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Andreas Rocha

Andreas Rocha: About the Artist
I've been painting digitally for 13 years. I am mostly self-taught and originally had never considered painting professionally. Art was always a hobby; I thought architecture would be my career. But my love for painting endured, and as my technique improved, I started getting job proposals. I've been freelancing for three years doing finished illustrations, matte paintings, and conceptual work, alongside 3D architectural previsualizations. I currently live in Portugal with my beautiful wife and my two faithful work companions: a dog and a cat.

 

Studio
Software: Painter, Photoshop, Windows
Hardware: PC, dual monitor 23-inch LCD, Wacom Intuos4 L

Contact
Andreas Rocha
Lisbon, Portugal
Rocha.andreas@gmail.com
http://www.andreasrocha.com

Artist's Statement
I try to portray all the imaginary things roaming in my head and share them with the world. I consider myself a lucky person to be able to do such a fulfilling activity for a living.

Influences
My inspirations and influences were built during my childhood in the 80s. The work of poster artist Drew Struzan brings back warm memories of going to the movies to see Back to the Future or the Indiana Jones movies and being transported to another world for two hours. That is when my love for fantasy really started. Later I found out how fulfilling it was to be able to put on paper all the things I imagined in my head.

Another big influence is my dear city, Lisbon. It is a city full of variety in terms of architecture, moods, and people. It enriches my visual vocabulary, and I believe my work refers to it subconsciously.

Also, two artists whose work I constantly refer to are Jaime Jones and Khang Le. Their conceptual work is strong, and the apparent ease at which they paint amazes me. The incisiveness and textural quality of their brushstrokes is something I am really inspired by and try to emulate in my work.

Techniques
Step-by-Step Tutorial: Quick Concepts with Painter
The following steps describe the process I sometimes use for the initial exploratory phase of a painting, where I am more concerned about the overall look. My emphasis then is on composition, lighting, color, and mood. Painter is the perfect tool to achieve this with its powerful textured brushes and blenders.

The main tools I use are the Chalk Brush with a custom-created large paper, Just Add Water + Grainy Water blenders, the Loaded Palette Knife, and the Real Pencils.

My main inspiration for these conceptual sketches was Blade Runner. I love everything about that movie because it is an absolute landmark in science fiction. What I wanted to capture was the dark mood, the electric greens, and the foggy atmospheres that are so characteristic of the movie.

1.            I start by creating a new canvas 2000x2000px. On a new layer, I draw two rectangles and fill them with black. I then check Preserve Transparency in the Layers palette. This setup allows me to quickly jump from one concept to the other while having a frame to separate them. In Figure 1.1, I start with Chalk, Square Chalk and paint some generic shapes. Then I use a custom-created paper with a lot of different textures to add variety to my brushstrokes. The two main colors are a desaturated green and a desaturated cyan. I try to aim for interesting shapes and discover things I might want to portray. Nothing is certain at this stage — it's exploratory.