Paul Reinwand
Illustrator, concept artist
in artist, illustrator, windows
Who are you, and what do you do?
I'm Paul Reinwand, and I freelance in the murky space between comics and games. In comics I do layouts, mostly--think page flow, and script translation to page--for artists, to help them meet deadlines. Occasionally I'll draw single issues for other creative teams, or a game studio. I prefer to draw, color, and pen my own comic work. In games I do costume and asset design. Clothing, collectible items, tangibles that help fuel story, that kind of thing. Mostly I just enjoy helping peers reach their creative goals.
What hardware do you use?
Desktop PC, with a couple monitors, a Cintiq Pro 24, and a BenQ. I usually have a bunch of reference, Photoshop, and a modeling program up at the same time, so it's tough to be more mobile. I build out a heavy work/gaming PC every five years or so, trying to future proof as much as possible. i7-7820X 8-core, 64GB 3000MHz Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 Quad Channel Memory, GTX 1080 Ti, and then 250GB M.2 SSD, and 2TB SSHD Seagate FireCuda Gaming Hybrid Drive.
And what software?
I work almost entirely in Photoshop. Whatever the annoying subscription version is, that's what I've had for the last few months. I was using CS5 before that, for ten years or so. There are so many great drawing programs these days, but a lot of my workflow is tied into post production, and all of the muscle memory I've built over the years for keybinds and such. Oh, and a subset of that I spose would be brushes for PS, which aren't generally available for other programs. I use Stumpy Pencil a lot, and recently have fallen in love with the brushes and textures from True Grit. Maybe some day I'll have the energy to figure out a more economical process. When I think it will save time I model environments in SketchUp, Maya, or Magicavoxel.
Unless it's personal work, a large part of my job is communicating a design, or intent, so any tool that helps me do that is welcome.
What would be your dream setup?
Just a bigger office space, honestly. Something with room for a drafting table, and a well lit work station for packing and framing. My current office doesn't allow much more than my computer desk, and a bookshelf, and I often find myself needing to rearrange monitors on the fly if I want to do thumbnailing or layouts on paper. More space to explore other mediums for personal work, as I quite enjoy working wholly digital for client work. Small dreams.
Uses This is supported by ZSA, makers of the Moonlander, ErgoDox EZ and Planck EZ keyboards. They also publish an awesome newsletter.