3DTotal Project Overviews

3dTotal: In your latest piece of work, you’ve created one of my favourite Marvel characters of all time: “The Hulk”. Could you tell us a bit about why you chose this particular character, and how long did it take you to model him?
Jonas: I wanted to model something big, with loads of volume and anatomy - what better subject than the Hulk!? I also wanted to create my own version of the hulk. I really like the Ang Lee version and I think the design for the new film will look very nice too, but I wanted something a little more like the comics.

The modelling process was a rather quick one; I have so little time left for my personal stuff nowadays that everything has to be done quickly! I took a older body mesh that I had done before and quickly made some changes to it, then I stuck an Arnold Schwazenegger head model I made some time ago on top of that. I’m all into a nice clean mesh, so no triangles or strange loops; an arm is a cylinder from a topological point of view, so to speak. I also try to keep the mesh density constant all over the surface. This makes the base mesh pretty dense though, since you still want a lot of details in your base mesh for deformation - around 16.000 polys for the upper body and head.

While the model looked absolutely nothing like the Hulk at this stage, I exported him to Mudbox and subdivided him once and then started to play around with the big volumes until I was happy with it. This only took a couple of hours, spread over a weekend.

Once I was satisfied with the overall volume, I exported him back to 3ds Max to tweak the topology to better fit the new volume. I then gave him some UVs.

As with topology, I spend a lot of time making the UVs as perfect as possible as this really makes my life easier later on when painting textures. I usually use separate UV layouts for head, upper body, hands and legs so I can keep texture size smaller, however for the Hulk I used one UVset for his upper body and head and a second one for his legs.

Once the UV and topology changes were done it was back to Mudbox again and this time around it was detailing time! I started out with just one or two subdivisions and did the larger details and muscle separations first. Once I was happy with that, I subdivided it twice more and started on the smaller details like tendons, wrinkles and veins. I almost never do pore detail level displacements, I find it faster to use a good old bump map derived from your colour map.

3dTotal: Have you got any plans to create any of his friends?
Jonas: Well I do have this image in my head that I would like to do, if I ever get the time for it.

It does require him fighting someone, like maybe Juggernaut or Rhino... I’m not a big Marvel comics fan really, so those are really the only two I know of! Any other suggestions?

3dTotal: I like the concept of the Hulk fighting Juggernaut - looks set to be a winner in the hearts of all Marvel fans. I hope you get around to doing it. With literally hundreds of characters to play with, the one that I find very intriguing is Apocalypse. Maybe you should look him up and see what you think. Other than that, I think the two you have chosen are pretty cool.
Jonas: Apocalypse you say... I like the name, sounds epic!

3dTotal: We have spoken with and interviewed a few of your fellow team members who worked on the Dear Anne movie, which was sadly stopped. What are your thoughts about this and what impactdid this have on your career?

Jonas: I can only say that even though it was a really turbulent time, I got to work with some of the best artists in the industry and made some great friends along the way. Work-wise that time was the best, and in some ways, the worst of my career so far, but when I think back on it now I just remember the good times and all the fun we had, not to mentioned all I learned!

I really hope that in the future I get the chance to work with such a talented team and build something up from scratch again.

3dTotal: Why was it so turbulent, or are you not allowed to divulge this information?
Jonas: Well, for starters, we tried to do the impossible! Then there were loads of problems due to the fact we did not have the financial support needed to undertake a project of that size and ambition. For example, we had a render farm that maxed out around 10 computers if I remember correctly... Then there were script and animatic changes and other creative differences. While it all sounds pretty bad, it was still a pretty exciting time and a really creative environment. Considering we also had to build a studio up from scratch at the same time I’m surprised we got as far as we did.

3dTotal: So what are your plans for the future?
Jonas: Right now I’ve been freelancing for a year with my own company, FrostBite Studios, doing character concepts for films and games. It’s been great and I’ve got to work with some great people like Aaron Sims.

From 1st September I will start working full time at DICE (part of EA) here in Stockholm, although I might still do some freelance work from time to time. I did a lot of freelance work for DICE last year and I really like the place and the people working there

(not to mention their great future projects!), so I’m really looking forward to this.

3dTotal: What made you choose to settle down in a full time job after having been working freelance?
Jonas: I will still run my own company on the side and do some freelance at times, so I’m not abandoning it altogether. The main reason is that I miss the creative boost you get when working close with a lot of other very talented artists. It’s hard to get that when you are working on your own from home.
Then there’s the chance to work on some very big productions instead of just doing a character here and there, as is the case when freelancing. And I also get the chance to completely focus on my work and not have to worry about bringing in new jobs, invoices etc.

3dTotal: How do you normal spend your time away from the computer screen?
Jonas: I spend time with my girlfriend and with my friends. Watching a movie combined with some good cooking and a glass of red wine is how we spend the weekends nowadays. I also do a lot of training, mostly in the gym and some running; Stockholm is a great city if you want to go out for a good run! If I have some time left over after that, I like to do some drawing... although it doesn’t happen very often anymore!

3dTotal: Well it has been a real pleasure Jonas and thanks you for doing this interview. One last question before we call it a day: if you had the opportunity to bring one of your characters to life, which one would it be and why?
Jonas: Hard to say, but I guess having the Hulk around would be quite nice!