The production designer reveals his daily schedule, and why young artists should seek happiness.
(Image credit: Craig Elliot)
About the Concept Art Association
(Image credit: Concept Art Association)
Concept Art Association is an organisation committed to elevating and raising the profile of concept artists, their art and their involvement in the entertainment industries. Its annual Concept Art Awards Show showcases and recognises behind-the-scenes individuals working in entertainment concept art.
Craig Elliot has worked for decades across films such as DC's Wonder Woman and Disney's Hercules, and is currently a production designer at Marvel Studios. A career highlight for CraigElliot was working on Treasure Planet. Below the artist reveals a typical day in his life.
"I wake up around 8am. Much of my morning routine is taking medication because I had a brain tumour and lost my pituitary gland. At 9am I’ll log into Zoom, and the big morning meeting begins.
"We’ll comb through any problems that the team has with, say, the handle of that sword or the roof tiles, and figure out how to fix it. Then I have my ‘office hours’, so individual artists schedule time with me. We often have a modeller review session. Especially working at Marvel, every thread and button is scrutinised.
"Lunch is from noon till 1pm, but I have a little fridge in here, so I can grab something while I work. Afterwards it’s more meetings; a surfacing review for the characters, for example. On Fridays are the big executive review, where we present the week’s work and give notes to the artists to revise.
"In this corner of my studio I have room to paint portraits. In this case my then girlfriend Tooba." (Image credit: Craig Elliot)
Make time for personal projects
"I typically turn to something else after work, from 6-8.30pm or so. I’ll do an illustration for Magic: The Gathering or Dungeons & Dragons, build part of my barn, or sculpt. I make dinner and put on a movie, and even then I have to work on something else while watching because I have all these ideas. Eventually, I’ll go to bed at around 11pm.
"As for people entering the field, I think there’s hope. I’ve done a lot of research on AI, and it’s not where it needs to be to replace these artist positions. It might cut into entry-level jobs, so finding internships will be key.
"Be smart, and use social media. Find a mentor so you can bypass that entry-level work. But mainly, as Joseph Campbell said, ‘Follow your bliss’. All of this complicated stuff becomes fairly simple when you just think about following the thing that makes you happy."
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"Made for an ArtStation learning course. Survivors from a crashed spaceship encounter their first alien." (Image credit: Craig Elliot)
"This painting captures the moment in Strange World where the characters touch a creature while flying through the film’s pancreas location." (Image credit: Craig Elliot)
"Since learning I have both Scottish and Norwegian ancestry from genetic testing, I wanted to do a few paintings of my ancestors when they first met!" (Image credit: Craig Elliot)
This content originally appeared in ImagineFX magazine, the world's leading digital art and fantasy art magazine. ImagineFX is on sale in the UK, Europe, United States, Canada, Australia and more. Limited numbers of ImagineFX print editions are available for delivery from our online store (the shipping costs are included in all prices)
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Ian Dean is Editor, Digital Arts & 3D at Creative Bloq, and the former editor of many leading magazines. These titles included ImagineFX, 3D World and video game titles Play and Official PlayStation Magazine. Ian launched Xbox magazine X360 and edited PlayStation World. For Creative Bloq, Ian combines his experiences to bring the latest news on digital art, VFX and video games and tech, and in his spare time he doodles in Procreate, ArtRage, and Rebelle while finding time to play Xbox and PS5.
