Featured Artist: Francesco Corvino
Posted in: Animation, by Mike Hepburn | Peoplestudios
Francesco Corvino is a Concept Designer, Art Director and Matte Painter specializing in work for film for the Hollywood movie industry, TV series, and commercials. Having a strong background in Architecture and Industrial Design, he handles different aspects of production, from rough sketches to the final photo-real image. Born and raised in Italy, Francesco developed since his childhood a great interest for architecture, art and history. He gained a Master’s degree in Architecture and subsequently decided to develop his passion for the movie and video game industry attending the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. Since the beginning of his career Francesco has contributed to more than 40 projects, including feature films, commercials and TV series.
1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what lead you to Concept Art?
I’m an Italian Concept Designer working mainly on feature films.
My interest in CG begun during my studies of architecture. After I graduated with a Master’s Degree, I started playing by myself with 3D software to create images for architectural visualization and soon enough I realized to have a passion for CG.
At that point I really felt the need to reach the next level and I therefore decided to apply at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood.
I spent all my time working hard to learn several software and valuable techniques and I had the chance to meet amazing artists. I started to develop a passion for creating designs for movies and before the end of the program I started working at the Aaron Sims Company as Concept Artist.
2. Tell us about your role on Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
As concept artist on the movie, I was responsible for designing several scenes and environments. I was provided with the actors on greenscreen and I basically had to create all the surrounding environments, integrating the actors properly.
It was a great experience working on this movie, and playing between photoreal elements and the stylized look inspired by Frank Miller. I had not only to design architectural and natural elements, dressing each scene properly, but I spent a lot of time working on the overall lighting, playing with pitch black shadows and pure white silhouettes to achieve a convincing stylized look. These images were created with a combination of 3d and 2d techniques. I had a blast working on this project with such great artists as Jelmer Boskma and the guys at the Aaron Sims Company.
3. When not creating world beating art, what do you like to do?
I love reading, in particular history books. I’m fascinated by the past and ancient cultures, and with the work I do this hobby of mine can come in handy.
I obviously love watching movies and I’m quite a big fan of videogames. Above all I love traveling with my beautiful wife. 
4. What advice would you give emerging artists?
To be very passionate about what you do. In order to succeed in this industry you need two main things: talent and dedication. No matter all the failures, you need to keep practicing and never give up. With real passion you’ll reach all your goals.
Secondly, I would suggest finding your strength as an artist as soon as you can, that thing that you can do really well, and focus on it to make it become your main weapon. Don’t be stuck with the first thing you find, keep exploring and try new ways to make art. You’ll often be surprised to find a new very valuable approach as your main asset.
5. Where do you go to get good training?
Gnomon, either the online website or the actual school in L.A.
The Gnomon Workshop is probably the best online resource to get some really valuable training. There are other similar online resources, but I’ve always found Gnomon to be the one with the deepest and most industry oriented training.
For anyone interested specifically in the kind of work I do you can check my tutorial on the Gnomon Workshop and the ones of all the other amazing artists in the same category.
Remember though that the best training will be practicing again and again. Look at the masters, learn from their knowledge, and put those teachings in use while you’re creating your artworks!
6. What personal pieces of work are you most proud of?
I like several personal pieces I’ve done, and that’s because usually personal artworks are an exceptional moment to experiment, explore, polish details, and to really make an image exactly as you desire. If you take a look at my website and explore the concept art gallery you’ll find many personal works, and I’d say that Intersection, is probably my favorite.
I really love depicting futuristic cities.
7. Where do you go to get inspiration for your work?
I usually have several sources of inspiration. When I read a script I start gathering photographic references to have a quick visual inspiration. I look around for works of other artists I like and see if they faced a similar challenge and how they approached it. Many other things are excellent sources of inspirations: travels, good movies and videogames, not to mention books!
8. Who are the artists you admire most?
There are many artists in the industry doing some really interesting works.
However the ones that I really admire and study, are mainly artists of older times, like Giovan Battista Piranesi, Gustav Dore’, Alma Tadema. I would really encourage anyone out there who’s interested in getting into this business or that is simply interested in art and in honing his artistic skills to look at these artists’ work. They are a constant source of inspiration for me and I usually have some of their works hanged in front of my desk.
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