Gary Tonge - an Artist Profile


	Gary Tonge came straight out of school and into work at an old computer games company called Elite Systems. He began creating art for computer conversions of old arcade games and some original titles too. Working now as a professional artist for almost 17 years, Gary has created pretty much every type of art for various companies: 2D pixel art, high-end 3D animation and rendering. Finally along the way though, he settled into full illustrations and concept art. “In reality, I’ve only been creating this sort of work for about five years,” says Tonge, “which feels really odd to be honest, mostly because I can’t believe its taken twelve years to find what I loved the most about art.” Gary Tonge recently won the Master Award for 2D Environment in EXPOSÉ 3 among many other industry awards.


			Styles Tonge has the ability to work a believable measure of realism into his rich images, but in addition, he likes to try and achieve a realism that is not as mundane as reality sometimes is. “Sci-fi and fantasy are very big loves of mine,” he adds, “along with cool looking vehicles, structures and vistas of any kind, but I try to bring a realistic or believable tone to many of these images. If I had to choose what style is my favorite, I would say, sci-fi with a twist of realism.”

Concept stage
Tonge has always been fascinated by color and light; the way they play off each other to create cohesive forms and atmospheres. He also really enjoys getting involved with the conceptual stages of a visual production. He likes a challenge of solidifying the ideas for places, environments or vehicles to make a believable, not-too-real world. “It’s always a pleasure to work on something like that,” he adds. “I do enjoy creating off-beat or hyper-real takes on real things too. One of my current projects involves taking a car and placing it in different exciting locations, which helps underline the vehicle’s intent. That’s great fun too. Most of all I love to play with light, color and atmosphere in any of my work. There’s something fundamentally gratifying when nailing the way light plays off things.”


			Creative procedure Time to think and time to create. Even if the piece is a personal one, time needs to be put aside, just to think. This brings Tonge all kinds of great ideas for what needs to be painted. “Next I need the time to paint it,” he says, “and if both of these are in place then I’m away!” However, when he’s dealing with part of a commission or a set of concepts, he would try to garner as much information out of the client as he can, then sit back to look over images on the web, or books; just to get the creative juices going. These steps can’t be staggered.		The process must roll through to help drive the ideas forward. “The next step would be to start throwing some shapes down with the pen and creating some loose image ideas,” Tonge adds. “I tend not to think too much about how I’m going to paint something, once I’ve seen it in my head I pretty much run with it. I do have to think through more complicated pieces if certain guidelines and compositional requirements are to be met, and commissions that do not spring ideas straight into my head require a little more ‘ideas and sketch’ time.”

1 2

Next >


Important points Composition, color and tonal balance are highly important to Gary Tonge. “It’s possible for almost anybody to create a reasonable interpretation of any real life subject matter with the technology that is at our disposal these days,” he says. Working with his favorite application of nine-odd years, Photoshop, Tonge understands though it is the artist that needs to be able to operate with the software to bring out the art. “But, without it I would not have started to seriously think about digital as a medium to paint in,” he adds.	“What I think brings great art above the rest is how something is interpreted,” he adds. “Clever use of lighting, material integration and a well-balanced image make for a riveting final piece.” Tonge tries to draw the viewer into his work, the edges holding the gaze in place so everything can be taken in. “I’ve seen brilliantly ‘designed’ subjects portrayed in underwhelming ways,” he says “and mundane studies painted so well I could not believe I hadn’t found them exciting before.”	Tonge employs a methodology that involves painting a couple of rough images to help firm up ideas. He then prefers to work out how he wants to project the final image and establishes a few perspective guides to lean on. Laying a wash of colour as the backbone of the piece and then working the image up for there. Sometimes he uses a 3D package to build simple block models, speeding up the construction and basic composition of a complicated piece. If the project has real-world roots, or subjects that are reminiscent of reality, he’ll search out reference materials to help it along.


			Significance of detail “It is very easy for detail in the wrong place to damage the overall feel of an image,” says Tonge. “One of the cardinal rules of good image composition is to not allow any part of the image to dominate, unless that is what you want. Fussy detailing and texturing can draw the viewer’s eye away from the focal point or “message” of a piece. I spend a lot of time making sure this does not happen in my work and in some of my earlier works it is evident that I have fallen into the detailing trap. Some of the best-balanced digital pieces have great stroke efficiency and minimal detail unless it’s needed.”


	From colors spring emotion Gary works hard for the color in an image to give a specific emotion to a piece. He feels that this goes back to good design only being adequately portrayed when composed and painted well. Getting the color balance right is a matter of knowing what you want to portray and being careful enough to not overplay, or underplay it. Getting the direct and diffuse light sources right from the start too is very important. Meanwhile, lighting and shadow solidify every element of an image together. Inspired use of light and dark can bring sublime balance and depth to an artpiece. “These elements are very important to any of my works,” he says. “I tend to paint images with lighting and color in mind from the start anyway, but I’m always trying to further the depth of a piece by adding, or implying, interesting light sources and shadow opportunities. My shadow work tends to err towards a more diffuse nature, I don’t like to have totally hard shadow lines, but if the occasion calls for it, these can also be very nice too.”


					Future Gary Tonge has a crystal ball view of his continuing to increase freelance work and the client base until he can safely move into this line of work full-time. “I am looking into different areas to move into right now, but I have not made any firm decisions about what to dedicate my time to. I do enjoy my daytime Art Director role anyway, but a move into full-time concept and illustration would be nice in the not too distant future.” Away from the studio Gary is further busy making a home together with his fiancé, enjoys cinema, hanging out with friends, keeping fit and cooking. “I am still finding time for the odd bottle of good red wine as well.” Related links: Gary Tonge web site Exposé 3 Award

< Previous

1 2