--- title: Aleksander Rostov paints a character LIVE | daily.dev description: A live digital painting stream featuring concept artist Aleksander Rostov (known for Disco Elysium character portraits) discussing his creative process while... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/aleksander-rostov-paints-a-character-live-tzkdzq5tb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Aleksander Rostov paints a character LIVE | daily.dev og:description: A live digital painting stream featuring concept artist Aleksander Rostov (known for Disco Elysium character portraits) discussing his creative process while... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/aleksander-rostov-paints-a-character-live-tzkdzq5tb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/tZkDZQ5tb.png og:image:alt: Aleksander Rostov paints a character LIVE og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Aleksander Rostov paints a character LIVE **[Game Engineering Podcast](https://daily.dev/sources/game_eng_podcast)** · 203 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A live digital painting stream featuring concept artist Aleksander Rostov (known for Disco Elysium character portraits) discussing his creative process while sketching a character from scratch. He covers technique-level topics like value versus color, silhouette-first workflows, brush choices, using asymmetric eye expressions for psychological depth, and tricks like color range masking. He also reflects on inspiration, learning through fundamentals (comparing it to learning skateboarding), his history with Photoshop and the Wacom Volito tablet, his complicated relationship with Adobe and alternative art software, and plugs his upcoming print shop and mailing list. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What books does the Disco Elysium portrait artist recommend for learning painting fundamentals? Richard Schmidt's Alla Prima is recommended as the best book for learning oil painting technique, with a start on the first edition before moving to the expanded second edition. For drawing fundamentals, Scott Robertson's How to Draw is recommended, covering perspective and ellipses despite its concept-art-car focus. For anatomy, a yellow-covered book titled Anatomy for the Artist by an author remembered as Park is the pick. _Artists mapping out a self-study curriculum can track recommended references like these through daily.dev._ ### How were the character portraits made for Disco Elysium given the huge number needed? The portrait style was engineered for speed: skipping rendered soft-edge form turning in favor of simple sharp value arrangements (dark, mid-tone, and light), then using color primarily to carry emotional load rather than material accuracy, since so many portraits had to be produced by a small team under time pressure. This let each portrait be painted in a matter of minutes rather than hours. _Developers curious about production pipelines behind stylized game art can follow craft breakdowns like this on daily.dev._ ### How was the background rendering handled for the huge world maps in Disco Elysium? Backgrounds were broken into tiles at multiple stages: split into large tiles by area in Photoshop during painting, then broken into small tiles in-engine using a mega-texture-style streaming approach so the whole map was never held in memory at once, with tiles assembled dynamically as the player moves through the world. _Engineers researching streaming texture techniques for large open-world assets can find similar technical breakdowns on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [3D Portrait of Composer Modest Mussorgsky Based on a Painting](https://daily.dev/posts/3d-portrait-of-composer-modest-mussorgsky-based-on-a-painting-cmlffvwrv) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Realistic 3D Character Portrait Inspired by Slavic Culture](https://daily.dev/posts/realistic-3d-character-portrait-inspired-by-slavic-culture-ozhfcm0ne) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 1 comments - [Sculpting a Digital Athlete: Capturing Stefanos Tsitsipas Beyond the Court](https://daily.dev/posts/sculpting-a-digital-athlete-capturing-stefanos-tsitsipas-beyond-the-court-hezsrpdgd) · Codrops · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Digital Painting Mastery: Unlock Great Art with Ease in 2025](https://daily.dev/posts/digital-painting-mastery-unlock-great-art-with-ease-in-2025-oyvt9fxjo) · Game Designing · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#game-design](https://daily.dev/tags/game-design), [#photoshop](https://daily.dev/tags/photoshop) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/aleksander-rostov-paints-a-character-live-tzkdzq5tb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Aleksander Rostov paints a character LIVE","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/aleksander-rostov-paints-a-character-live-tzkdzq5tb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/aleksander-rostov-paints-a-character-live-tzkdzq5tb"},"datePublished":"2026-08-22T16:06:42.639Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:34:05.003Z","description":"A live digital painting stream featuring concept artist Aleksander Rostov (known for Disco Elysium character portraits) discussing his creative process while...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s4OevIINGBk/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s4OevIINGBk/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Game Engineering Podcast","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Game Engineering Podcast","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--8NEw2a0s--/f_auto/v1735917032/logos/game_eng_podcast","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/game_eng_podcast"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/aleksander-rostov-paints-a-character-live-tzkdzq5tb","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"game-design,photoshop","timeRequired":"PT203M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"Aleksander Rostov paints a character LIVE","description":"A live digital painting stream featuring concept artist Aleksander Rostov (known for Disco Elysium character portraits) discussing his creative process while...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s4OevIINGBk/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-08-22T16:06:42.639Z","duration":"PT203M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/tZkDZQ5tb","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/s4OevIINGBk"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Game Engineering Podcast","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/game_eng_podcast"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Aleksander Rostov paints a character LIVE"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/aleksander-rostov-paints-a-character-live-tzkdzq5tb#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What books does the Disco Elysium portrait artist recommend for learning painting fundamentals?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Richard Schmidt's Alla Prima is recommended as the best book for learning oil painting technique, with a start on the first edition before moving to the expanded second edition. 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