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An
interview with Alp Altiner
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3DTotal -
I have been to you forums and I must say it's very impressive, so can you tell us why you decided to create your own, rather than join another forum to share your artwork and techniques with the digital art community?
Alp
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Thanks. Well you know, I use to work as a web designer/graphic designer, and multimedia artist before I got into Video Games and Film related work. So it is easy for me to build websites, and get involved with the coding/design work, and the web has always been a great worldwide market to reach out to many and various people around the world. I had a lot of ideas regarding Forums, tutorials, and sharing some of the techniques I use with others, so I wanted to have control of organization of my ideas, and create a digital network. I remember when I started the Laborganika Forum just a few months back and had around 50 members, and I think today there are over 1300 members currently in the Forum, and it is growing rapidly.
I also wanted to create contests and network with other software companies. I already had Pixologic (ZBrush) sponsor one of my contests where they donated a full boxed version of ZBrush to the Winner of the " Laborganika ZBrush Contest ", so more companies are interested at this time in sponsoring additional ideas I have, as well as many other online sites that are interested in partnering up with me on providing various online content.
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The next Contest will be sponsored by www.designstudiopress.com, and they will be giving away many cool prizes, and a set of their books. I also recently, last year started my own Small Press Publishing, and Toy Collectibles company Altiner Productions, LLC - Laborganika Media and Press and that was the other reason I wanted to create a placeholder on the Internet for promoting some of these high quality, and exciting products I am currently producing. |
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3DTotal -
With being freelance I spose you get to take time off when you feel like it ;) so what do you do to relax?
Alp -
Relax . . . hmmmm . . . I work very long hours. Recently on X-Men 3, I was working 7 day weeks, sometimes up to 15 to 18 hour days for a while, and also on other projects last year, and still this year. That can be part of the job sometime working in Visual FX, that also of course depends on what Studio you are working at.
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Yes, I am a freelance artist, but if you work in Film, most of the time you will still be working on site, driving to work every day ( Los Angeles Traffic ) just like any other job. But of course, if I wanted to take a certain amount of time off, I would be able to do that . . . depending on the length of a project. Most of the Video Game design work I do is from home, and that gives me more freedom to create my own schedule. |
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On top of my professional work, I am also working on my own Graphic Novel Project " THE UNKNOWN " www.unknownproject.net which will be published worldwide soon, and the Toy Line " LABORGANIKA TOYS " http://www.laborganika.com/welcome.html which is also taking all the free time that's left, but it is very exciting, since I am designing and producing my own products. So, relaxing is mostly working on my own projects/ideas, watching movies, spend time at the swimming pool, listen to music, and go shopping for Comic Books, Toys and DVD's.
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3DTotal -
Its sound like you have a very busy schedule, I'm surprised you get the time to fit anything in. So is Los Angeles Traffic really that bad?
Alp -
Well, I don't sleep long hours, not even on the weekends, 5 hours of sleep is plenty for me. Also being the workaholic that I am, I am always working on my own projects, especially my Graphic Novel, and the Collectible Toys which I am in the process of mass producing right now. As far as the traffic here in Los Angeles . . .it's insane . . . . especially if you are dealing with the 405 Freeway. Sitting in traffic in the morning, and on the way back home is exhausting, and you spend hours trying to get from A to B. Well, guess I am use to it after so many years, and you have no choice :(
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3DTotal -
If you had a trainee artist work with you for a day, what be the first bit of information that you would drum into him to learn and to always remember?
Alp -
In a production environment, it would be mainly going over technical information about the plates, how color corrections are done, level adjustments, etc. Also naming conventions, and how to name and save the files on a network, and organize your Photoshop files/layers to get the most out of your work. Working organized and taking notes, and following/studying all the shots closely which you may be working on is very important. The other thing would be showing the person all the shortcuts I've learned in Photoshop over the years, which will save you a lot of time.
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3DTotal -
Well it have been a pleasure talking with you Alp and I hope all goes well with your future projects, I hope you will keep us up to date with you progress.
Alp -
Thanks for having me for this interview :) and I will certainly send you updates on the Graphic Novel www.unknownproject.net and the Collectibles at www.laborganika.com
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