Spider-Verse visual devpt artist says students must embrace tech

Artists can learn to use AI and other emerging technologies to reduce the time taken to create something, is Jay Thakur’s advice to youngsters. Jay is a visual development artist at Sony Pictures Animation, and is based in Pasadena, US. He recently finished working on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the superb sequel to the Oscar-winning animated feature film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

AI, he says, can be used to ideate and quickly generate a direction. “It enables artists to experiment with unconventional techniques and materials, and expand what is considered art. Lighting options, colour palettes, lens options can be generated instantly to create inspiration. Art is about self expression, AI is going to allow art to be art again. AI will be used to create art for commercial purposes, and we (humans) can go back to pure creation,” he says.

Jay’s job is to visualise and conceptualise an idea, story, or brief, and create the designs – of characters, environments, props – to tell its best version. While Jay uses software like Photoshop, Zbrush (3D software), Blender (3D software), he says that practising consistently to build muscle memory for sketching, painting, and mark-making is a must.

“Visual development artists should be able to research, come up with multiple variations of a design, and break down everything for the person next in the pipeline. In terms of courses, illustration-based tutorials, film, design, screenwriting, and cinematography are all helpful in this field,” Jay says.

Students, he says, can be generalists, who learn all aspects of vis dev like character, lighting, set, and environment, or pick one and dive deep. Companies, he says, also look at the process, how one gets to the final output from the initial idea.

In the Spider-Verse movie, Jay worked a little on all the spider-men. “But the environments and worlds took up more time to design than the spider-men. I worked a lot on the India dimension, and the city of Mumbattan. Every dimension has its style Bible that determines everything about how it appears,” he says.

Jumping from working on a character in one style and then designing a landscape for another, while taking a prop in a third style was challenging yet extremely exciting, he adds.

A visual development artist, Jay says, must learn to accept rejection. “In Spider-Verse, I had to always create original and relevant designs every day, and so I had to be inspired all the time. But designs that you work on for days and put your love into are rejected constantly, so you have to be passionate without being attached to your work,” he says.

Jay completed his Master’s in product design management from Pune and did a course in entertainment design at ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena. In 2019, he exhibited his project, The Aporia, about a better system of rehabilitation for prisoners, unlike the current structure of captivity and punishment, highlighting the importance of empathy. The show was a success and the project landed him the job at Sony Pictures.

That’s also when Jay realised the power of storytelling. A guest was intrigued by his main painting, and he explained his vision to her. “She welled up and said that she had recently lost her father, and the message in the painting had helped bring some closure. I was dumbfounded that my art could have such a strong effect,” he says.