80LV talked with Ran Manolov (Visual Effects Supervisor, Sculptor & Character Art Director), who worked on such projects as Diablo II, Love Death + Robots and many more. Ran shares his journey from being a classically trained artist to the digital realm and provides insights into the art industry. He also discusses the impact of technology on creativity, and the importance of developing skills & staying curious.
Check out Ran’s portfolio: https://www.ranmanolov.art/
Learn from the tutorials: https://www.patreon.com/ranmanolov
Other social media: https://taplink.cc/ranmanolov
Follow 80 LEVEL on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/LevelEighty
https://www.instagram.com/eighty_level/
https://twitter.com/80Level
We are looking for more artists!
Join 80 LEVEL Talent for free: https://80lv.pro/join-80lvTalent
Get your work noticed by some of the biggest and best developers, publishers, and studios in video games today.
This video is sponsored by Xsolla, a global video game commerce company with a robust and powerful set of tools and services designed specifically for the video game industry: http://xsolla.pro/8023
80LV talked with Ran Manolov (Visual Effects Supervisor, Sculptor & Character Art Director), who worked on such projects as Diablo II, Love Death + Robots and many more. Ran shares his journey from being a classically trained artist to the digital realm and provides insights into the art industry. He also discusses the impact of technology on creativity, and the importance of developing skills & staying curious.
Check out Ran’s portfolio: https://www.ranmanolov.art/
Learn from the tutorials: https://www.patreon.com/ranmanolov
Other social media: https://taplink.cc/ranmanolov
Follow 80 LEVEL on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/LevelEighty
https://www.instagram.com/eighty_level/
https://twitter.com/80Level
We are looking for more artists!
Join 80 LEVEL Talent for free: https://80lv.pro/join-80lvTalent
Get your work noticed by some of the biggest and best developers, publishers, and studios in video games today.
This video is sponsored by Xsolla, a global video game commerce company with a robust and powerful set of tools and services designed specifically for the video game industry: http://xsolla.pro/8023
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there are many people trained classically or or not it's not the most important it's about how self-driven you
0:07
are and recruiters and and needs and people in the industry they know why
0:13
exactly they will hire you so
0:20
I know that you had a pleasure of working in a lot of different projects in the love studios and including this one
0:26
um I'm gonna talk a little bit about this later but before we kind of go into the production itself can you tell us a
0:33
little bit about um kind of your journey and your career because you're you come from a family of
0:39
artists you had this incredible education you worked in you studied in Sofia like in a lot of schools you
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studied in Spain you know work in UK it would be interesting to kind of hear
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about your journey because you're like classically trained and it would be interesting to kind of learn how you got
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from from that kind of traditional clay and paints and all that and do like a
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more more modern kind of way people are doing sculpture today
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sure yeah I mean my my journey was basically I grew up being exactly
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classically trained and uh what's interesting what I find
1:22
interesting the most from all this is like there are many people trained classically or or not it's not the most
1:29
important it's about how self-driven you are and uh how curious you are from
1:35
about all that we do and and you know to be fascinated by
1:41
the films and games and all these beautifully crafted uh
1:47
in a way masterpieces at the end um but what was interesting with me is
1:53
that and I always find a bit um bit funny
1:59
um until it wasn't so funny and then again it started being one and I mean for me growing up it was it wasn't much
2:07
of a choice at first it was more like okay we are um like parents artists and that's what
2:15
you will do and I was five years old six years old and then I remember I had to do these sketches of
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my grandma and my grandpa and I didn't have the choice much of it you know I
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had to then I presented this you know I've been given this anatomical book of
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uh Gottfried Thomas which I highly recommend and I had to copy those
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um those joints of knee and elbows and I couldn't really even understand why I
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have to do that but eventually it paid off but I've been saying this also to my
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uh some of my like patreons and and students that I've had the pleasure to
3:00
like have increasing um kind of numbers but in a way I told
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them like sometimes copying something even if it's anatomical book it's not
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actually rewarding in any way because you're coping and you're looking at the image to look the same but what you need
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to do is not actually trace and copy but you need to understand stand why are you
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why this joint where it connects the muscle whereas the inters the insertion
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point and the origin and what drives and when it's going to be flexed and all that it's all also almost as a simple
3:39
map for example the anatomy but back then when I was a kid I didn't understand why
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but I had to do it and draw these hands Etc so I think eventually it paid off but for me as a journey it was um
3:53
it was given I was given the path and then I went to high school at some point
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of Fine Arts because I've been told again that um you know High School of Fine Arts
4:04
that's what they did that's what I'm going to do we are a bit more of a conservative you know country I'm coming
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from Bulgaria and uh that's how at least in my family things were done but of
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course then I went to you know I started to realize that okay I am actually
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getting good at it and I've been told I'm doing fine you know like rewards and
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Alex Awards and all kind of contests
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um winning those again made me realize like okay you know it's getting more and more
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like fruitful so went to Academy of Fine Arts and then it was when I actually
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realized I cannot do anything else so what's the continuation and the natural
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continuation was um because I saw the difference between like
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um artists being very established in the society and then reverse angle when
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um the entire uh capitalism came and change of system in
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Bulgaria Etc and new people became the you know the kind of high profile in
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society and then all the poets and actors and artists they kind of like just reverse
5:29
roles so in a way at some point for decades my
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um you know we weren't the most healthy um wealthy one and uh before this you
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knew it was completely different so for me it wasn't very easy to continue and I
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didn't know what to do like uh what it's going to bring the food on the table and what should I do like depending on
5:54
Galleries and search this so for me that normal modern in a way continuation was
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when I discovered honestly uh zbrush and the digital sculpting and this led to
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okay I can do that there is like plenty of plenty of work and plenty of other
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artists that you start you know admiring and getting to know each other and then I remember
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uh just started in a small company in Bulgaria and and from there I knew I
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want to go and work on big films and big games and apply to London came and
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started here and then I got very lucky to work on very very big projects which kind of
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um escalated very quickly this entire uh
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progression I would say career progression and from there you know I
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realized even though I didn't know technically the things it was very interesting because I was
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you know recruiters and and leads and people in the industry they know why
7:00
exactly they would hire you so even if you shouldn't worry too much your heart there for a reason uh for me in this
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case was mostly because of my uh sculpting skills and exactly classical background so it suddenly paid off very
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quickly so I uh started living and working in London and that's where I am
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yeah so you had an opportunity to work
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for like blur a bunch of other big companies um and and you mentioned that you you
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had uh you were very lucky to kind of work on like those big um IPS big titles
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um can you tell us a little bit about how is this experience overall I know
7:45
that there is a lot of readers who might not have this experience they may be doing something still in school or
7:52
they're working in smaller Studios they want to understand like what do they what do they expect right because
7:58
there's like um how do people approach you like what do you actually do do you what's your
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how much of an influence do you have on like the final thing
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um tell us a little bit more about how does the how how did you how did your journey go like how did you go from like
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you know building something for yourself and then suddenly working on big films
8:23
yeah so this was um it's a very good point and it's an interesting question it's a very broad question because there
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is a lot of um you know there are many ways to get to the
8:38
Tempo in Hawaii so for me how it worked is um I was working in this small Studio
8:44
but the time there and um I just wanted some experience and getting to know a
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little bit more about the software but I was constantly working on my portfolio and as soon as I noticed that actually
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the work in a way nine to five is taking a little more from my time I remember
9:06
that I resigned and I went back to the studio and I worked on my portfolio
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because I knew I had to in a way um accelerate my portfolio and accelerate
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my progress so that I can go in a different direction and to have only so
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it's important for the readers or whoever listens this to really to focus on what
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what you want to get is what you do and what you put in your portfolio because if you do something quite well and uh
9:41
you actually want to do something else you'll be hired for what you are showing and what's more like a
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representative of a good skill they will call you for this so if you want to do characters don't do amazingly done props
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or environment because other if if your character is not strong enough you will
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be hired for environment and then you will start working on this then you will have less time to continue your
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portfolio in the direction that you want to go for and suddenly after a few years you will realize well I'm not at the
10:16
level that I want to be so with me it was going back to the studio working my hands off and then applying to NPC a moving
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picture company and I had the chance to actually with my arrival here in London
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I didn't know the project so they suddenly assigned me to do the main hero character of Batman and Superman which
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was I was totally an experienced but that's how NPC does they just throw you directly in the deep end and you need to
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kind of put your stuff together and and survive uh by
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survive I mean it's very challenging it's very exciting but there is a lot of uh responsibility of course so for
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everyone that wants to do hero creatures Etc and uh characters it is very
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exciting but of course um there will be many people involved don't expect that you're the one driving
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the um the train there is a concept art and
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everything in film is a lot more structured and you're doing only one little chunk But be sure that you're
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good at it because they're like the competition is
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Furious so that's how it happened with me then I moved to another film another
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big character than ilm Jurassic world we had an amazing team
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there um and in every company you learn a little bit about the pipeline about what
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the other artists do um you'll learn a lot by working with those talents and of course more
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exciting shows they progress in a way because obviously if you're doing well
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so after Jurassic world I worked on the Hellboy reboot and from there actually we um
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I started working also and picking up more of a freelance work
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um a bit more gaming Diablo 2 blur Studios with love death and robots
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and uh now we're working together again on another unannounced project which is
12:24
very very exciting and it's going to be I think it's in early development so there I'm more of a you know when you
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progress into something you're becoming less of a um execution you just do that but you're
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starting to have more and more input on the on the design of the character of the just it depends but yeah that's how
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that's how it worked with me really that's you know not sure I think it's a it's a very good answer and thank you
12:53
for kind of touching all the points I know it's a broad question because you you mentioned like the portfolio piece
12:59
and how to get there but also you kind of talked a little bit about how you progress like from these tasks and how
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the teams work and so on um I'm wondering when you were working
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in companies you know like ilm who are like a pioneers of like whatever
13:18
we see currently on the screen um how does the learning work there do
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you just kind of like go and Learn by making mistakes or do you get support
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from like colleagues and other people in in the teams like is there a competition
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inside those uh teams where people kind of like trying to do a job better than
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you sort of in a way how do you like what should you expect when you go in in this kind of environment
13:49
I think I think you should definitely not get too stressed because that's what
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I'm um So currently I'm supervising a lot of the character and creature work um and
14:01
also VFX supervising so this is when it comes to shots and you just Overlook all
14:07
the Departments which was a natural progression over the last few years but in a way
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um now that I'm looking from different perspective and I'm also interviewing people and you know recruiting people
14:18
for our company um we should not forget that after all this
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is what we do because we liked it in the first place because we are supposed to
14:30
have fun so of course there will be stressful times I remember you know
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myself being very stressed and a matter of life and death and I'm gonna
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stay here for like till 12 a.m Etc which is a good mentality you shouldn't be pushed by your lead or reminded that hey
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if you need to stay let's stay a little longer you know you should at least I've never heard this from my lead so of
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course to that level um you shouldn't relax to like certain
15:00
like this extent but after all having fun and definitely you will learn
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a lot um people do help each other even more than
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what you will expect because I always thought okay everyone wants to to do
15:19
your character and you know it's kind of a furious competition inside but it's not really like this at some point
15:25
especially for if you're long in a team or even if you're a new incomer I was
15:30
very uh lucky to have been helped by the more senior people and they kind of take
15:36
you under their wing and and show you of course
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um you need to be self-driven you need to push you need to be curious again about
15:50
the new ways of doing things but also stay truthful to really to what you're good at don't try
15:58
to get too technical if you are hired to be artistic and the opposite if you are
16:04
Technical and in a way you don't have the the Eye of being too artistic don't
16:09
try to interfere too much so in a way keep your lane and you know be friendly
16:15
don't lose touch with people people kill teams are important and yeah
16:22
you mentioned in your comment that you did some freelance work for
16:28
some pretty big titles like some of the biggest titles in the of the last couple of years like you you worked on Diablo
16:35
you worked on the love dancing robots and you did a couple characters there
16:40
um how did this how did this land on your table like to when where do you
16:46
need to be in order for blizzard to kind of call you and say hey we're doing this
16:52
Legendary game remake and how about you help us with some character work for
16:58
that thing that you know millions of people are gonna watch like how do you What level do you need to be at to get a
17:05
gig like that I think I mean the team was really impressive I was uh
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I was actually honored to be among those artists because uh when you look at the
17:17
names at the end especially of the Freelancers um those are pretty just the whole team is
17:24
pretty impressive so I think you need to be close to top of the game at the
17:30
moment um and your work needs to be really um up there so
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that's how I think I got the call it was really exciting because I'm a massive
17:42
fan of especially Diablo 2 and I grew up with this and it was a really I remember just reading the email and I was it I
17:50
read it like I think walk up it was four or five am and I just looked at my phone
17:56
until I fall asleep again but I read the email and I just stood up and I left the house and I just uh walked around
18:03
because you know I knew I'm going to to take it um just because that's blizzard and also
18:11
because of the project as well uh very very important so yeah I think the anatomy and the way and
18:19
the style and the art director Chris was uh you know um amazing amazing art Direction amazing
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team um we pushed each other and and really I think the the Remake and the the
18:32
remaster is uh top-notch yeah I bought that game I'm also a
18:39
massive uh massive fan I really liked it um you mentioned one thing there uh that
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kind of like the project matters do you feel like the project is actually one of the one of the most important parts of
18:54
kind of attracting Talent that's of course you have a big name that it's easier to attract the best guys yes uh
19:02
but there's a it's there's a tricky bit in it so some companies rely a little too much I don't
19:09
want to criticize anyone but and I'm like I don't mean companies that I have
19:15
worked with but I know that uh some companies rely a little too much on
19:20
their name so you would expect that uh you know they will the payment will be
19:30
let's say the payment will be adequate but because
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of their name and because of their reputation they expect artists to just
19:40
go there and surrender but you are an established name and you can't afford your time is very valuable you have
19:47
personal life or at least you're trying to have a personal life and the project really matters it's not so much about
19:55
the and and that's what I mean by the project matters because sometimes for the sake of the project you can
20:01
sacrifice a lot of things but for the sake of the company I don't think you should because there are other companies
20:09
uh new starters and and all that where they have attracted a lot of talent and
20:14
they're doing an amazing product and um probably they're willing to in a way
20:19
reward the artists um adequate and yeah in a way that's
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that's a bit of a issue you should value your time and effort
20:31
yeah I I totally understand what you mean basically companies are using their brand name
20:37
sometimes to kind of lower your willingness to sell so to speak right
20:43
and then I mean everybody does it like Google Facebook you know meta or whatever
20:49
they're all kind of like leveraging this in order to get the talent especially
20:54
like younger people who wanted yeah who want to have this on their
21:00
portfolio or on the LinkedIn or whatever and it works but at some point the more you progress in your career
21:07
um you should start really filtering projects and really something that
21:13
it will at least that's what I'm trying to do I'm really interested to work on or at
21:20
least I'm going to have fun and by having fun this means the company will extract the maximum uh you know out of
21:28
me because I am enjoying I am willing to give and uh that's it that's that's what at the
21:35
moment I'm working on a massive game um it's uh it's called arc2 so there was
21:40
Arc one it's an open world this is such a huge fan base and now in the R2 we're pushing a lot of the new characters and
21:48
the new yeah characters and dinosaurs and all that so it's very well handled
21:54
because the way we work with the uh with wild card which is the name of the company
22:00
um that is behind the arc one and now arc2 is um
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we have in a way they are Outsourcing to the company that
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I work with and um we have really when we talk about the creature or when we do a character it's
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more about of um a teamwork and collaboration rather than you being an external vendor and this way you are of
22:26
course bringing more to the table they are open to the ideas and you push more
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the quality and more and in a way I think it's it's really exciting project
22:37
so which that we touched about um we talk a lot about work
22:43
so let's talk about tools a little bit as well so as a classical artist coming
22:50
to zbrush and kind of staying with this tool for years right because that's your
22:56
main thing um how do you feel about it now like what's what's going on with this
23:02
technology because this is in a way I mean I don't know if there are any
23:08
people who don't know what zbrush is but this is basically a unique unique offering a unique tool that is
23:15
available for for people to work with digital clay um tell me about how you've how you felt
23:21
kind of like when you first started playing with it and uh maybe let's start with this like what were your first kind
23:27
of like Impressions if you can recall I can I can recall like it was yesterday
23:33
basically because for me it was incredibly incredibly exciting to be able to
23:39
um in a way for me it still is but then it led to
23:45
learning more but anyway it's it's more of a drawing from different angles
23:52
and eventually you end up with this three-dimensional object which nowadays
23:57
you can even for me the most exciting is to go back to classical and to uh 3D
24:03
print and mold and cast eventually from bronze and something that I am heavily working on or at least trying to steal
24:10
time and go into that direction a bit more and probably do an exhibition or yeah something like it so zbrush is
24:18
giving all that it's very um what I love about it is that the the
24:24
feel for now is unmatched in other softwares um the field and the tools they are so
24:32
incredibly artistically friendly at some point after you learn the incredibly weird UI
24:40
which I love now but in the beginning might be a bit intimidating I
24:46
just remember doing this head and I was like wow you know this is something I can do really well I guess and it felt
24:53
right it felt very exciting it didn't put you off uh for example I've
24:59
encountered years ago 3D Max and it was uh something that I was like oh no so
25:06
I'm not going to be able to do 3D but then I discovered zbrush and I was like wait a second this is like drawing if
25:12
you have the artistic skills if you can draw come on you will learn a little
25:18
more about the software and zbrush does this incredibly well because it feels
25:24
organic it really feels organic and it's all about the rendering it's not about the retopology
25:32
that comes after then you'll learn more and more about texturing look there etc
25:37
etc but the more interesting for me was the shape the
25:42
form the how you can slice it and you can you know scratch it and build and
25:48
then twist and just incredibly exciting so zebras did that for me and in a way
25:53
became bread and butter and continuation of my entire career what do you feel about like the the
26:00
development of this software and how and where where their Pixel Logic and like
26:07
now it's Maxin right so where are they taking it now like do what are like the
26:12
next steps because I see a lot of um not a lot of but I see some competition now
26:17
ramping up and I see a lot of stuff from Adobe coming um which is again is it's a force to be
26:25
reckoned with because the the when they set their mind into something they will probably deliver so what do you feel
26:32
like beta testers on zbrush and beta testers on Adobe medium but I didn't have time
26:40
to do any of those so it was very unfortunate because I'm I feel like flattered and excited to be able to get
26:48
my hands especially I remember because I was very familiar with with zebra so uh the guys are awesome and you know
26:55
recently I had this talk on on zebra Summit so we started to to know each
27:01
other and um yeah the the team behind zebra she's always being incredible and
27:07
uh I think they do care a lot about the artist because this is Their audience in a way
27:14
and also I think they are genuinely interested and they've been like proving
27:20
that over and over again so this however right now
27:27
I mean there is a change of management and all that but I don't want to get any political in a way
27:34
um and I'm trying to stay you know correct and say the right things but I
27:41
hope things won't change too much because things were incredibly well for this relationship between
27:49
artists community and you know back then Pixel Logic and
27:56
zbrush developers my request or recommendation would be not to go in
28:02
direction to I don't know bring more tools and make
28:08
redshift render Etc not that it's a critique but we the very experienced
28:16
people working with the brush and other artists that are top names we have a list of things that
28:25
needs to get sorted and trust me guys there will be a lot of
28:30
more appreciation rather than bringing new tools which are not refined not developed yet so you
28:38
kinda put these on hold and you don't Dive In so
28:44
stay autistic fix a few things that we really need and it will be very well
28:50
yeah I I feel like still this um this Legacy of being a very artistic
28:57
tool for zbrush it's it's still going to be there because if you maybe some people don't know but their offices is
29:03
right next to No One offices in Hollywood in California so it's like they're they're communicating with
29:10
artists like all the times like not just like virtual like we're doing right now but also like face to face and they can
29:17
go around and see how the tools are used it's like I really like the company and I feel like the
29:24
they have a lot of potential right so there's like even even after all those years
29:29
it's still number one tool like you like they are they don't do any advertising
29:35
so from from a point of a publisher I can I I can I'm kind of reluctant to say
29:42
this but this is just because they don't really have anyone else that competes for this um for this piece of pie so I think
29:48
they're still there's there's still a lot to do but uh yeah which you can wish them good luck and
29:55
kind of hope they they will do better and kind of like improve and like you said get more stuff done and so on so
30:03
I do have one more question connected with tools and I know I have a very strong opinion on it but I'm still gonna go
30:10
there so imagine a world where there is no
30:15
zbrush right and you were just doing you know working with Clay working with
30:20
bronze and then suddenly zbrush comes and it's just like people are certainly starting paying for
30:26
things that are not really physical right um and this is like a big disruption big
30:32
technological shift and so on now we have this story with artificial intelligence stuff coming
30:39
was mid journey and all the other tools I'm going to mention and we have this very strong reaction
30:44
from the artistic community and there is a number of arguments uh what do you think this is different like what are
30:51
the things that AI companies are currently doing that's uh robbing artists the wrong way
30:59
and kind of like making sure that it it just doesn't work for them like what are the things that
31:05
is that do not work and how can we address them so yeah it's a Hot Topic I guess we
31:14
couldn't go without it um it's not the same what's been happening
31:20
right now because um if you're working with clay and you're working with
31:26
actual charcoal and Photoshop comes in you still have to move your hand
31:32
use your eyes compare struggle and
31:38
the only easier thing would be you can go back or forth or you can layer things
31:44
but if you use a very thin piece of paper let's say in animation they've
31:49
they've been layering things anyway or you use multiple glass and you paint
31:54
with temper or oil and you layer things let's say
32:00
Photoshop right if you do play and casting and
32:06
um I mean machines are coming only to help but you still need to model it you still need to
32:12
use your skill you still need to develop and progress as a
32:18
as creativity as a human being you've been challenged and you're using another
32:24
tool that's fine you can use charcoal you can use pencil but if you're starting to use only words and sit back
32:32
and someone else does the whole thing for you it's almost like
32:37
I know it's a very silly example but I'm not even sure why are we so fascinated
32:42
by it to be fair because it's almost like now together my entire family and
32:48
to go in the kitchen and show them what the microwave does it's it's like
32:54
I got it I didn't make a fire cook my own like
33:00
piece of meat or whatever like a lamp or something else for the vegans and
33:06
vegetarians but you know what I mean he's like okay it's a microwave it's supposed to do that but it's way more
33:12
fascinating when a human being create something because it's very personal so my problem with
33:19
this is first it's a mishmash it's like a must squashed
33:27
information and digits that create an image
33:32
sure computer can do it why should I be fascinated by it why it's just creating
33:39
a collage of what sees and information that let alone these are images that are
33:46
copyrighted and belong to other artists and there are hours put behind them and you know
33:54
tears and and sweat behind or just a photograph but this Photograph has been taken processed uploaded and then this
34:02
thing just it's it's like um I was talking to a friend of mine and he said
34:08
it very well it's um releasing this thing and also stepping
34:16
aside and making like just giving it freedom in a way
34:23
um is chopping off or ending the path of creativity of
34:31
humanity so the human being and the Brain in a way it's almost
34:38
tempted to go into the direction of less effort and to
34:43
go lazy to to just you know if something can do it for me I'm not gonna do it but
34:49
this is incredibly incredibly dangerous because here we're talking about
34:55
as a humanity and species the creativity will be taken away and we will only be
35:01
reprocessing information that exists so this surge of the soul and uh going
35:11
throughout the entire journey and arriving at certain point
35:16
even if it's not the best Etc this is a progression that
35:22
it gives feedback to our soul and to our society
35:27
and we talk about it and we just I think elevates us as a
35:32
as species and at the moment it's it's it's incredibly dangerous because something else will do it and we will
35:40
type words and all the skill will be taken away I mean it's also very very
35:46
very demotivating I guess for younger talents and people but
35:52
yeah it's a I think we should be
35:57
aware that the two is there but also creativity is meant for for humans
36:03
I I really will thank you for your answer and I thank you for taking this
36:10
kind of like position where it's not only about corporate but it's more about
36:16
kind of like basically human right to do art sort of in a way and um
36:24
I so I I was one of those people where I I didn't really follow my journey and
36:31
then suddenly I went to this group on Facebook somewhere and just started and they just started spitting
36:38
uh new images my way and I fulfilled like wow this is just this is this is just incredible there's like so many
36:44
different reasons like they did a lot of those where you take a movie and do it
36:49
in different styles so they do like aliens but it's anime or like they're doing Batman but in his samurai or
36:56
something and I feel like okay it's it's a fun it's kind of like a fun thing but then as I started seeing more and more
37:03
of it it I mean it let's face it it does look very much the same like you can
37:09
kind of tell it apart when when when it's not it might it might imitate the look of a
37:17
zbrush render let's say right but it's still you you're still gonna see it because it's just like the repetition
37:22
and details and even if my theory is like that even if we come to like better
37:28
algorithm they're gonna fix the you know six uh fingers or whatever and uh or all
37:35
those other things it's you will still be able to see that it's really that there's not no
37:41
person behind behind it so to speak to there's you're not really drawing you're
37:47
not really putting end in in an industry like film in an industry like games
37:54
it will never help you achieve Commercial Success because my
38:00
my thinking in general is that yes there's like a lot of like producing
38:06
and there's like a lot of commercialization there and people feel like they have this figured out but
38:13
there's just um the sheer amount of magic that is happening when you're doing a
38:19
movie when you're doing a game it's just you have to have people there to make
38:25
those decisions to kind of take this pencil and fix it right because without
38:30
that there's like a certain part that's missing that it just does not resonate it just doesn't resonate with with
38:37
people mm-hmm yeah I agree I mean I've been thinking a lot about it and uh
38:45
first of all I don't want to predict anything because the the way it progresses it's
38:51
incredibly fast right it's almost like Genie out of the the bottle when they
38:57
know what we're gonna do now but I'm not even so concerned about
39:02
I should be probably as many people are but my point of view is not only about oh it
39:10
will take jobs it's more about taking out a creativity in general
39:15
um it's more about the real what we call Art you know we we call Something art
39:22
because there is a message and a story and
39:28
certain exaggeration or not or a style and and someone uh behind it where
39:36
this thing is empty it's a collage of things and what is a little bit more of
39:41
a relieving is that in a way yes they look impressive Etc but
39:47
they look very similar so
39:52
these all that movie in certain like different
39:58
scenario or uh they look almost as a
40:03
retouched photograph so it's semi-realistic but it's not it's
40:10
of course lacking style what I think is very almost disgusting and super
40:16
disappointing that it's out there is that I saw even um I don't know which one of those was
40:22
but there was style and names of artists that you want your
40:28
um I was kind of like
40:34
that's a copyright infringement right there that's like that's that's totally not acceptable yeah this is not right to
40:44
to to to an extent where I'm you know I I don't know I don't want to be the judge of all this but we need to have uh
40:51
I was very happy to see actually the reaction of so many artists and so many artists leaving art station and
40:58
um again you know I think someone should say it but the respond of uh station was I mean
41:05
your your customers your your community let's
41:11
not call the customized but your community you're hosting all these artists and suddenly you turn blind
41:16
Blind Eye to all of them it was surprisingly slow responses surprisingly
41:23
um you know in in the quad inadequate uh
41:28
response and now I see they're taking actions but it's a bit too slow and so
41:33
many good names left uh you know I unsubscribed from like
41:39
yeah anyway I think people are still sorting it out but um I said the other day to one of my uh
41:47
one of our team members um because he's a bit more concerned
41:53
about the drawing side and what's going to happen and the design will be taken away from us Etc
42:00
um so I said like honestly if you if if we step aside and give too much space to
42:06
this uh more people will in a way you know we should not surrender and we
42:12
should not give up and what I mean by this is if your passion is to draw to sculpt to
42:19
do whatever creatively related to this keep doing it
42:24
because those people that are using Ai and they're having fun they will get very quickly bored it wasn't their thing
42:32
they're not they're not brought up to do that so
42:39
there was a massive boom of AI images now they are still out there of course
42:45
but it's a lot less my everything is like settling the dust is settling now
42:51
so we just need to keep doing what we're doing what we love because I can't not
42:56
do sculpture I can not think of hey this is great as a sculptural idea or you see
43:03
something you want to bring it to your scene or but the other person is gonna
43:09
have fun and after seven eight days or five weeks these things will just move
43:17
ahead with their life and I think it's not going to disappear of course but we
43:22
as artists we should just move forward and uh not get too worried just keep doing
43:29
what you're doing passionately yeah thank you I think this is a very good inspiring message on my end uh
43:36
I I want to say that this is a disruption right so this is like a A disruption of a process and these things
43:43
happen they happen all the time and to like a larger scale on a smaller scale
43:49
remember when Amazon launched Kindle like the when when they launched Kindle
43:56
uh you know Publishers like Harper Collins and everyone else they were thought like we're going out of business because it's like their their book was
44:04
cheaper than my book and I would never be able to compete but they're still
44:09
around and they're they're adopting both of those methods and uh they're doing very well and on the contrary like one
44:16
of the examples from the publishing world is that they say that the physical book
44:22
it works as advertising for the digital one so basically you see a book somebody
44:27
reading it on the you know on a Subway and then you look at the covering you Google it and you you buy it for you so
44:33
it's you cannot predict Maybe this will draw more people into learning
44:40
how to do art eventually I don't know so yeah we shouldn't be like super pessimistic on
44:46
overall and speaking about people uh wanting to Excel and learn art tell us a
44:52
little bit about your patreon how to get to kind of to learn
44:57
from you and maybe give some advice for people who want to kind of go into this field like where should they start
45:03
what should they listen to and how can they learn
45:08
um how can they learn they can learn by observing drawing exploring what's the
45:17
what's out there already uh meaning even like there's nothing nothing beats
45:23
nature in a way so studying nature and exploring
45:28
um the mechanism because behind a lot of things will help you no matter if you do an alien that you haven't seen you need
45:34
to know uh the anatomy and the mechanic underneath and what could be potentially
45:42
um happening underneath the skin and and everything else then you will learn more
45:47
and more and you'll talk about design etc etc so um I would say this um also there is
45:54
incredible amount and resources out there uh from YouTube to any other
46:00
course and I think very self-driven and of course uh
46:07
I don't want to advertise myself but I've recently as well made a patreon
46:13
page and uh yeah I mean I've been I've been mostly keeping it um related to anatomy and and sculpture
46:21
and uh character design and character character art mostly but also a little
46:28
more leaning to what I think my stronger side is and this is more more artistic
46:34
we talk about life about art about what makes sculpture sculpture and what makes
46:41
a good pose right for you know for a finished piece and how we mold and cast
46:48
and the anatomy um all that of course so if you want to
46:55
visit uh feel free to search in and go there but of course it's not only
47:02
about about me there are so many talents in our industry super super exciting so
47:08
just always be curious um compete but still don't forget that this
47:15
whole thing is Art related so we should have fun
47:20
what would you show her like what what's a good movie that you can use as a as a
47:26
conversion to uh for people who want to get into like animation in terms of like modern CGI
47:33
stuff something convincing then um why she should like it well
47:40
um probably the one that comes on top of my head is like films that definitely especially if
47:48
you want to convince someone why this is good Etc you shouldn't be leaning only
47:54
um on the visuals the storytelling for me it's very important so should be the
47:59
driving like basically the most important thing and the
48:05
complementary are the visuals where they shouldn't be too distracting or they
48:10
shouldn't take over so a good film that has plenty of visuals
48:16
of course but they are done incredibly well and also the story and the music and the entire atmosphere is probably
48:22
Interstellar um comes as a something that when I watched and and
48:29
then I I left the cinema you didn't think about the visuals you didn't think about
48:34
um anything else more than the story The the message and the really it was very
48:43
um impactful in a way so I felt I remember quite
48:48
insignificant where we are and what's happening with the time and so this is a good example of you know film done
48:56
incredibly well I think it was done by d-neck so they lean towards that
49:02
when I'm thinking about this question is like the one I like a lot is the the
49:07
recent Spider-Man like you remember the Spider-Man Multiverse or something how it's called where it had like this
49:15
amazing art style and I remember I took my wife actually to the to see that film and she was like really really impressed
49:22
and for me that film was was I didn't really understand how they had so much courage
49:29
to kind of create this movie where there was like so the the art style is so
49:36
different it's very comic-like and there's like when you knock there is like this pow uh moment on there and
49:42
everything that was like a very interesting one and uh but probably like the the love deaths
49:50
and robots is probably also an another big one I know it's like it's it's a very quirky
49:55
um kind of like more like heavy metal uh collection of uh films but I I still
50:02
really enjoyed it and I felt like it was again a very bold move kind of like in
50:07
that in that industry and Ron thank you so much for your time I think it was an
50:13
amazing conversation we touched on so many topics we will leave the links in the description to the video and you can
50:19
just Google uh Run's name and I'm sure it'll kind of come up thank you
50:24
all the best wishes good luck and I hope we'll talk sometime in the future
50:29
yes thank you so much for inviting me having me it was a great uh pleasure to
50:35
yeah sit down and chat thanks for enjoying another episode of the 80 level Roundtable podcast check out upcoming
50:43
episodes on the 80 level website at 80. LV join our career site at 80. LV RFP
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