Designer Edmar Cisneros has an interesting and unique philosophy regarding design that can be seen through his work. Edmar’s relationship with Photoshop has flourished over the years and it has lead to him to discover his own style. In our inteview, Edmar discusses his struggles and triumphs with art and Photoshop. Please take a moment to review this excellent interview.
Q Welcome to Psdtuts+, please introduce yourself. Could you tell us where you’re from and how you got started in the field?
Hi everyone! My name is Edmar Cisneros, I’m 22 years old and currently live in Mexico City. I work as a freelance graphic designer and Illustrator and I’m currently perusing a degree in Digital Animation. I started out with an old copy of Paint Shop pro; I used to retouch pictures back in 2007 and at that time I stumbled across a little site called Deviantart where I was introduced to the world of digital art. Eventually I discovered some art communities such as Evokeone, Depthcore and Slashthree where I was really impressed with the quality of images that could be produced using Photoshop and so I guess I got hooked since then.
I used to spend a lot of time messing around with Photoshop, looking for tutorials and inspiration sites as well as submitting everything I did to Deviantart for comments and feedback. I got obsessed with it and with that I became better little by little.
QHave you always been an artistic person? Or did you develop this love for art later in life? If so then when?
When I was younger I got into the habit of spending entire nights drawing and painting random stuff. After a few years of keeping this up I lost interest from one day to another until I got into digital art. I switched my pencils and brushes in for my computer and I rediscovered my interest in the field.
QWhat was you’re first Photoshop experience like, and how do you think you have evolved as a designer since then?
I remember the first time I used Photoshop I downloaded some grunge and floral brushes and started making a mess with them. I found the program kind of difficult to use but as I got more interested with it I started searching the web for tutorials on how to use it. PSDTUTS+ and Abduzeedo being two of those places and I think I recreated every single tutorial both sites had until that point. Then I started using what I learned on my work and experimenting spending countless hours on my own. From there it took me a couple of years to start developing my own style without the need of much outer inspiration and just using my own ideas and concepts.
QWhen looking at your older art we can notice a very drastic change in appearance of your illustrations. What would you say is an important key in transforming ones style and advancing techniques?
When I was still learning my way through Photoshop I liked following trends and basically do what everyone else was doing at the time. That changed when I started joining art communities (Most recently Slashthree). Within these communities I learned how important it was to create my own style and have my own voice and that way my works changed like I changed my way of thinking about art. It’s something that you learn to do day by day and with each artwork you create.
QHow would you characterize your specific style of art?
I wouldn’t say I have an specific style set in all my artworks. I like going from Photo manipulation to 3D to Digital Painting and also from Surreal to fantasy and Sci-fi stuff. It all depends on what I’m working on and how it flows, nothing is ever set on stone.
Q“Savant” is an extraordinary illustration that features several original and unique elements, could you tell us what this piece is about and a little on how you made it?
A savant is a person that has some sort of ability that exceeds the normal standard and I wanted to illustrate that with someone breaking or “blooming” out of the normal into creating something beautiful or brilliant. I used Cinema4D and some rock textures to create the ‘meteor’ (as I like to call it) on the background and also used C4D to render all the branches. Then I selected a stock image of a model I saw fit for the concept and retouched and over painted in Photoshop. One thing I like to do with my works is using neutral color palettes and add some color details, in this case I decided to keep the main colors to blacks, grays and the contrasting white on the branches and leaves with only the soft pink tones from the body of the guy.
QWhat would you say is your biggest flaw when designing? How do you try and correct it?
My biggest flaw would probably be not developing my concepts thoroughly. This can make me get lost in the artwork. Technically, It can be difficult selecting a color palette or a stock image that would fit the idea and it could lead to an unfinished or unsatisfactory result as well as lots of wasted time figuring out what else I can add or do to it. I found out that by sketching my ideas beforehand or just simply writing down all the elements that I want to incorporate to the design and making a plan of action helps a lot.
Q Thanks again for providing Psdtuts+ with this opportunity to interview you. Any final thoughts for our readers?
Thanks to you Emil and everyone at PSDTUTS+ for making this interview possible. And I just want to tell everyone out there to experiment and develop you craft and try to bring to the world all the ideas you have no matter how crazy they are. Just keep screaming until you are heard.
Where to find Edmar on the Web
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