Written by Benoît Saint-Moulin
Date : 2007-04-29 16:44:00

         

Here is an interview of the famous CG artist Luis Gomez Guzman. Luis was awarded with CAT toolkit contest and ballistic publishing Elemental illustration. Recently Luis released a CG short film called "Garto" a very nice Lizard story :-) 

Hello Luis, first, few words about your background and how are you coming into CG world ? Hi, I started to work on CG about ten years ago, first as a modeler at REMinfografica, after three years I had a job as animator in other company. After this jobs, all of them in Madrid (Spain) I went to UK to work there as a 3D artist for game company, building scenes, ligthing, etc.. What's you cursus ? Most of my learning come from selftrained (home work and experimentation), working in a company will speed up your skills. What's you current job and what's your most favorites past jobs ? Now I´m developing my next short-film, this time focusing on the story. My favorite one?... animation I think... when things come to life.. that´s amazing ! If I'm right you was winner of CAT animation contest 2004 ? Can you speak a bit about this animation and the process to created it ? Yes you are right, I did that animation playing around with CAT. Now I use my own riggs. The proces was simple, I wanted to bring to life a small and funny character, I used to animate but I wanted to learn more, when I was working in UK I had many animators around me so I started to ask them how to do things right. My animation skills were a bit poor those days. In the same year (2004) you was on Elemental with the illustration 'Somewhere on a Mountain' ! As we all know, Elemental from Ballistic Publishing is the best pictures done with Autodesk Products, can you first explain a bit do you builded this illustration ? I really like to get a model and them make an animation out of it. I got a coat .. and them I made an animation... then I decide to get a few snapshoots of it and I used to create that scene. In those days I was working on lighting for console games.. so I decided to practice modelling, animation and ligthing... and I put everything together. You're probably an Autodesk products fan :-) ? Yes I´m a Autodesk fan, I been using it from the beginning ! Recently we can watch Garto, a very nice and friendly lizard, why doing a short with a lizard ? Well, I had that lizard from CAT competition... so I decided to use it for a short-movie... I think it have great appeal ! (Edit : yes this Lizard is so cool :-) ) Garto animation is great, what's technic do you use to achieve it ? First I did a blocking.. main poses and them polishing, asking friends what they think, polishing, asking friends what they think, polishing, asking friends what they think... Listen what other people say about your work, but be smart, you have to filter their comments. From the idea / storyboarding to final rendering, how much time do you spended on Garto ? Around three months to get the idea, style, color scheme, modelling... them few months to finishing animation and one month to render it a post-production. This was my first project, was hard to achive, I had to learn things from zero (cg forums save my life!) After Garto have you somes new idea who is comming in your mind ? Yup, I´m developing a new one, but this time need money to achieve it, for Garto I used mine. Anyone interested? How do you think CG market is evolving from the last years ? don't you think 3D market getting an important turn with all big company's buying others technologies ? That is business!... I´m traying to focus on art :) Few words for TDT3D users who are going into CG market and 3D Animation in europe ? Try to develop yourself as an artist, that the goal. CG in Europe is growing fast, a good first step is starting in a game company ( europe is full of them ).. after that will be easy to jump to film production, cg-adverts, etc... Are you available on CG market for now ? Yes I´m available. I can work as remote freelancer, please contact me. Your last words ? I did Garto all alone, I wanted to pass over every aspect of film creation... it is fun ! try it. Internet links : ° Here is Luis's web site ° Garto short film's web site ° Elemental Luis's illustration page

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