3DTotal: Perhaps, Carlos, you could start by telling us a little about yourself, your background and how you came to work in the industry?
Carlos: I started to do illustrations as far back as I can remember, but have been working commercially for about 12 or 14 years now. I’m very grateful to have found my space in the entertainment business, although I haven’t ruled out the possibility of doing a movie project in the future.

In Argentina it is pretty hard (if not impossible) to find a good art institute so I had to study by myself (best school ever!) with comics and any art books I could find. Since the internet popped up all over the world I’ve been able to develop myself as a professional artist.

When I was 22 years old I began to work at a local video game startup here in Buenos Aires, where I got access to a Wacom tablet (back in the day it was impossible to buy one of these when they first came out; they were really expensive even in the USA). Using a Wacom was a blessing for me so I used to stay after hours just to practice with it.

The first project I was involved with was a GameBoy Advance game in which I did lots of pixel and regular art. In all the years I worked for that company I learned a lot from practicing every day. After the project was finished I moved to work with TimeGate Studios when they were just starting on Section 8 (http://www.joinsection8.com/). I learned how to work for an American company through TimeGate, which was something completely different for me because of the level of quality they required and the deadlines they usually worked within. I was amazed by that!

While all this was happening I kept up my freelancing work for local companies and startups (I even helped a comic book artist!).

My work relation with TimeGate was growing to the point where they actually offered me the chance to travel so that I could work with them in the USA for a whole year. I couldn’t take that offer because of family problems, but we kept working together. During that last project we began working on the FEAR PC expansion and on some internal projects. During that time I also worked on several illustrations for Privateer Press, wrote a couple of tutorials for some textbooks from China and collaborated with Bobby Chiu on a publication. Right now I’m working with my brother on our first video game project. We are really excited about creating a company and all the steps involved over the next few months, but I can’t give much detail about it because it’s a work in progress. All I can say is that we are trying to go back to better times in video game history, when the gameplay and quality overruled “fashion” in games, which should be enough to give you guys goose bumps!

3DTotal: It sounds as though you have had an interesting career path so far, but what are the main advantages and disadvantages of working remotely for companies? And is your video game a full time project now?
Carlos: One advantage is the different time zones between countries. With this you can be working all day while your client is at the other side of the world having a good night’s sleep. First thing in the morning he gets an email with the work done and that’s something in-house art teams can’t compete with most of the time. I also get more freedom to work around my priorities and be able to meet all my clients’ deadlines without much effort.

The advantages are many yes, but there are also big responsibilities. Freelance work gives you a direct link with the client; there are no supervisors, no art directions, and no bosses in the middle. It’s you, your work and the client; no excuses. I don’t find many disadvantages in working offshore. The fact you can actually handle the amount of clients, plus the work flow, the way you want to is priceless. Maybe the only big disadvantage I can bring to the table is the lack of continuous clients. You can spend a whole week without having a client, but you are usually finishing something else so I still really enjoy working offshore.

About the video game project; no it’s not full time work yet but we are slowly making more time for it. We have an amazing product in the works here with this video game, so there’s no turning back for us now.

3DTotal: You have a number of pieces relating to the video game FEAR. Can you describe what this was like as a project and the challenges it presented?
Carlos: It was a very interesting and challenging project because doing background art has never really been my strong point. Generally speaking, I’d rather make characters, monsters or design weapons. That day I remember the TimeGate art director contacted me, asking if I was interested in working freelance on a few backgrounds that they needed. He sent me an example and that very same day I was up all night working and practicing, trying to match the quality they sent me. After I sent them the outcome (a pretty horrible background if I look at it today) the TimeGate art director gave me the chance of working on the project with them, so we started with a set of three backgrounds. The first one took me the whole day and after his feedback I had lots of errors to fix, but the second one came up much faster and after that I was delivering approximately one finished background per day before starting on the next one. I was a background vending machine! On many of the backgrounds I used the help of 3D software to avoid dealing with the perspective and to get a quick light and shadow base to work with. My 3D skills are pretty much nonexistent, so I was limited to boxes and pipes with the software (nothing fancy). The work I did for FEAR was varied; I did backgrounds, characters and weapons. It was pretty good fun!

3DTotal: There is a wide variety of work in your portfolio but which rank among your favourites and why?
Carlos: As I mentioned before, I love to illustrate characters more than backgrounds, but what I really love more than anything is (when I have the chance) to work on monsters or creatures. Maybe it’s because it is something much more creative and I don’t have to think that much about the clothes or the human anatomy. Creating a monster or creature is something that comes completely from your imagination; you don’t see yourself limited with anatomy or art references. A specific story also helps the artistic job flow faster and you can get a better result in less time.