now it probably would be Berlin.

But well, I live in a little village in the south of Germany and I’m happy there as well :-).

Dey: Which artist do you most admire and why?

Uwe: I really can’t answer this question as there are just too many and I sure would miss some. I don’t just do art I love to see art from other artists as well and there are so many awesome artists out there it just wouldn’t be fair to name just a few.

Dey: From the many wonderful artwork you have created, which is your favourite and why? (is it viewable on your website – http://jarling-arts.com/ ? )

Uwe: Honestly I always like the one I’m working at the moment the most. Once an artwork is done it is done, I don’t have any favorite piece.

Dey: Lastly, do you have any “words of wisdom” for aspiring digital artists of the world?

Uwe: You want to get rich without working much?

Don’t become an artist!

You want to become an artist no matter how hard you have to work for your goal?

Go for it! You will succeed!

* * * * THE END * * * *

Images Copyright Uwe Jarling 2009
Text Copyright Ujjwal Dey 2009

Issue 03, Vol 01 Freedom Fiction
https://www.freedomfiction.com