February's Cubebrush Seller of the Month - Naranbaatar Gandbold

February's Cubebrush Seller of the Month - Naranbaatar Gandbold

Meet Naranbaatar Gandbold, a 26 year-old freelance digital artist from Mongolia. Deciding to leave school to pursue an art career, he's been working for the last 6 years for trading card games, books, video games, and animation. 

Naranbaatar first joined Cubebrush to utilize the community forums. And after participating in Art War 2, he decided to start selling his own products in his Cubebrush store. Since then, his tutorials have been highly rated by users and are affordable for any artist which is what landed him February's Cubebrush Seller of the Month. 


Where did your interest in art come from? 

I am not really sure about the exact moment or thing that made me interested in art in the beginning. But I used to draw a lot when I was a child. So I guess it was just always there .

How did you start building your experience? 

I started studying art seriously 6 years ago. At the time, I was in graphic design school but did not have much interest in pursuing that career because I wanted to learn to create illustration and concept art. My classes were focussed on publishing and design but my grades were so bad, I was not happy about the situation. 

Luckily then, I found other artists' interviews on youtube and listened to them. They were talking about learning your own and how to study art (especially digital art) and getting better. 

That really gave me some hope and afterward I practically left my school and joined an art forum and started studying art every day. During that time I was studying from books and video tutorials. After studying 8 or 10 months at home I got my first freelance job. It wasn't well paid, but It was enough to give me encouragement to continue this career.

What made you decide to create tutorials on painting facial features? 

My first tutorial was actually “rendering metal in photoshop”. I created that tutorial as an experiment for selling something online.  Luckily people liked it, gave amazing feedback and asked me about doing tutorials related to character or portrait. 

Besides doing concept design and illustration I really enjoy painting portraits myself. So it was a great opportunity for me to both share my knowledge and learn during the process of creating tutorials.  

Your products are all rated extremely well, what do you think sets them apart? 

I, myself, learned art from mainly video tutorials and I watched a lot of tutorials and still do when I learn. So I try to create something similar to the best tutorials I have watched in my own style. Before I create any tutorial I plan a lot and try to organize the process very well. 

Also, I ask myself questions such as “what kind of tutorials would I want if I was a beginner right now?”  and try to create something I wish I had if I was a beginner student.  

Can you talk a little bit about your style? 

I think my style just came from a combination of things I like and resources I learned from. 

Some things I learned are from real life and some of them are from other artists or Manga and comic books. I also like to observe from artists I admire and try to do similar things in my work. 

I still experiment with new stuff, so I guess my style is evolving continuously.

How does it differ from other artists? 

Actually, I don’t think my style is very unique. I didn’t really try to create “style”. Instead my focus was to learn fundamentals as well as I can and make my works believable.

It is similar to many artists and the thing that separates me and other artists is probably working progress, tools I personally like and some small personal tastes. 

Personal question- What do you do while creating art? Listen to music? Drink coffee? Watch TV? 

I always have something in my cup when I am working. Mostly coffee or tea. 

I don’t like complete silence when I am working. So I usually put on some music, a documentary or podcasts when I am working. Sometimes I just join discord group and talk to people when I am painting. But it kind of depends on what I am working on and mood. 

If I am working on something I have to think a lot I just listen to soft music. Or if I am working on things I don’t have to think much I listen to podcasts or interviews.

What is your favorite feature on Cubebrush? 

There are many things I like about Cubebrush. But for me, the best part is probably forums. Even though I am not very active on forums anymore I think that is the best learning and growing community for both beginner and advanced artists. 

Cubebrush features forum posts on the website. I believe it gives really good encouragement and motivation for artists who are learning. I personally entered Art War 2 two years ago on a forum and my work got to the second stage. It was really amazing for me. Back then I did not have a lot of followers but Art War gave me motivation to create more.  

Any upcoming projects you can talk about? 

For now I am taking a little bit of a break from freelance work and not doing anything special. But there are personal things I am planning to do and in preparation stage only. 

Only thing I can finish in the near future is my next tutorial and it will be my final tutorial of the “portrait painting” series tutorials. 

Where do you want to be 5 years from now? 

I don’t really plan that far so I am not sure to be honest. In terms of personal life and career I just like to keep moving forward and see what will happen. 

But in terms of skill, I really want to become like an artist I admire such as Even Amundsen, Ruan Jia, Puppeteer Lee and many more. 

Any advice for ambitious artists out there?

I recommend that beginner artists join a community that has the same interest as you. From there you might find a lot of cool resources, ways to learn, feedback and maybe some good friends. 

Listen or watch many artists' interviews. Some of them might match with your exact interest and you can listen to how they learned and became artists they are today.

And most importantly just don’t give up. It just might take some time. But as long as you continue doing right things and putting good efforts you will get better and good things will start to happen.

Check out Naranbaatar's products here

http://cbr.sh/duyzts http://cbr.sh/x2abtx http://cbr.sh/hrug0j