Welcome to my Online Portfolio here at CGSociety.
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Well what shoud i tell about myself...
Perhaps a little biography will do.
I was born and raised in a small country called Latvia which is located in Europe. I first started drawing since i was 5 years old, there is a reason why but i will keep it a secret. ;]
As the years passed I realized that this is really what I want to do in my life, and started to evolve my drawing skills. I started to draw everywhere and anytime I could, even in school in class during the lessons. Then people around me including teachers started to admire these drawings. My drawing teacher in elementary school suggested that I go to drawing school. I Actually entered that school, but quit quickly as I found no interest in what they were teaching. The thing is that I didn’t like painting or work with water / oil colors etc. (and i still don't). My style was and still is mainly graphic art drawing. I only liked to work with pencils. And guess what i liked to draw the mos.... YESSS monsters, mystic creatures, villains etc. ^^ The reason why i liked and still like to draw monsters and mystic creatures is that I find their complicated design more interesting to work on and not always if the exterior looks dangerous the character or creature is negative. What I like is to work on the images with a great attention to the detail and mainly as it turns out they are so called monsters.
In a year 2002 I was first introduced with computer graphic and digital painting as well as with software we all know... yup it was Adobe Photoshop. ^^ Since then it changed my life forever. At the time i was amazed how many functions this software can handle, so this is when i turned to CG. When I mastered the basics of PS i immediately started experiments on my older works. (Note that by then i had no idea about the very existance of Tablets, so i did everything with only a mouse). The result wasn’t quite what I had expected as I still had a lot to learn. The year 2004 was enough notable for me as I made a large step forward in my computer graphic skills. Exactly then the first aspirations of creating the personages by means of graphic programs took place. I also got interested in graphic design, this was the reason why i started my web-design studies in the University. In year 2005 i was asked to work in a Publishing House as an Illustrator. It was a great experience for me, i was fortunate to work along side very talented people and gained many new friends and a lot of new knowledge. Finally i was introduced with Wacom Intuos tablet and a new software called Corel Painter. My colleague, artist Vadim Strelkov a.k.a. VaLeon taught me how to work with it. In the end of 2006 i finally bought my own Wacom intuos 3. The time passed and the publishing house started to have some difficulties. It was the time when i decided to change my job. In the year 2006 i started to work in the Web-Design Studio as an an Illustrator / Graphic Designer. It was unusual turn of events for me, but in a good way offcourse. I got a chance to learn new things and also test my Web-Designer skills. It was also the time i started to take a Freelance job offers. In a summer of 2007 i was asked to work in a most popular internet portal here in Latvia. I started as a comic book illustrator but later did many other jobs as Illustrator, Graphic Designer and Web-Designer. Yet again i got a chance to learn new skills and meet many creative and very talented people. I also got to work on many interesting projects. In the year 2008 i started to work only as a freelance. I also participated in a very popular contest called Dominance War III. Unfortunately i never had a chance to finish up my entry because i got many freelance job offers which i couldn't refuse. Year 2008 was very notable for me because i had learned so many things which helped me to signifficantly improve my drawing style. In the beginning of the year 2009 i made my first piece of art where i tried a new colouring technique, but right after that i had an inspirational crisis and stoped to create my own personal art for several months. This continued until recently i found out about Dominance War IV. I pulled myself together and decided to participate and this time finish my entry. The reason behind this is that i want to show myself of what i am really capable of. I will put everything i got into my entry. And then we'll see what will happen next.
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I hope you will enjoy your stay here. Armand S. Lacums
