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Name: Jose Cua
Country: Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia
Website: josecua.carbonmade.com
Wacom Tablet: Intuos3 9x12 |
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| Jose Cua is "a wide-eyed kid in a gigantic candy store", running around tasting bits and pieces of life. Attending first Limkokwing University of Creative Technology, Malaysia, and now finishing up his studies at The One Academy of Communication Design, Malaysia, this young concept artist has a bright future ahead of him. We loved the bold strokes on digital portraits such as "Stare", and the wide diversity of his portfolio. Although busy with his studies at The One Academy and freelancing work, Jose took the time to talk with us about his art and life. |
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| Interview with Jose Cua
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1 . I understand that you're based in Malaysia but originally from the Philippines. Care to elaborate? |
I was born in the Philippines, lived half my life going back and forth to Indonesia for eight years in around two year gaps, and I've been here in my 3rd home Malaysia for five years. I've basically been kind of a nomad my whole life, I'm not sure where I'm heading next but I'll be moving again very soon.
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2 . What was your earliest memory of your affinity for art? |
I've been drawing since my preschool days. What got me started were these little robot drawings my dad used to do at the bottom of letters he would send me when he was away. Changed my life I guess, and haven't looked back ever since. The drawing slowed down in high school and soon afterwards I took a diploma course in Multimedia only to find out, after discovering sites like CGTalk, Conceptart.org, and the Sijun forums, that I wanted to learn 3D animation. I took a three month internship at a small post production house and learned about 3D Animation and Maya. Soon onwards I was a permanent freelancer for them, helping out in animation and effects work in advertisements for 8 months.
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3 . Quite a history! What are you up to at the moment? |
I'm currently finishing up my studies in The One Academy of Communication Design, taking up a course in illustration where I am learning a lot of things. I was lucky enough to bypass some credits after a portfolio review and got some credit transfers from my previous course. I am also currently freelancing as a concept artist for a small games studio here in Kuala Lumpur based in Hong Kong, and am looking for more opportunities in the entertainment field regarding mostly character work.
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Tell us about some of your artwork. Where does "The Journey" come from? What about your character concepts? |
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The Journey
"The Journey" is a story about a little boy who likes to dream. He has built what he believed is a flying device out of crude materials to follow these people flying up to the sky on a journey, but as he reaches the top of the mountain, his "flying machine" starts to break apart and he has come to doubt if he can really follow them. It is a story about the determination and imagination of a young mind that can be lost once the kid grows up and matures, symbolized by him reaching the top of the mountain. The flying ships represent his dreams and ambitions. The people on the lower side of the mountain represent those who do not dream, those grounded to reality and practicality, those satisfied with what they have and do not wish for more. The physical journey is just a metaphor. The real one is taking place in the kids mind. Will he eventually jump? Will he come back to try another day? Or will he give up? There is no end to the story. It's not my job to finish it for you. You, the viewer, fill that gap based on your own beliefs and principles. |
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4. The images you sent us were quite varied in style and subject. Where do you get your inspiration? |
I get inspiration from anything and everything around me. If you look at things long enough, something is bound to pop out. The cracks on a wall, clouds in the sky, the messy paint splatters on a desk that needs cleaning up. There are ideas waiting to be found in everything. You just have to look. When I was a kid I hated reading. They say real imagination comes from reading because the viewers are not given the physical picture. However, in a picture nothing is exact. We are not told what is going on inside the characters minds. We are given a chance to create a story or attach an emotion behind an image, and I think that is so much more complex. I love how an art piece can open up or stimulate a persons imagination. Having background as an animator makes it easy to look at an image see it move, and think about what has happened before and after. |
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Stare
The figure is based on a magazine cover photo and was done for the quota of figure drawings/paintings we have to do on a weekly basis in my school. It was heavily inspired by Gustav Klimt and wanted to experiment with styles as well as to get the hang of Corel Painter. I enjoyed painting it very much and learned a lot from it. |
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Pepper Freedom
This one is my entry to Imaginary Friends Studios Pepper Project. I was very lucky to get short-listed for it and am truly honoured. In this piece I wanted to show motion and tranquility. Kind of like when a pilot finally breaks the sound barrier and a beautiful poetic silence follows. |
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I'm a visual person and am not so good with words so my chosen output for my thoughts are moving or still images. I love watching movies, animation, and looking at pictures. Everyday I surf the net for hours on, just keeping an eye on my favorite artists in deviantART and looking for new inspirations in forums like ConceptArt, CGTalk or ZBrushCentral, blogs and websites--hours I should be spending on drawing but I guess I like being a sponge and soaking everything up. I've got greedy eyes.
In terms of art, I look at everything from cover artwork, comics, concept art for production, animation, graphic design, and fashion illustration. It's one of the reasons my inspirations can't be narrowed down very well. Keeps my eyes fresh and stops me from getting bored. I can be quite a fanatic sometimes. I'm the guy that can watch movies over and over for different reasons. I'll be playing Pixar or Disney DVD's and scrubbing through sequences for the animation or the special effects (I watched those Transformers sequences frame by frame over and over and I think my brain nearly exploded).
I also love independent films, because they usually have no budget for special effects therefore they are forced to focus on story and actually connecting with their audiences, evoking a feeling or truly capturing a moment in time. I analyze still images in a similar way. I guess people look at me as someone without focus, a jack of all trades and master of none. I don't mind. I have a short attention span I guess, and I just couldn't see myself doing one thing forever. Kind of makes me feel like a wide-eyed kid in a gigantic candy store--some kids will have their eye on one flavour, but I'm the one running around grabbing a piece of everything. |
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Homecoming
This was an assignment for class in which we were given the task to design a futuristic city scene. It was more of an improvisational illustration rather than something completely planned. It started out with a mass of abstract shapes created by some custom brushes, which slowly took form into what you see right now. It's a useful method that leads to unexpected results and design ideas. Happy accidents as others would call it. |
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The Queen
"The Queen" is heavily influenced by artists James Jean, John Foster, and Marko Djurdjevic. I borrowed a lot from their styles and learned tons. It is a story about the ice queen whose lands have been taken over by the god of fire. It's filled with bits and pieces of symbolic imagery. Not as finished as I wished to create it since I rushed it for the gnomon monthly contests but I shall revisit this piece someday. |
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Battle Scars
"Battle Scars" is an exercise in 3D form and mass. It's meant to portray an orc warrior staring his opponent down during battle. It's a very old piece which I did a year ago as an experiment using ZBrush software, which I picked up and learned during lunch breaks at work. |
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100 Heads
These are three of my favorites from a 100 heads project I did at school. These were heavily inspired by the artists Andrew Jones and David Levy, and are a series of experiments with shapes and forms. With images and custom brushes, I lay out a collection of abstract shapes and then ride my intuition to seek out and sculpt out the hidden forms within those masses. One image actually contains numerous heads if you look closely and most of these were results of happy accidents. |
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5 . In that case, are there any specific films you like? And how do those special moments translate into your activities as an artist? |
I love watching "Amelie" and have never gotten bored of it. It’s stylized and humorous storytelling gives it a strange charm unlike any other film I have seen. It is heartwarming and deep. It is my goal to achieve this kind of interaction and emotion with the viewer, when I am creating personal artwork. My second favourite would be "Waking Life"; words cannot express how visually impressive this film is to me. I love how they keep switching styles in the movie, which kind of reflects how I like switching things up in art. I love the dream-like quality of it overall, its depth, and the visual metaphors portrayed in it. Leaves me thinking every time I watch this, and is always a new and inspiring experience. I've seen it around 30 times.
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6 . You say you're a nomad, so I assume you'd prefer the smaller Cintiq 12WX over the Cintiq 21UX? What kind of hardware and software do you currently use? Do you use any traditional art tools? |
Well actually I'm only a nomad in the sense that I've been moving to different countries back and forth a few times, but in reality I like spending most of my time drawing or painting at home. I'd definitely prefer the Cintiq 12WX over the 21UX, I love what Wacom has done to it compared to the previous models, it’s just so much more versatile and portable now. It’s a sweet piece of technology and I love where things are heading.
I'm currently using Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter for my 2D work and ZBrush for 3D. In terms of traditional tools, my school lets us explore many different media such as pencil, markers, acrylics, gauche, ink, and others.
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7 . What would be your dream set up? |
Four monitors, multi-quad cores, lots of ram, and terabytes of hard disk space. Would probably look like one of those control stations for launching nukes or going into the Matrix. I'd have another laptop with the same amount of juice in it as well. My dream setup also includes a Cintiq 12WX that I would take with me wherever I go. So, um, if you guys have one sitting around without an owner, I'd be glad to give it a home hehehe :)
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8 . If you could pick any one scene from a movie or photograph or artwork to take with you to on a 3-month, non-stop, solo voyage around the world, what would it be? |
Hmmm that’s a really tough one. But I think I'd have to pick the introductory 10 minutes of the film "Amelie." There’s just so much there and it’s always amusing to watch, I just love the characters. It’s as if it’s a film on its own. The last few minutes at the end are great as well--beautiful stuff. |
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