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| Interview with Digital Artist Kerem Beyit Posted: 03 Oct 2009 09:31 AM PDT Kerem Beyit is from Turkey and working as a freelancer there. It is common to see his works everywhere around the world. He has magical creative powers and is really successful at Illustration, concept design and working in Photoshop. Learn more about his process, work, and inspiration!
1. Can you please introduce yourself? How did your career begin?I worked as a graphic designer for a while, but it didn’t take long before I realized it wasn’t the thing for me. After jumping from one ridiculous job to another, I came across several quite impressing digital pictures on the internet, and being a child who loved to draw, I decided to give it a try. I made my first tries in 2004, and I’ve been working as a professional illustrator since 2005. 
2. There is a fantastic world in your drawings. How do you explain your ability to draw such extraordinary figures? And how do you enrich your dream world?I basically grew up reading comic books, and the fact that I love fantasy literature plays a big part of course. My imagination is fed and fueled by comic books, novels and movies.    
3. Many of your drawings have a dragon figure. Where does this interest come from? What drives you to draw them?I love drawing any kind of creature actually, because I feel more liberated drawing something that does not have a specimen in nature. The rules you have to abide by are very few, and since there’s no physical counterpart that can be used to do comparisons you can design these creatures the way you want, this kind of liberty is a very important factor for me. However, the latest dragon inflation in my portfolio is the result of the job offers I get. In about a year, there will be much more dragon artwork in my portfolio, and none of those are personal illustrations. What I mean is, I wouldn’t want to be labeled as an artist who specializes on dragons; specializing on one thing is one of the biggest dangers an illustrator can be faced with. 
4. Can you talk a little bit about your design process? What are some of the most important aspects of the various stages of your process? What advice do you have for beginners?First comes the intellectual process where I think about and construct the figure, the composition and even the light condition beforehand. The rest is about translating that on the canvas, and how good you are at that is a sound indicator of your artistic skills. What I pay attention to the most depends on what I’m working on; with illustrations and story telling pieces, the purpose is very important; the areas you should dwell on are completely different for an illustration, a book cover, and a character design. As for new artists, I would advice them to stay strong. The only thing this job requires is will, no one can stand in the way of someone who really wants to do this professionally. You have to combine that will with discipline and no matter how long it takes, whether it be 2 years or 5, you have to work real hard. Once you’re in that process, I promise you will get results. I’d say practicing in a disciplined and enthusiastic fashion would do wonders. They should study the paintings of successful artists real well. Other than that, there’s not much suggestion to give. A person who wants to be an illustrator has to go ahead and draw rather than looking for advice. He has to draw 7 days a week, hate what he has done the week before, and aim for a much better outcome for the week to come, believe me, anyone who has that kind of discipline will not need any kind of suggestion.  
5. How did you first come across Photoshop? What is your favorite tool in it? What other programs do you use?I met Photoshop while studying graphic design, and improved my command of the program quite a bit while working as a graphic designer, so I didn’t really have to deal with learning a new program when I started doing digital illustrations, I only had to learn how to use Photoshop for illustrating purposes. I have lots of favorite tools, first of which is the custom brush, and of course color correction… As for software I use Vue (for environment design) and Sketch-Up every once in a blue moon (for illustrations that need architecture and perspective). 
6. Who are your favorite artists? What impressed you about them? What are your favorite websites?I grew up drooling over the cover art by Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallego, Joe Jusko. Their impact on me is unquestionable. However, as the years went by, and I really got into this thing my list grew with people like Jim Murray, Raymond Swanland, Todd Lockwood, Scott M. Fischer, and Adam Rex. I follow websites like CGTalk, cghub.com, and CG Gallery. 
7. You make wonderful illustrations, but do you want to work in other fields? What are your future plans?I can’t really say I think of any other career other than illustration, I mean when you look at it realistically it would be a very wrong move for me, but I would like to try my luck in the design industry in general. Within the borders of illustration I think about different fields of course, I’ve really missed working on themes like sci-fi and macabre, but with the workload I’ve got right now it seems impossible for me to sit down and work on a personal picture, but maybe I’ll get a break in the near future J. 
8. Thank you for your answers. Finally, what do you want to say to Psdtuts+ readers?Thank you. Greetings everyone. 
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