About the author
"About the author" just because that's a hilarious title for that image. Who am I ? An English citizen living in Sweden for the best part of my adult life. An artist, father, and general tinkerer
in anything related to digital artwork.
Having been fascinated with digital artwork in all its forms since the ZXSpectrum, I was "there" tinkering with pixel plotting right from the beginning
through to modern times. I was once told by an employer back in the day "Forget that! .. computers will never be able to produce decent graphics". It was the layout dept at Maxwell Press in a quote equally
stupid to Bill Gates' famous 64k memory faux pas.
I quit, and pursued my passion. One of the Co-Founding members of the fabulous games company Team17, a company I loved every day working
with for 15 years. Under that period there was barely a game produced by them that I hadn't either designed or touched in one way or another. God I miss those days sometimes :)
It was
time to branch out alone on a different passion with my own company "Custom Red" in Sweden for a number of years - outsourcing artwork asset development. Again wonderfully successful until the point where the entire industry
started to consolidate into the Monster studios that are the current landscape of the games industry. A lot of my clients were bought up, and with my employees numbering more than the remaining clients in the field it
was time to try my hand at something new.
I freelance digital artwork now, while also being full time emplyed at the wonderful Rabadang AB studio - communications, marketing, web development and in my case:
3D visualization. Still doing it! .. so it must be fun :)
Do you accept freelance work?
Depending on the scale of the project, yes. I do accept "smaller" commissions, but have to decline larger projects due to my main full time job taking obvious priority.
Can I use one of your images on my website?I
rarely refuse permission to display my artwork in galleries when I'm asked. I do insist on being asked first though, so please email me in that case. I do not allow use of the image for site decoration however.
I love the layout of your site, but why is it so plain?
I
just wanted something clean and simple.. It's more for the galleries than anything else as it allows the visitor to see the artwork without being too distracted.This is why I've also avoided animations and paid for a domain
rather than have bloody annoying pop-up spam
I see you've done the artwork for X site ..are you a member?
The reason for the previous answer is that my artwork has been stolen in the past and used
as site decoration for a couple of sites - the worst case being a "warez" site which is a wholly unfair association.
What is the best 3D software to use?
Oh good lord how the times do change. My
favourite weapon of choice is still Maya. It's not perfect by a long shot, but familiarity after al these years means I can usually fly through wat I'm aiming to achieve pretty quickly.
For a beginner
I would reccomend Cinema4D. Not because it's underpowered in any way, but because it's got a much cleaner and more modern approach to 3DCG that makes it so much more accessible to New artists. It's a phenominally
capable software. Again, the only reason I don't use it as my daily driver is my long term familiarity with Maya.
For those who are technically savvy and not afraid of a steep learning curve: SideFX Houdini.
Good god and sweet baby jesus that's some amazing software right there. I have to admit, I get overwhelmed and scurry back to my Maya blankie for comfort.
I cant draw and I have no money but can u do a picture 4 me?
Don't
be silly. ..
How long does it take you to do a picture?
There are so many things that dictate how long it takes to do an image that it's an impossible answer. Some people tend to think that modelling
an image as opposed to painting is almost "cheating". It takes a heck of a lot longer to set up a modelled scene than painting from scratch however.- a good painting normally takes about a week. a 3D image can take months of
modelling and organising especially if done in your freetime.
Where have the images from your Amiga days gone?
Since updating my site to the new format the very old stuff had no real
place.. It will come back later, but be very well hidden deep in the site. I'll make a note here when that's done.