Artist to Watch – Brant Loser and His Mythical Art Style

By: Bridget Adiukwu
Published: Oct 10, 2013
at 4:03 pm

This week’s artist is an all-around creative and funny guy, Brant Yang, aka Brant Loser. Brant stood out to us by his distinct style of transforming our favorite characters into Iron works of art.

Firstly, thanks for your invitation! I’m looking forward to more conversation.

Well, Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Brant Yang, from Shanghai, China. I like to call myself, Brant Loser, ’cause I think I’m a loser :p. I’m a freelance illustrator, and I design characters for my personal projects. I play video games, but not good at it, so when my friends play video games, I watch them and think about those designs.

Personally, I think you are awesome. It’s ok. I think everyone is good at video games, they just have to find their game. For instance, I like strategy games or fighting games especially Tekken. It was easier when I first started because I could just push buttons and still do some damage to my competition.

Ya, I like horror games, they make me excited, and I don’t need to compete with others! I think video games are like movies, they tell stories and share ideas. The most important thing is that they bring people joy.

So how did you get started creating art? Do you have any inspirations or role models?

I started creating art because I wanna tell stories in my head, I began with comics. I used to buy alotta comic books, I remember the first one I read was Marvel’s Dark Avengers, and I just love the style. Before that, I only know about manga, and I wasn’t interested in it. My inspirations are mostly from video games, comic books and other artists’ work. My role models… I would say Dave Wilkins and Nicholas Kay! Dave’s work was the mainly source of my inspirations and his style is simply awesome. I get familiar with Nicholas Kay from his tutorials on YouTube. He only use default round bush in Photoshop, that’s really a challenging and awesome thing!

I haven’t heard of those artists before. But I will definitely have to check them out. How long have you been drawing/painting?

Since I was 6. That’s a long time for me.

Tell us a bit about your creative process:

I get my ideas down on my sketch book first, then messing around with colors and mood in Photoshop. I’m not quite good at using color, so I usually spend some time planning for color. Once I have got ideas and plans, I start to do rough sketch in Photoshop and blend in the color I’ve planed. Then I just dig out those details, the process that takes time. I love doing background ’cause there are a lot of happy accidents while doing it, so usually I let the instinct do this job. I work on one layer mostly, I think it’s convenient and I can just enjoy painting.

Music, or no music (while creating)?

Of course! I love music, and I can play saxophone as well. But sometimes I’m so into painting that I forget to turn on my music.

I love the saxophone, actually I am in love with the saxophone. It is the sexiest sounding instrument ever created! Have you ever recorded your work?

I enjoy playing the saxophone. I usually improvise with blues scales, though I’m not good at it. It’s really good to have this skill, it is a great way to express your thoughts. But, I have never recorded my work :p

Ok, so you’ve gotten inspired, you know what you want to create, what’s the first tool you reach for?

Pencil! I’m really comfortable with pencils. I prefer putting down those rough ideas on paper to doing it with a tablet.

Let’s say for some, totally hypothetical reason Earth is about to blow up. Don’t panic, there is a savior, well, a space ship getting ready to save you! But you can only save two pieces, what will those two be?

I don’t know why, I thought you were asking me about body parts…No more violent video games for me :D.

I will save the Holy War. I really love this one, though I still see a lot of problems in it, but it will support me to go on if I lose all the other painting. The other one will be the Iron Wolverine. I simply love wolverine!

Brant Loser's Holy War — Brant Loser’s Holy War

Hahaha! What games have you been playing that you think I want you to save body parts?

Dead Space! My all-time favorite! I haven’t play the first one yet, but I will definitely play it in the future. I love cutting off those monsters’ legs and blow their heads. If my friends are around me, we will go check those bodies, trying to figure out what they look like when they were human. It’s a lot of fun!

Ok, let’s dive more into video games. What are you playing right now?

Recently… GTA V of course. But I didn’t spend much time on it

It is pretty awesome! Sometimes a bit more outlandish. Your guilty pleasure video game that one game you can play for hours on end and tune everything out, what is it?

Dead Space3! I really love it!

I could tell by how you mentioned it earlier.

Let’s dig into your pile of shame for a minute. Tell us one game you haven’t played, that you’re ashamed you haven’t played yet.

Let me think…I wanna say Dead Space 1 but it would be a little boring to say so 😛 Gears of War, the first one.

Do you remember the first video game you ever played?

I think it was Contra

Nice!!! So Brant what is your dream job?

I want to become a concept artist. I really want to see my designs in video games or films

You are definitely talented enough. So, are you currently working on anything cool?

Ya, some personal projects. My friend and I are trying to create a religion. That might sound crazy, haha. But, I love working on personal projects.

I have never talked to someone who was or wanted to create a religion. Outside of the interview I’d really love to know where that stems from. But for the sake of time I’ll save that for another date.