Editorial
Welcome to the July issue of 2DArtist magazine! In this issue we bring you more exciting installments in our great tutorial series and continually captivating artwork. From manga characters to fantasy realms, there’s a little something to put a smile on everyone’s face!

Last month we said goodbye to Jama Jurabaev, who finished up our 2D animation series by showing us how to create amazing animations using paintings, live-action footage and compositing techniques. But not to worry – this means we get to start our brand new series: The Six Realms! Modern computer games lure us in with the promise of exciting explorations through limitless worlds and different realms within those worlds, created by talented artists and designers. In this series of tutorials our artists take us through their painting process and show us how to design six diverse, fantasy realms from the same world. Chase Toole kicks things off this time with Mountains, which happens to be the stunning image on our cover.

In other tutorial-related news, Patipat Asavasena shows us how to be efficient and flexible in our editing as he guides us through the creation process of his manga-style version of the beautiful Helen of Troy. He covers working from a concept and theme, through to overpainting and adding final touches.

Christopher Peters approaches designing a fighter droid, from the perspective of producing an image for the games industry. Not only does he talk about the design and painting of the droid, but he also shows us how to create drawings that can be given to a 3D artist to help them create games characters. Make sure you catch the last in the series next month!

Last but not least, we are in the accomplished hands of our resident artist Richard Tilbury and Simon Dominic Brewer for the latest installment of our brilliant Mythological Creatures series, as they take on the mythical being Muma Padurii – a creature known in Romanian folklore as a spirit of the forest in a very ugly and old woman’s body. Take a closer look to find out how each of our artists interprets the same brief and comes up with their own version of this mix of different creatures, with Simon in Painter and Richard in Photoshop.

If all those great tutorials aren’t enough we also have a Making Of brought to you by Bruno Hamzagic, who shows us how he created a brilliant caricature of JK Simmons. Talking of caricatures, our monthly sketchbook feature gives an insight into the creative mind of Cosmin Podar, whose passion for capturing personalities on paper really shines in this selection of images. We also have an interview with diverse artist Thierry Doizon, who talks to us about his work at Steambot Studios and what he likes to do in his free time.