Jan Urschel

Jan Urschel is a Singapore based art director and concept designer with 20+ years experience working in creative industries on movies, video games, architecture and graphic design.

Podcast

ADP - Interview with Andy Park

Now this is a special one for all the Marvel fans out there. Director of Visual Development at Marvel Studios - Andy Park joins us (from his incredibly well lit) home studio space to take us on a journey from his early days drawing comics at home to getting hired

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Podcast

ADP - Interview with Ben Mauro

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Thoughts

Decision Paralysis

Do you know the feeling when you have too many options to the point you don’t know anymore what to do and you end up doing nothing at all? Whether it is when you find an endless amount of cool references enough for thousands of concepts. Or when you

News

Megacity goes free ...

Hope you guys are doing well. Thank you first of all for your patience while I navigate these uncharted waters. I've been doing better lately, most of it due to trying to keep busy and distract myself with work. Rest assured the new tutorial is part of it.

Podcast

ADP - Interview with Angela Sung

For all the animation fans amongst you we had the pleasure of interviewing Angela Sung, Art Director and Visdev artist on ADP. She worked amongst others on the fantastic and (very) viral sensation K-Pop Demon Hunters and The Bad Guys. She also runs an online art school and plein-air painting

Thoughts

Is it Halloween already?

Podcast

ADP - Interview with Dylan Cole

Another week, another legend. This week we had the other half of the Avatar production design team on the show. If you're in the industry long enough you probably have seen his Gnomon DVD's which rank as the best early instructional videos for matte painting and

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References

Industrial Steel Foundry

News

Short update

Podcast

ADP - Interview with Ben Procter

Now here is a special episode if there ever was one. At least for me. One of my personal design heroes Ben Procter came on the show recently. He's currently Co-Production Designer on Avatar: Fire and Ash, having gotten an Oscar nomination for his work on Avatar: The

News Featured

Mentorship + Discord

I've got some big news to announce this week. A double feature! Although they would deserve their own post, I don't want to spam you with emails, so I put it together. Mentorship So here is the big one. I'm finally ready to launch

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References

Osaka

As promised here is the photopack from my recent Osaka/THU trip. You'll find a mix of urban city shots from up high and also on the ground. Big city vibes during various times of the day, little alleys, cute storefronts, markets, elevated highways, bridges etc. On top

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Thoughts

THU Storytelling - Japan 2025

Finally I'm back from a very exhausting but rewarding trip. It took a few days but I wanted to give it some time to let the experience sink in and reflect on it. So here is my take on the THU storytelling event in Kaga, Japan. For ease

Podcast

ADP - World Building for Games with Darren Bacon

We got a great lineup of people coming up. Next in line is legendary Darren Bacon, currently working with Bungie on Marathon. He is aveteran concept artist and Art Director with many well-known titles under his belt such as Halo Infinite, Halo 5, Destiny, contributions to Star Wars, Tron and

Podcast

ADP - World Building for Animation with Jason Scheier

I have to apologize to you guys! With all the traveling I totally forgot to set the post to live to get you early access to the new ADP episode! It was supposed to go out before last weekend ... Guess I'm getting old ... Anyways ... this time we invited

Tutorials Featured

Design Case Study - Parallel Studios

This week we have another "first" (after the sketching tutorial last time). Instead of images and examples prepared specifically for a tutorial I managed to get permission to show a deep-dive into the creation of an actual client project. After the suggestion of one of our members here

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Thoughts

What's your obsession?

I just got the new course on Learn Squared by Alex Akstinas (NOAX) about Advanced Vehicle Design. It's absolute killer, you should check it out. Meeting him a few times I'm lucky enough to have had many great conversations off and online with him and even

Podcast

ADP - World Building with Feng Zhu

Here's something for the weekend! We recently had none other than Feng Zhu on the show at ADP talking about World Building. For those who don't know, Feng is an artist, art director, entrepreneur, educator (he ran a school and also the immensely popular Design Cinema

Tutorials Featured

Ideation and sketching

I hope everyone had a great week! I'm happy to share the latest tutorial with you guys. After many many tutorials on finishing techniques I finally focus on the important part of ideation and sketching. What's in a sketch? What's important when it comes

Tutorials

Blender Asset Browser

Another tool thats incredibly useful and has been around for a while. Yet I have to remind myself to use it more. Oh and on top of that I wanted to find what it can actually do and what some of its options mean!! Perfect time to squeeze a short

Paid-members only

References

Urban Bangkok

As I continue work on new videos I wanted to share this reference pack with you as well. Last week I was in Bangkok and couldn't miss the chance to take some nice snaps of urban areas. I think most people have seen the temples but I wanted

Thoughts

The end of an era?

Making something of your own and letting it out into the world never goes as you planned. Or at the very least it brings about developments and occurrences you really didn’t have in mind initially. As I launched the membership I found myself reaching out to friends and peers

Tutorials Featured

Fog in Blender

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I've put together a new little video about something that honestly has been bothering me in my workflow. Not sure if you do it to, but I have so many steps in my work that I just tend to do over and

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Thoughts

Inspiration strikes ...

A few weeks ago, before the launch of the membership I booked tickets for a new attraction in Singapore that just opened. The newly revamped Oceanarium was just the right thing to bring the kids to during the last weeks of the summer break. Also my son is seriously into

News Featured

Intro video live

It is happening, the membership is going live! I made a little intro video for you guys to see what's gonna come here soon. It's basically the same content as on the site already but in an easier digestible format. Please have a look, share, let