Hi everyone! We continue series of short interviews with the best artists from Hum3D competitions.
Flavio Valenzi, author of the «We Got One», will answer six questions and give us a look behind the scenes of his work.
One Year ago with Simone Lai, one of my best friends, I co-founded Bleeding Pixels Games a video game indie company. The company is made of two, me as the one-man band for the art department, which includes 3D modeling, and my friend and partner in a business that covers with excellence the programming area and everything else.
I studied Digital and Virtual design, in Rome, and at Escape Studios, in London, which has given me great bases for 3D modeling and design. Thanks to the professionals that I have met on my path, and in every office I have been working, I refined my skills and gained experience working 9 years abroad, initially in Germany (retoucher/digital artist/modeler and art director) and later on in Japan (3d modeler). At the beginning of the Pandemic, I returned to Italy and I am based in Rome since then.
About the last challenge workflow, when I work in an office capacity I normally rely on a 2D concept first, but for this specific kind of project and because I can handle everything by myself the steps have been the following: having a list of important details I want to bring in the picture, modeling the base of the environment and staging the subject of the scene into it, working simultaneously on Maya and Octane render, I am constantly updating, refining and checking angles, lights, mood, and materials. Fast iterations aimed to refine every weakness I perceive from far and close to the model.
This workflow gives me a chance to explore the different feelings of the scene as an organic process, at the end I have collected screenshots and impressions so that I can decide which one will be the «hero shot» and the final mood.
The biggest challenge for me as a hard surface modeler when comes to automotive is creating a close-to-perfect low poly model, which allows me to increase the polycount keeping the car outline smooth and pleasant. I don’t rely on nurbs so the low poly model has to be extremely clean and balanced, sometimes is needed to start from scratch to avoid past mistakes in topology.
If I can I keep my portfolio updated with personal projects monthly. My favorite is the 3D modeling of the Character from «The Expanse» Camina Drummer.
Also here is a portrait inspired by «Nancy» from Stranger Things. After the modeling, shows my struggle with materials, look/mood and hair modeling until the end.
My sources of inspiration come from different topics: Space Exploration (NASA), Scifi Movies (Aliens), Tv Shows (Stranger Things — The Expanse), Manga cartoons (Akira), the ’80s (Ghostbusters — Terminator), great Painters and Artists (Vincent Van Gogh, Edward Hopper)
At the moment I am not active in any art community but I love to check here and there, beautiful works are always heartwarming for me.
— Find as many references to the subject as you can.
— Studying the silhouette key features of the item you want to model.
— Keep your model clean, with quad polygons.
— Take your time to make the UVmaps, important to have nice materials and textures.
— Always keep the love for what you’re modeling, the result will benefit from it.
Add a comment