3D Characters Magician Interview - Matt Mills

With great pleasure we continue publishing series of interviews with the most talented 3D artists from all over the world. And today we are glad to present an interview with an artist whose 2 works were published in two of our 3D Robots reviews! His name is Matt Mills (a.k.a. emciem), 29 year old artist currently living in Austin, Texas (US). Matt is a professional Software Engineer by day and a freelance 3D artist by night.

 

 

 

For how long are you in 3D Art and what was your first work?

 

I got into 3D modeling only about five years ago. So, I still consider myself relatively new to the art. A friend turned me on to Maya one day, and I instantly fell in love with its power and was intrigued by the endless possibilities. For the most part, I am a fully self taught, and have been learning from free online tutorials, and lots and lots of trial and error. Like most beginning 3D artists, most of my first work was pretty simplistic (shiny spheres, and checkerboard floors, etc.).

 

This is one of my earliest pieces:

 

 

How important is it for you? Is it your primary activity or is there anything else that you do for living?

 

Well, if importance is based on monetary income, then 3D is relatively unimportant in my life right now. As a full time Software Engineer, my salary greatly outweighs what I make as a freelance 3D artist.

 

However, 3D (and art for that matter) is definitely an integral part of my life. It is my creative outlet. I didn’t start out making 3D models to make money. It was more of just a hobby. But, as my skills progress, and my services become more sought after, am I becoming more open to the idea of doing 3D full time. I’m just waiting for the right opportunity to come along.

 

What are your major principles for doing a great 3D Model?

 

I take pride in my work, and hold myself to some very high standards. In my opinion, a great 3D model must first come from a great idea or concept. Before I even start the modeling process, I will make sure to have some sketches or concept art to inspire me. From there, it’s all about quality for me. I pay close attention to every detail, and always attempt to add some personality or style to each of my pieces.

 

Are there any special works that you would like to share with our audience? Preferably the new ones that have not been published elsewhere.

 

Unfortunately, I don’t have any new works that I can share here. I haven’t been able to work on any personal projects lately, due to time constraints, but I have several great ideas that I am going to begin to work on this summer. So, those of you who are interested, please feel free to watch my account on deviantART (http://emciem.deviantart.com) for new stuff from me.

 

But, I will share a few of my favorites, and pieces that I am most proud of:

 

 

 

And the one called “M.A.R. 9000″ you’ve mentioned in your review.

 

 

What would your suggestions be for our audience and for 3D beginners? What are the typical mistakes to avoid while producing a good 3D Model?

 

My best advice is to practice. When starting out, I opened Maya pretty much every day, and went through at least one tutorial. It wasn’t so much about creating a great piece of work, but more about learning the processes and workflow, so that when I was ready to create my own pieces, I had a good understanding of how to use the tools that I had.

 

Your works - except for the high quality of modeling - have these greatly charismatic characters. How do you create them? Do you use some prototypes?

 

I have always been inspired the work of the artists at Pixar. So, when I began creating my own characters, I knew that they needed to have a great personality, especially since most of my characters are seen in still images, not animations. As an artist, I want my work to give the viewer some sort of reaction or feeling that they can relate to. Whether it be happy, sad, confused, or disgusted, it doesn’t matter, so long as it touches them in some way.

 

Tell us a little about “You believe me, don’t you?”. What was the process of working on this model (how long did it take you? what were the major difficulties you have faced? etc.)?

 

 

This is one of my more recent images, and it was actually inspired by a song from the band Tool called ‘Rosetta Stoned.’ I had been learning to use ZBrush for a few weeks, and wanted to create something with it. So, I sketched out my idea for this alien creature on a piece of notebook paper. I then started off in Maya and created a low poly version of the head. Then imported that into ZBrush, added the details and reshaped the head to my liking. I imported the model back into Maya to add all of the tubes and the eye. Textures where added and I setup the lighting in Maya and rendered it all with Maxwell Render. The total process, from concept to completion took a total of about 12 hours spread out over three days.

 

The hardest part of this piece for me was the texturing and lighting. I wanted to set the right mood and have the scene very monochromatic. I ended up using all grays and blacks for the textures, and lit the scene with a single light source from above to give a more dramatic feel.

 

Which is your favorite stage of 3D modeling?

 

I truly enjoy the entire process of 3D modeling and rendering. But, if I had to choose, I guess my favorite stage would be the initial steps of building the model. Creating something, from nothing, just like a sculptor would do.

 

 

A few years ago I would have never thought that I would be able to take a single polygonal cube, and turn that into a high resolution 3D robot that sings and dances. I am truly grateful for the support that I have received via the internet through websites like devianART.com, Templates.com, and all of the other great artists I have met from around the world. Thank you.

 

* * *

 

Thank you too, Matt for such a great interview and for these charismatic characters you’ve made and keep going. We wish you all the best and truly hope that you will stay in 3D modeling for years, it is obvious that you are very talented in this! Hope to see you soon in our blog - we have lot of interesting stuff coming up.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 5:04 amand is filed under 3D robots, interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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