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3DTotal: Tell us a little about your experience working on “Avatar” and the kinds of things it taught you.
Alex: In 2006 I was contacted by Neville Page, the lead creature designer for Avatar, asking if I could recommend a 3D artist for the Art Department. I had worked with Neville on the production of his DVDs and, being familiar with Gnomon, he was wondering if I knew a 3D artist who could help the creature department visualize their designs in 3D. At that time the creature department consisted of Neville, Yuri Bartoli and Tully Summers, who were all working either on paper, in clay or in Photoshop. This, of course, sounded like an amazing opportunity and I immediately began mulling it over. I am very busy with Gnomon, but back in 1998 I remember getting offers to work at Weta on Lord of the Rings, which drove me crazy. I was and still am a huge fan of the books, and wish I could have been part of the crew on that, but Gnomon was just too new for me to disappear. But when Avatar became available, knowing that this was going to be an epic film, I gave it a lot of thought. I talked to the crew at Gnomon, and determined that if I left for a few months that Gnomon would probably be just fine. I mentioned my interest to Neville and got the job.
I worked full-time at Lightstorm on Avatar for six months up until May 2007 when the creature art department wrapped and made the final delivery to Weta. During that time I was part of the small beta team for Zbrush 3.0 and helped integrate ZBrush into the design process for Neville, Yuri and Tully. I worked on a bunch of the creatures, shared an office with Neville, got to sit one-on-one with James Cameron many times and really had an amazing experience. My job consisted of taking the designs and building them in 3D, including texturing, shading, lighting, rigging, animation, effects and integration into matte paintings/environments. This process would help inform the designers and the Director as to how well the creature designs were working, what the key poses would be, etc. Working as a 3D artist surrounded by designers was a great learning experience, as their skill and speed definitely forced me into a mode of trying to also be as fast and efficient as possible. But a solid lesson learned was how Neville used Photoshop to explore possible textures and styles for the creatures. He could fill a wall with prints of possible directions in a day. More importantly, however, was learning how incredibly academic, researched and iterative the design process can be when you have a director like Cameron who is simply not satisfied until what he sees matches perfectly with what he envisions.
Being surrounded by so many phenomenal designers on Avatar was extremely inspiring, as Lightstorm assembled an amazing team of artists including Jordu Schell, Ryan Church, Dylan Cole, James Clyne, Ben Procter and scores more. The amount of design work that has gone into Avatar is epic and I, like many others, can't wait until December 18th. I feel grateful to have been able to work on a small part of it.
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3DTotal: You must have been able to pick up quite a treasury of tips and tricks from the various professionals that have visited Gnomon over the years. Can you enlighten us on some of the most memorable advice you have received and techniques you have picked up which has proven significant to your own development as an artist?
Alex: Jeez, there is so much that could be said here. As I've stated before, there is more to learn about design, nature, software, etc than any one person could learn in a lifetime. Over the years I have had the privilege of working with so many amazing artists and each of them have influenced me in different ways. From the development of Gnomon's curriculum, to our DVDs, to working on personal and professional projects, I continue to be made aware of how much more there is to learn in order to feel that I can create what is in my mind... while also trying to expand the range of what is in my head through reading, traveling, movies, games and so on. With that said, I would say that the search for inspiration and motivation is of utmost importance. |
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To not become complacent... to not be someone who spends their evenings and weekends lounging on a couch staring at a television. I am in a constant work mode, except for the time spent with my kids. Not to say that everyone should be like this, as it is not really the most balanced life, it is just who I am. Luckily, however, I have a great girlfriend, Sofia Vale Cruz, who is into this stuff too... she's a 3D environment artist at Blizzard Cinematics.
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The people you surround yourself with make a big impact on who you become.
When I have spent time with people like Syd Mead or Iain McCaig, and experienced their incredible charisma and enthusiasm for what they do, after decades of working, I feel excited to know that people can stay motivated and inspired. I've met a lot of artists who have become a little bitter and burned out from the long hours of the industry, so it is good to know that there are others that rise above the frustration and commit to their passion for being creative. I am very much inspired by them.
As far as something more specific, I would say that one of the biggest things to be learned from working with top artists is the universal dependence on reference material and knowing your art/design/architectural/etc history. In the production world there is always going to be a time constraint and you have to learn to work within those parameters. Things are never done, they are due... if you know what I mean. Furthermore, everything that we create is based on nature and the myriad works of man that have come before us. We simply recombine these things in new ways. A lot of students tend
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to think that they need to be able to create things from their head. While it is true that the more you can depend on memory, the faster you will work and the more creative you will be, you cannot start off this way. Use reference. Absorb what you learn from it. You will always need reference when asked to do something you haven't done before, but at the same time your memory banks will grow and you will get better, faster and more valuable to production.
3DTotal: Your 3D portfolio is composed of some bizarre and might I say macabre creatures. What sorts of things inspire them and where do you draw your inspiration in general?
Alex: This is such a common question with interviews, and we of course ask it a lot too with interviews at The Gnomon Workshop and CGchannel. I've found that it is often a difficult question for artists to answer, and many artists really just like what they like... and don't really know why. We are all a result of decades of life experience, and it is hard to know why we end up being attracted to the things we are. My mom and family in general think that the stuff I make and artwork I collect is ugly and a sign of a disturbed individual. I dunno why I think skulls are cool, but I do, and I own a bunch of them. My high-school textbooks are full of doodles of skulls, demons, etc. (I kept a bunch of them to remind myself that I have always been weird. Proudly so). Of course, some of my favorite artists are Wayne Barlowe, Zdzislaw Beksinski, Chet Zar, Cam de Leon, Brom, but also artists such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Rodin, Dali, or lowbrow artists such as Glenn Barr, Mark Ryden and Robert Williams. I have also always been a big gamer, going back to my Atari 800 that I got in 1982, and the thousands of hours I have played games such as Wizardry, Ultima, Bard's Tale (80's games), to current games like Bioshock, everything from Blizzard (although I am happy to say that I have finally stopped playing World of Warcraft... jeez), have all influenced me in a variety of ways. I love fantasy, especially dark fantasy. My favorite films are Bladerunner and Jacob's Ladder, so there you go. Kind of a vague answer to the question, but as best as I think I can do.
3DTotal: If you didn’t have Gnomon what other job would you ideally like to be doing?
Alex: I often get asked if I am going to sell Gnomon one day. We have been approached several times by companies who want to buy us, or open Gnomon in other cities, and turn us into some sort of chain-school factory. I love Gnomon, I feel extremely fortunate to be able to be surrounded by such creative energy every day by our students and the professionals that we work with. I am excited by all of the new projects we have going on, especially Gnomon Studios and the new Shane Acker project. So the thought of not having Gnomon... well, I choose not to think about. If I am forced to answer the question then the answer would be that I would probably open a studio and start making short films with talented artists and directors. But we're already doing that... ummm. Well, as far as the industry goes, I would probably be a freelance creature/character/generalist and do more work like I've been doing with Neville Page, who I continue to work with on creature development projects for film. Outside of the industry... well, I guess it would be nice to have a restaurant on the beach in the Bahamas and get better at playing the piano. When I'm seventy. Heh.
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