Interview with Freelance 3D Generalist Andrey Oliver - Winner of FGT Art Campaign in May

The FGT Art Campaign is a monthly 3D challenge organized by Fox Renderfarm for our users to shine with their talents. In May, our friend Andrey Oliver's submission "Stylized Wednesday Addams" was chosen as the featured work of the month. Congratulations! As the industry's leading cloud rendering service provider and render farm, Fox Renderfarm has the honor to interview Andrey, so let's take a look at Andrey’s story and his winning entry.

Stylized Wednesday Addams © Andrey Oliver

Fox Renderfarm: Hi Andrey, thank you for your submission to our FGT Art program and congratulations on being selected as the featured artwork of May 2023. First of all, can you please introduce yourself?

Andrey: Hello, my name is Andrey Oliver. Thank you so much for the opportunity to participate and have my artwork featured in May in the FGT Art program! I am a self-taught artist and I currently hold a degree in Animation Design. I have been studying 3D art since I was 12 years old and have always been driven by curiosity and the challenges of the 3D art form.

Fox Renderfarm: How did you encounter CG and become a CG artist? Can you tell us a little bit about your career experience in the 3D industry?

Andrey: I have always enjoyed drawing. When I was 6 years old my mother showed me Paint and PowerPoint, where I made my first animation with stick figures. At the age of 12, my cousin introduced me to Blender for the first time, and since then, I have never stopped studying. In college, my friends and I created a short film called "BUG", which has received some awards at festivals. Today, I work as a freelance 3D generalist, specializing in character design and animation.

BUG © Andrey Oliver and his friends

Andrey Oliver’s portfolio page

Andrey Oliver’s FilmFreeway

Fox Renderfarm: Why did you choose to create "Stylized Wednesday Addams"? Are you a big fan of "The Addams Family"? And what were your references for this work?

Andrey: Yes, I really like "The Addams Family". After Netflix released the series "Wednesday," I got inspired to create 3D artwork. My goal was to make the overall design a blend of all the different versions of Wednesday, including the hair, clothes, and other elements, combined with my own artistic style.

Fox Renderfarm: Could you elaborate a bit on your workflow/pipeline of this work? And how long did it take you?

Andrey: For my workflow, I used ZBrush for character modeling, Marvelous Designer for creating clothes, Topogun 3 for retopology, Substance Painter for materials, and everything was brought together in Blender and rendered using Cycles Render. Since this project was quite heavy, rendering an 8K turnaround on my computer would have taken a long time. So, I used Fox Renderfarm, which took very little time to render all the frames, which I found incredible. This gave me more time to edit and color grade in DaVinci Resolve. In total, it took me around 4 weeks to complete this project.

© Andrey Oliver

© Andrey Oliver

© Andrey Oliver

© Andrey Oliver

© Andrey Oliver

© Andrey Oliver

© Andrey Oliver

Fox Renderfarm: Did you meet any difficulties during your creation? How did you tackle them?

Andrey: Yes, the biggest challenge was definitely grooming the braids. Since I wanted a design where the braids formed a hangman's noose shape, it was very difficult. I found some solutions on how to braid hair in a few YouTube videos, but they were from older versions of Blender, so I had to adapt and come up with solutions on my own.

Fox Renderfarm: How did you make the 3D hair grooming and the pigtails?

Andrey: To create the braids, I followed a tutorial by the artist Nazar Noschenko, who has incredible artwork. The logic was to create three guided curves in the direction of the braid and convert them into hair fibers using a plugin that unfortunately only runs on older versions of Blender. Since my design had a unique shape, I had to create three different braids: one starting from the head, another one just for the loop, and a spiral braid specifically for the knot of the loop. I had to create three braids for each side of the head. This was one of the most time-consuming and complex processes to accomplish.

© Andrey Oliver

© Andrey Oliver

Fox Renderfarm: Have you learned any new 3D techniques recently? How do you improve your professional skills?

Andrey: Yes, I have been studying cloth sewing to improve the designs I create in Marvelous Designer, and I'm also exploring new ways to create a more natural skin shader. For fashion, I use the books by Antonio Donnanno, "La tecnica dei modelli" vol. 1 and vol. 2. They are incredible because they present clothing cutting patterns, making the process of learning cuts much more intuitive. As for skin texturing, I watch tutorials and read forums, as well as try to figure things out on my own. Most of the time, if you experiment and test new node configurations, you end up with very good results.

© Andrey Oliver

Fox Renderfarm: Is there any artwork or artist that inspired you the most during your CG learning journey?

Andrey: Yes, there are three artists that I always draw inspiration from: Julen Urrutia, Gabriel Soares, and Rodrigo Paulicchi. All of these artists create simply incredible designs for their stylized 3D characters. Personally, I've only met Rodrigo Paulicchi; I attended a lecture he gave a few years ago at my college. These three artists inspire me because with each piece of art they create, there is something to learn just by looking at it, both in terms of character design and the aesthetic quality of the rendering.

© Julen Urrutia

© Gabriel Soares

© Rodrigo Paulicchi

Fox Renderfarm: Do you have any future plans for your 3D career?

Andrey: Yes, I have plans for the future. My main focus is to join a big studio, take part in incredible projects, continuously develop myself along the way, and explore different areas since 3D is so vast. Currently, I specialize in Character Design and hope to one day find an opportunity to work professionally in a good place. My biggest dream is to work at Disney!!

Fox Renderfarm: What do you think of the cloud rendering services of Fox Renderfarm?

Andrey: Amazing, seriously. For the first time, I was able to render my artwork with much better quality. Wednesday, for instance, has 8K textures and a large number of hair particles. It would be too heavy to render a turnaround of her on my computer. With your render farm, I managed to easily render several frames in 8K.

Fox Renderfarm: As a CG artist, do you have any advice for people who are still new to the CG industry?

Andrey: Absolutely! To be honest, even though I've been studying 3D for 10 years (I'm 22 now), I'm still relatively new to the industry. I recently graduated, and what I can say is, if you truly love this, be perseverant and patient. Always seek inspiration from art or artists you admire. Don't compare yourself to others; instead, use them to maintain your motivation. The beauty of art is its uniqueness for each individual. Evolve, build your portfolio, seek feedback, and never stop learning. Even when watching a movie, try to learn from it. The important thing is to keep going while respecting your limits.

Thanks again to Andrey for accepting our interview! We wish you to achieve your goals soon and reach new heights in your professional career!!