Mike Corriero is a Concept artist and Illustrator for the Videogame and Film Industries. He produces assets as a Freelance artist for various companies including everything from props, to characters, creatures, environments, structures, animals, illustrations, icons, isometric wall tile designs and more. His work has been shown in Ballistic Publishing’s Exposè and Painter books as well as Imagine FX Magazine, 2D Artist Magazine, Animation Reporter Magazine, ITS ART magazine, and will soon be seen in Fantasy Art and Design 360° Magazine.

Mike Corriero’s Website

Which artists have most influenced your work, and who are your favorite artists?
A lot of the older traditional fantasy, sci-fi and concept artist inspired me and were among my favorites before the digital painting era really kicked in. Some of these artists include, Keith Parkinson, Michael Whelan, Tony Diterlizzi, Jeff Easley, Brom, Alan Lee, John Howe, Donato Giancola, and Fred Fields. These guys really knew how to capture the essence of mood, detail, character, story telling, color and quality. They still for me stand head above shoulders over even the best digital artist and the experience doesn’t have anything to do with it even though these guys have been in the game much longer. They are still producing some of the best work out there to date.

Some artist who have influence me more recently in the digital art realm are Ryan Church, Erik Tiemens, Jon Foster, Aleksi Briclot, Justin Sweet, J.S. Rossbach, David Levy and a slew of other younger lesser known talents and friends.

What tools do you use in your work?
When I’m just drawing and sketching out ideas I usually just work things out in a sketchbook with a mechanical drawing pencil or some fine point pigment liner pens. Here or there I’ll sketch digitally but I like the more hands on approach and physical texture of a good pencil sketch. My final works are always completed digitally in Photoshop. I use Painter occasionally but right now I’m running Photoshop CS2 and a 9×12 inch Wacom Intuos 2 Tablet.

What drew you to concept art as a profession?
I love Illustration and I love to create worlds, creatures, stories and anything that relates to the imaginary. I love both Illustration and Concept art though in the end I’d say I’m more attracted to the idea of designing concepts for games and films. There are a lot more things involved in quality and composition of Illustrations concerning poses, positioning, lighting and style that don’t always have to be the case in concept art. The two do tend to go hand in hand but they have their differences and the major one being the design process for conceptualizing ideas. That’s what drew me in to concept art as a profession. It’s rewarding to see your Illustration on a book, in a magazine or other publications but I’m more attracted to seeing something I created, designed or played a part in designing come to life in a movie or in a game. Something you can interact with and watch as it lives and breathes.

Which types of projects do you most enjoy working on?
Anything that has to do with creature design, environment design, objects, items and flora or immobile living life forms. It could be an illustration project where I’m just painting designs to be featured in a book or magazine or conceptual designs for games and such. I like to show little working sketches on how the creature or life form might work, the same with an object if it needs to describe an action. Game designs can be a lot of fun because they don’t always have to be refined and rendered down to the smallest detail in order to get the idea across and you can exaggerate things well beyond what would be a more realistic concept for a film.

The worlds you create in your concept art are diverse, from cold metallic sci-fi to ethereal fantasy landscapes. How do you prepare yourself to visually capture these fantastic environments?
I don’t do a whole lot of planning because environments, plants, vestigial life forms and other odd vegetation is much easier to paint that something that is constructed of muscle and bone. Environments just need to stick to a perspective you’ve chosen, and then work out the elements under the positioning of your light source. If you think about it, ice, water, fire, earth, the sky, clouds, leaves, grass and anything else associated with an environment is thrown in your face every day you walk out the door. If you just pay attention when you’re outside that’s enough research and studying for a life time. Don’t get me wrong I do research if I need to portray a time era, buildings, and odd textures.

Many of your illustrations and sketches show alien creatures with strange biology (the feathered insects for instance). Do you study the anatomy of existing animals when designing these creatures?
Yes, anywhere and everywhere I go I’ve always got my mind working, thinking about how things move and the shape of their designs. What the use is for the elements that make up a certain animal and such things like that. If I go to the zoo, it’s to appreciate the animals but it’s also to further my knowledge of what I can’t observe at home, the movement for instance. It’s so much different then sitting at home and watching it on TV. when you see the real size of animals and get that 3-dimensional perspective insight into their living habits. A lot of the concepts I create are largely naturalistic but you’ll find the odd crazy horror creature or alien life form in my portfolio. I try to study the bones and actual joints and muscles as much as time allows and more so when I’m working on a specific design that I don’t quite understand or have as much knowledge about. A lot of times though I’ll put what I know to use and draw these things without the reference unless I’m lost.

In the FAQ on your website, you mention that you used online art communities to learn and get your first job. Which communities do you recommend for learning and networking?
The best art community out there that is the most active, has the most helpful free information and the most active users who are willing to really take the time to show the new kids the ropes is www.conceptart.org by far. I’ve stopped by www.cgtalk.com which is nice and they definitely have a very professional set up over there but it just doesn’t feel like the members are as quick to reply. I like the networking community cgtalk provides but conceptart.org is adding new features all the time and still remains the number one art forum to go to for help, advice and inspiration in my opinion.

There are of course a lot of other art forums out there but they just don’t have enough traffic and members to keep my interest. If there isn’t a lot of traffic then there aren’t going to be as many potential employers checking the place out for artist. You can also check out a young forum by ImagineFX magazine now, www.imaginefx.com which is starting to slowly but surely become a popular place because it’s connected to what is now one of the top art magazines available.

You reveal on your blog that you did some work on Flagship Studios new game Mythos. Do you play the games you work on so you can fight the characters you create?
Of course, what fun would it be to design these creatures and environments if you don’t have the interaction with something you just created? Props to the modelers and animators for knowing how to bring your designs to life. The work I did for Mythos wasn’t directly done for Flagship but rather done through an outsourcing company, nonetheless the creatures and tile set concepts I provided made up a portion of what you see in the game. I’m waiting for Mythos to be complete so I can download it for free and have some fun bashing and trashing the beasties I concepted and exploring some of the levels I played a part in designing.