Read Issue 58 of Digital Art Live
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Welcome to our new ‘Fairytales’ issue, something a little different than usual!
Sir Tancrede is a leading 3D artist who makes impressive large-scale fairytale scenes and series with DAZ Studio.
DAZ | VUE | PS
“The tone of the picture is what takes me the most time: adjusting the tint of the textures. It is a mistake to simply use a filter or a tinted light. I adjust each texture so that they are matched with each other and fit the desired atmosphere. It’s a real challenge.”
We interview a leading maker of quality fantasy/ fairytale 3D environments, made for the DAZ Studio software and iRay.
DAZ | MODO | SUBSTANCE
“Everything is modelled in Modo and painted in Substance Painter. I love ‘fleshing out’ a space. It’s a lot of fun to let your imagination loose, and since it’s all rough box shapes it’s usually quick and satisfying progress. It may be boxes, but in your head it looks epic!”
David Revoy is a major concept artist, champion of free software, and the maker of the Pepper & Carrot webcomic.
KRITA | COMICS | BLENDER
“I design a low-quality model of [large scenes] in Blender, speed-modelling done in less than a day. 3D models help solve shot framing, and keep lighting consistent. A lot of ‘paint over’ will be necessary, but I can’t imagine painting these types of shot from scratch.”
Also…
- EDITORIAL
- CONTESTS
- COVER ART: FAIRYTALE
- BACK ISSUE INDEX
- CONTESTS
- GALLERY
- IMAGINARIUM
We’re pleased to interview Sir Tancrede, a leading maker of fairytale scenes with DAZ Studio
DAL: Sir Tancrede, welcome. We thought you would be a fine choice for the Fairytales issue.
ST: Thank you, it gives me great pleasure that you have thought of me for this theme. Fairy tales are my whole life!
DAL: Perfect. Now, we appreciate that you are currently very busy with paid work, so we will keep the questions fairly simple.
ST: Yes, I am very busy with my job at the moment, and when you have a passion you feel the lack of time for it even more. Currently all my free time is spent doing 3D or watching fantasy movies! But I appreciate your interest, and I will take the time to share with you about my hobby.
DAL: What made you interested in digital art?
ST: It’s always fun when I think about this aspect of my interest, because it all actually started in 2009. Back when I bought The Sims. I purchased The Sims 2 game, for the PC. Then I discovered a huge community of modders on the Internet, whose hobby was to modify the game and add a wide variety of new online content for free. This discovery opened up so many possibilities, suddenly I could make scenes about… whatever themes I liked. I have a lot of nostalgia for this period. The Sims 2 modders were very ingenious in getting around the limits of the game as it then stood. So that was how I started to get interested in 3D art. Then I discovered the Vue software, which is the special 3D landscape imagery software.
DAL: Yes, still going today, and still interfacing nicely with Poser 11 for scene import.
ST: I imported into Vue all the content I used in The Sims 2 and this time there were no limits at all. You can preview some of my old work on my DeviantArt Gallery. You can see that my interests have never changed.
I then bought Vue-compatible items from the DAZ 3D store regularly, but didn’t at that time actually use DAZ Studio. That all changed when I experimented with DAZ’s then-new fantastic iRay renderer. It has since become so easy to achieve a result close to the professional level. I had been waiting for that for a long time. I started to want to post my creations on the Daz3D gallery and on Deviant Art. At first it was for fun. Then, the good feedback I had encouraged me to really take care of my creations more and more.
DAL: Great. Yes, iRay has since come a long way, and due to the internal upgrades has become a lot faster even on CPU-only iRay rendering. Which is perfectly possible, though most people wrongly think it only renders with an NVIDIA graphics card. What learning resources were useful to you, in the beginning?
ST: My knowledge of 3D is far from that of a professional but I have a good foundation. From The Sims 2 modders, I learned from the community all the fundamentals about textures and modeling. It was therefore easy to get started on Vue and DAZ Studio afterwards. In addition DAZ is a relatively intuitive product and I learn mainly by analyzing how the purchased products are made.
DAL: Interesting. So you actually try to work out how things were made. But to stay with the early days for a moment… was there someone special who encouraged your art, in the beginning?
ST: My model is Walt Disney. This man has spent his life dreaming and making others dream. I grew up in the ‘Second Golden Age’ of Disney movies, from The Little Mermaid to Tarzan. Each year I was amazed by all these stories that appeared. When I was a child and then a teenager my dream used to be working for Disney. I was drawing a lot at that time. Then I gave up my dream and the drawing… but not my love for Disney. Then discovering 3D art allowed me to make part of this childhood dream come true.
See full interview in Issue 58
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