Artist Resource no. 17: Trent Kaniuga

Trent Kaniuga is a professional artist who works in “the industry” where the industry is all things fantastical. Cuz his art is fantastic! Get it?! Oh, you’re no fun. 😛

In all seriousness, Trent has been contributing and influencing professional concept artists for the past two plus decades. And he more so, he has spent a lot of time creating awesome tutorials that you can purchase on his Gumroad site. He also publishes a ton of free content on his YouTube channel, often where he teases some of his paid-for content on the aforementioned site.

What I enjoy about Trent that as a veteran in the games industry, insights are hard-earned from decades of experience being at the top of the industry. If you are even remotely interested in working professional as a (concept) artist in the game or entertainment industry, then his channel is overflowing with hints and secrets to success.

Trent cut his teeth learning art creating comic books at the age of 16. And this is what got him noticed at the time by folks in making games, they were reading his comics. And that’s what I love about Trent; its the fact he’s bootstrapped himself into the industry; given that I don’t intend to go back to art school at this point in my life, I find hearing about his path forward as an artist is exciting and invigorating.

On top his insights on how to work professionally, he also creates time-lapse videos of his work, either to talk about the process itself or just talk about something related to working as an artist. In either case, just watching his process can prove quite insightful. Especially as a professional where time is money, its exceeding education to see “pro tips” come out just by watching the videos.

While I have not personally joined (yet), Trent also runs a Discord space where other artists can meet and share and give critique, et cetera.

All in all, I really appreciate how Trent has made his work and his process accessible to everyone, whether free or for a modest fee, its all well worth your time (and your money!)

Author: Ward

I’m the creator and operator of this little corner of the internets, writing on all things related to art and more specifically my experiences trying to figure this whole thing out. I guess I’m trying to figure out life, too, but mostly I just post about art here.

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