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3DTotal: Hi Chris, it seems like you have been on a little CG adventure around Europe for the last 10 years. Can you sum it all up for us?
Chris: Hi Tom! I started out working traditionally as a storyboard and concept artist in a small animation studio at Babelsberg Film Studios in Germany, where I worked on a number of 3D animated music videos. It was a great way to broaden my horizons past pen and paper, as I was able to dive into the CG realm and utilise otherwise unaffordable technology.
After two years in Berlin, and with the end of the New Media hype in sight, I realised it was time to move on. Duran, a VFX studio based in Paris, was hiring for an animated feature and hired me as a texture artist with an option to go into matte painting as the production progressed. After the movie had wrapped I was able to land a job at MPC in London, based on the work I had done in Paris. There I worked on a number of US and UK productions until Blizzard Entertainment’s Cinematic team gave me a call in 2006. |
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3DTotal: Indeed it is a little European adventure you have been having! Was there anything in particular that made Blizzard find you? And how did it feel to be head hunted by such a famous studio?
Chris: Nothing in particular. I believe Matte Painting Supervisor Jonathan Berube came across my website and passed it on to the recruiters. I had gotten in touch with a number of studios through this web presence before, but I was surprised how quickly Blizzard moved ahead. After I’d talked to them on the phone and they’d invited me over for a visit, things came together surprisingly quickly and in a rather organised fashion. Where a lot of other companies had been rather wishy-washy about the details, such as immigration matters and housing, these guys just had it down to a “T”. They were certainly serious and that made me feel very taken care of. That’s a good feeling, especially when you are about to leave friends and family behind to move to another continent. |
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3DTotal: What was the first ever professional matte painting you did and how did it turn out?
Chris: The first one ever was for Enki Bilal’s Immortel (ad vitam) a movie that, for the most part, is set in a dark version of futuristic New York City. It was a rather straightforward shot with a locked- off camera looking down a street (first matte on my website). I worked over a 3D layout that the modelling team provided and things went fairly smoothly, as all I had to deliver was the finished image file. No extra passes or frames were required. |
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3DTotal: I notice some of your recent mattes are “painted over 3D geometry provided by Duran”. Can you tell us a bit more about this technique? And what are the pros and cons?
Chris: For most of the CG shots in Immortel, the modelling team had done some kind of 3D model which they would use for lay-outing. They would hand me a greyshaded render of their scene and I would paint and texture over it. The layouts had all been previously signed off by the director, which diminished a lot of guesswork for me when it came to composition, design etc. All the shots I worked on in this production were locked-off, so I could treat them very much like canvas paintings without worrying too much about the technical restrictions a parallaxing 2.5D shot would have brought with it. |
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Your rating: Rating: 4.60, Votes: 5 Warin-3DT (Forums) on Tue, 22 June 2010 12:00pm
Great artist!!
Chunkymunky (Forums) on Wed, 23 June 2010 9:39am
I ADORE this guy's work, they are always so interesting, vibrant and beautifully done! He really is one the THE best artists ever :) Lovely work
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