Jourdan Tuffan

…is a senior concept artist at Atomhawk Design over in Newcastle. Originally from Jakarta, Indonesia, he moved to England in 2017 and has since been hard at work improving both, his art and professionalism. During our interview, we found that he’s incredibly passionate about teaching, and you can often find him sharing valuable knowledge on his Twitch channel or on The Drawing Table Podcast which he co-hosts with Ken Darmadi. For our talk together, we chose to focus on the career aspect of a concept artist’s life. If you’re new to all of this, or perhaps you just graduated from a games art course, our talk with Jourdan is definitely going to be a worthwhile listen.

Back in 2013, he went to the famous FZD School to study industrial design, and that equipped him with the tools he needed to be a successful concept artist. He talked about some of the instructors, how the students start off learning simple things like fundamentals, and even some of the more fun design exercises that come into play later. If you’re looking for examples, we can tell you that for one of them, he was asked to draw up the room of a pirate dragon hunter!

Wait a Minute! Hippos, Bubbles, Mhmm… We Are Going Somewhere Here…

What Does It Take To Be a Successful Concept Artist?

  • Interview - Introduction (EN) - R.V.G.
  • Interview - Part One (EN) - R.V.G.
  • Interview - Part Two (EN) - R.V.G.
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Speaking of good

…design, one of the projects that we enjoyed from Jourdan’s portfolio was “Hippopura – Sanctuary of Bubbles.” This 6-month-long world building endeavor was his way of showing off his skills in that department. He draws on all of the influences he picked up traveling as a teenager, whether it be visiting Bali or the Taj Mahal. We think that listening to him talk about his design process and thinking is a good way to learn about what makes this job harder than just “painting pretty pictures.”

There’s a lot of decision-making involved with regards to function as well as the uniqueness of the look. So enjoy listening and maybe learn a thing or two from our talk.

Click to visit Jourdan’s
Artstation

All images used with permission by the artist
Profile picture by Jaclin Natalia Kareta
© Jourdan Tuffan or respective copyright holders