Ep.53: Anthony Christou (Luminous Ages) on art, business and how to run Kickstarter campaigns

Anthony Christou is an amazing Concept Artist and Illustrator based in Adelaide, South Australia. He has been growing and running his company over the last five years. The studio creates concept art and illustration for just about any project in the film, video game, and comic book industry. He is known for his work on the video game “The Path of Exile”. The independent comic “The Adventures of Lighting Rod” and his work on “Disney Worlds” for Nintendo DS. He has worked for a variety of clients both nationally and internationally, among many Disney, Conceptart.org, CGHUB, Grinding Gear Games and Imagine FX.

He is also the illustrator and writer for the comic “Luminous Ages” which is an ongoing production funded through Patreon and he is currently running a Kickstarter campaign for issues 3 of his Luminous Ages comic, so go check it out.

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Get in touch with Anthony

• Website: http://achristouillustration.com/
• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AnthonyChristou
• Kickstarter campaign for the 3rd issue of his comic Luminous Ages: https://artsideoflife.com/luminous-ages-ks

Key Takeaways

“Good thoughts, good words, good deeds and life with passion”

• Anthony’s income sources are 33/33/33% – ⅓ is Client work – local, international; ⅓ are Comic conventions in Australia and ⅓ is writing and creating comic book stories
• When Anthony was looking for an agent, he applied to agents all around the world and joined a local Illustrators group in Adelaide. Local agents are better at processing payments. International agents may pay slower, so you have to balance local and international agents and clients.
• Anthony sees great value in conventions and events. He attends a minimum of 10 shows per year. Mostly in Australia
• A good tip for creating worlds that Anthony shared is to tie in cultural elements from around the world. He is a great fan of mythology from around the world and he applies it in Luminous ages. 
• Anthony usually bounces ideas of his friends and colleagues who help him move forward. It’s a benefit of synergies
• Anthony wishes he knew before he started that he shouldn’t  work for free, no matter what, only if it’s for yourself. You should have good contracts in place with the clients.

Resources mentioned

• Anthony’s project
  • Luminous ages – he will be soon running a Kickstarter campaigns fo issue 3. There is also a card game (party game, trading card game and tabletop game)
• Anthony worked on projects with:
  • Rising Sun Pictures studios
  • Grinding Gear Games studio
• Anthony went to art school – with Simon Scales who created a concept art school in Australia called Concept Design Workshop Studios
• Some of the Australian conventions where Anthony goes
  • PAX Melbourne
  • Supanova in Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast and other Australian locations
  • Armageddon Expo in New Zeland
• Art Tools
  • Canson paper
  • Daniel Smith watercolors
  • Lead pencils
  • He combines Copic markers with watercolors

Special thanks to Anthony for joining me today. See you next time!

All artworks by Anthony Christou, used with permission