Featured Artist: roh42
Richard Silva, who goes by roh42 on Redbubble, is a multidisciplinary designer with a portfolio filled with imaginative designs and geometric patterns. With a keen interest in video games, landscape, and character design, the Brazilian artist has developed a distinct style which blends hyper realities and cyberpunk influences into beautifully complex artworks. Roh sat down to chat about some of his design points of inspiration.
Check out his shop to pick up a product featuring one of his incredible designs.
[tweet_box design=”default” float=”none”]”Like a punch to the face, everything starts making sense all at once.”[/tweet_box]
Featured Artist roh42
On creating geometric patterns:
“The process is very simple to be honest. I create a geometric shape in Adobe Illustrator. Sometimes I go the math route, dividing the shapes in precise points following a number pattern, other times I just go Rambo-random and do whatever seems cool to me. Then I choose a picture that I like, sometimes from photo stock sites, sometimes from my mom’s photo albums as she has some very cool pictures. I put them together in Photoshop, play with color schemes, and voilá, art!”
On video game inspiration:
“I love mathematical systems, the non-linear narrative, and the artistic possibilities of it in games. And of course, sometimes shooting lasers is fun. But I would say that my favorite thing about video-games is the storytelling format, that needs a third party (the player) participation. Is a very active process, in contrast with the passive systems of movies, books, tv, etc. Games allow a very complex way of being part of narratives.”
"Jump the gun III" Laptop Skin
[tweet_box design=”default” float=”none”]”You just have to think scenery as another character in your drawing.”[/tweet_box]
"Fire Astronaut" T-Shirt
On lessons learned:
“When I started college a lot of the lessons seemed silly, and many friends said, ‘Why the hell are we learning this?! is so useless.’ But after a couple of years all the small things you learned start clicking and connecting, and just like a punch to the face, everything starts making sense all at once. I started broadening my horizons, learning stuff that didn’t seem to have much to do with design, or art. Eventually it helped me to make better creations. Be curious about everything.”
On drawing landscapes:
“When it comes to landscapes, you have to think as planes. When things are very, very distant, their 3D shapes seem to get lost, and you can paint them as if they were cardboards, one in each plane. People sometimes get scared of painting landscapes, because scenery seems very complex, there are many elements, and they have to coexist in the same perspective, but in reality you just have to think scenery as another character in your drawing, a very big character, but a character nonetheless.”
On finding inspiration:
“My inspiration often just comes from the need to practice. Some time ago I wanted to practice more and more, but I was often without inspiration, so I created an Android app, called “What to Draw?” to help me. This app gives random ideas and suggestions on what to draw, so it became easy for me to draw new stuff, I was never out of ideas.”
"fate weaver" Studio Pouch
