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3DTotal: Hiya Tim, you’re the first artist to ever get a second interview on 3DTotal! And it’s very deservedly so, too! What have the last two years brought you, in terms of your career?
Tim:What an honor! Thanks for thinking of me again. If I remember correctly I was just beginning working at Intelligent Creatures at the time of the last interview. In my time there I worked on Babel, The Number 23, Silent Hill, Stranger Than Fiction, The Hunting Party, and a few other odds and ends here and there. At the beginning of November 2007 I took a contract with Animal Logic that ran until November of 2008. There I was working on Baz Luhrmann’s Australia. It was a good experience and skipping out on winter in Canada was a big bonus. For the first part of my time there I was doing mainly look development and concept work to nail down the look of some key sequences. About half way through I became lead matte painter for a team of ten artists. Together we completed 185 shots. I'm currently working at Double Negative in London where I have been working on a number of cool films. Most recently I completed work on Green Zone. |
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3DTotal: I bumped into you and Dan Wheaton at the ADAPT conference in Montreal. Did you find the lectures there beneficial, and would you recommend it to others?
Tim: ADAPT was great! Probably the best conference I’ve attended! I think the size of it was really conducive to meeting people and getting a chance to talk with some of the presenters. I even got my copy of Blade Runner signed by Syd Mead! The biggest highlight for me was the presentation by Ian McCaig. The man is just so inspiring! It was also just a great time to connect with old friends and meet new ones. I have a particular pride for anything that comes out of Montreal since that is where my family is from. It’s a great city with so many talented artists. I would definitely recommend that people check out ADAPT. It’s a great conference and fantastic value for the money!
3DTotal: Now then Tim, you once e-mailed me and said you were thinking of coming to our side of the Atlantic and starting work right here on our little green island. So what went wrong?!
Tim:[Laughs] Nothing went wrong! That’s just the way it goes. Nothing is definite until a contract has been signed. I find I spend a fare amount of time chatting with companies about potential opportunities. |
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I just like to do my homework and find out what a city is like before wading in too deep. Sometimes you don’t see the fruit of those conversations for a little while. My conversations with Double Negative, where I am now, started before I went to Australia for a year. It’s just the nature of the business.
3DTotal: When I spoke to you last you were pretty accomplished in your works and |
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techniques. Have you noticeably improved over the last three years? Learned anything new? Found any new favorite ways of working or new software?
Tim:Over the past three years I’ve really invested a lot in picking up more technical skills, mainly in 3D applications. I’m always trying to expand my tool set to increase my versatility. I had been using XSi mainly, but in the past three years have used mainly Maya. For the past year and a half I've been playing around with ZBrush. There are so many cool things in that program. It makes doing things that would normally be very technical feel like and artistic process again. I'm very excited about some of the features in the next release. More and more 3D is becoming a big part of my work these days and I find myself pushing things much further in 3D than I would have in the past. Of course, 2D work makes up the larger portion of what I do. CS4 brought some nice new features. Finally it's 64-bit!!Improvements to the 3D features are really interesting. It will cool to see how that evolves. The new interface takes some getting used to but in general I like it. All the open GL features are pretty cool as well. Other than that, every painting brings new challenges and growth as an artist. I just start every job and say, “Don’t screw this up, Tim!” If it’s a good day, I listen to myself. I think we were all disappointed that it wasn’t a 64 bit app. CS4, maybe? Please!! I like the change to the Brightness and Contrast filter and also the Curves filter is a little more robust. The new cloning modes are really useful, too. |
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Some of the new features, with importing 3d and footage, look promising. It will be interesting to see how they evolve. The changes to the interface took me a little while to get used to but overall I think they are improvements, especially when you are working on a laptop and want to get maximum work space. Other than that, every painting brings new challenges and growth as an artist. I just start every job and say, “Don’t screw this up, Tim!” If it’s a good day, I listen to myself.
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