Priya Raman
Visual Development Artist · Bengaluru, India
Priya Raman works out of Bengaluru. This issue is about how the work actually gets made.
10 pieces
Chosen by the artist for this issue
10 pieces selected by the artist. Click any image to open the gallery. All artwork © the artist, shown with permission.
“Visual development is eighty percent deleting”
Cutting a cast of forty down to nine, and the discipline of throwing away work that is good but wrong.
Interview by Scott Harris
Cutting a cast of forty down to nine, and the discipline of throwing away work that is good but wrong.
How did you find your way into this?
Sideways, like everyone. I drew constantly as a teenager, stopped for four years because somebody sensible told me to, and came back to it at twenty-six with a much clearer idea of why I wanted it.
What are you working on at the moment?
A cast of eleven for a series that has not been announced, so I will say nothing else about it except that two of them are very difficult and I think about them in the shower.
The rest of this interview is still to be written.
The toolkit
- SoftwarePhotoshop for design, Procreate for thumbnails, Blender for rough blocking
- HardwareWacom Cintiq 16 and an iPad Pro that never leaves the bag
- BrushesThree. All variations of the same chalk brush
- SketchbookA5 hardback, roughly one a month, numbered on the spine
- ReferenceA tagged drive of costume photography, plus the museum on Tuesdays
Three things Priya would tell a beginner
- Thumbnail smaller than feels sensible — it stops you decorating.
- Fix silhouettes, not details. Details never rescue a flat shape.
- Keep the bad pages. They are the only honest record of your progress.
- Draw the thing you avoid — your work has a hole exactly that shape.
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