Darran Hurlbut is a 2D and 3D artist traditionally schooled
in figure drawing and painting. He’s
forged a long career as a professional 3D character artist, and now pursues his
true passion as a concept artist and illustrator.
Darran grew up making models of tanks and planes, drawing
war machines and robots - never thinking anything more of it, other than as fun stuff to do. Years later, learning that he actually had
talent as an artist, he pursued a career of, well, making fun stuff. Darran got his start taking figure drawing
classes and painting studies at Santa
Barbara City College, San Francisco
Art Institute, and additional studies at adult education figure drawing classes
in Santa Barbara; he continues to visit figure drawing classes to this day.
Subsequently, those traditional art classes were replaced
with 3DSMax and Photoshop, when he got his first job in the gaming industry at Scavenger Studios in Los Angeles,
California. Darran quickly learned the programs,
which enabled him to design, and later model, high-resolution characters that were
arguably ahead of their time, such as his modeling work for the game “Messiah,”
from Shiny Entertainment. For his next project, he produced thousands of
storyboards for “Run Like Hell”,
published by Interplay Entertainment,
taking his art skills in a totally new direction. Later Darran studied at Associates in Arts, an art industry professional school in Sherman
Oaks, California, to learn storyboarding.
Darran eventually resumed his position at Shiny Entertainment and produced
promotional art for “Enter the Matrix,” then became the lead character artist
for “Path of Neo.” It seemed that the
path of becoming a concept artist wasn’t getting the attention it needed, so
Darran, after completing “Path of Neo,”
left Shiny to pursue work as a 2D
artist.
Darran continued to work on his drawing skills by working on
several comic projects, while freelancing as a concept artist on the side. He engaged in numerous personal art projects,
comic book cover illustrations, and continuously pursued studies as a digital
painter and draftsmen. Some of Darran’s freelance
contract projects included work with Shiny,
Double Helix, Uber Entertainment, EA Europe/ Crytek, Climax UK, and various
other independent projects.
Darran’s diverse artistic background gives him a wide range
of skills to draw upon when challenged to find technical and artistic solutions
at his job. His traditional art
background provides him with a strong sense of detail (mostly taught from
reality), but, Darran’s love for artistic creativity drives him to explore a
mix of new ideas rendered with traditional artistic skill.
To list projects that Darran’s art has had creative
influence on:
“Messiah” (Shiny Entertainment): A
cyberpunk- themed adventure game, which Darran designed and modeled the game
characters. “Path of Neo” (Shiny): A dark. future sci-fi adventure game; Darran designed
and created characters for game levels the Wachowski brothers wrote just for
the game. “His Dark Materials” (Shiny):
A steam-punk inspired sci-fi adventure; Darran designed in game assets extending the
world beyond the movie. His claim to
fame is the work he did with Crytek,
as his designs became principal art in the creation of the lead character for
the game “Crysis.” His most recent work is with the indie developer Uber
Entertianment in Kirkland, Washington. Darran’s first full-time freelance project
with Uber had him designing characters, weapons, props, environment
paint-overs, graphic art, and promotional art for the game, “Super Monday Night
Combat,” a MOBA-styled FPS-area battle game with an indie flavor.
Darran believes his long hours of video games, bad movies,
and fantastic art feeds the insanity necessary to supply him with images
devious and beautiful enough for creative inspiration. Darran’s formula is: Take a nice guy mixed in with some
anti-social tendencies, dark music, and a skewed perspective of the world
around him, and bam - a concept artist is born. There’s a perfect
mix of creative thought and willingness to spend long, lonely hours in
self-expression by drawing and painting on a digital screen. Personal favorite artists would include: Jason
Chan and Westly Burt, excellent concept artists and illustrators; James Jean
and Jon Foster, beautifully creative and expressive illustrators; Paul Bonner
and Justin Sweet, fantastic fantasy artists; and lastly, John Berkey, Sid Mead, and Frazzeta; classic artist
influences with core strength.
Darran’s plans for the future are to continue to develop his
skills as a concept artist and illustrator. He wishes to continue to create
worlds and images that inspire.
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