3D Art Direct | Promotion of 3D Digital Artists in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Genres with the 3D Art Direct Magazine

3D Art Direct Magazine Issue 17 – Digital Art Collaborations

By Paul on May 12, 2012 in Magazine

Creating digital art, although rewarding, can be a solitary experience – it’s just you and your workstation . All those hours can be burned away and you may have your next masterpiece ready to upload, but there hasn’t been another human soul in the process.

So what about collaborating with another artist on a project? This offers the advantage of bringing together additional strengths to a creation. For example, one artist may be excellent with landscapes or starscapes, another may have good experience with Poser figures – so combining this example of skills could really generate something eye-catching.

For issue 17, my assistant editor Mickey Mills spotted an excellent collaborative project entitled “ExtraSolar” by Björn Malmberg and Ryan Malone and a great interview ensued. Initially the partnership was to just last with one image, but they soon recognized a lot more scenes and stories could be created under the umbrella of “ExtraSolar”, the project was named by Björn.… Read the rest

The Digital Artist’s Complete History of DAZ 3D’s Victoria 5 – The Most Popular Model Figure Ever

By Paul on May 4, 2012 in Model Resources

Virtual Victoria Keeps Turning Heads

Most 3D digital artists encounter the Victoria 3D figure developed by DAZ 3D early on in their careers. It is often a landmark moment when artists realize the capabilities of 3D art, when being able to introduce dynamic human figures into a scene, that gives an image so much more impact.

The life-likeness of human figures in 3D graphics was a thorny issue in the beginning. A human figure doesn’t bode well for limited processing power and pixels—too many complex joints, curves and blemishes to deal with. However with the advent of Poser, the first kernel of it developed by Larry Weinberg in the late 80s, a digital manikin maker was suddenly available for the amateur artist. It added a great element of fun into imaging—especially with all the clothing and scene props you could integrate with a figure. Nowadays, Victoria offers thousands of add on (DAZ 3D quotes 10,0000) clothing and props items.… Read the rest

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3D Art Direct Podcast Session 1 : Introduction to 3D Art Direct magazine and tribute to Ralph McQuarrie

By Paul on April 29, 2012 in Podcast

It’s here! The first session of the 3D Art Direct Podcast!

You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Additionally, I will be submitting the podcast feed to iTunes soon, so you can subscribe there as well – but I’ll let you know when it’s up and ready to go.

Right click here to download the MP3

Summary

In this session we introduce 3D Art Direct’s mission statement to help and inspire 3D digital artists. There’s a brief introduction about me, Paul Bussey, the editor of 3D Art Direct magazine, and I promote four artists published in issue 16 of our magazine; Tarik Keskin, Neil Thacker, DeeDee Davies and Les Garner from Sixus1 Media.

There’s also a tribute to Ralph McQuarrie who inspired many a digital artist. We paint a potted history of his involvement with George Lucas and Star Wars in his influence on the eventual box office success of this movie and its sequels.… Read the rest

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Discover Digital Worlds of Stunning Scenery created by Alexander Nikolaev

By Paul on April 24, 2012 in Interview, Magazine

Alexander Nikolaev is all the way from Krasno-yarsk, Siberia in Russia. He is a self confessed science-fiction enthusiast and this fervour is reflected in the high quality of his digital art created with Pandromeda’s Mojoworld. He speaks about how he became involved with 3D digital art and talks us through some of the making of his portfolio. The following interview is taken from Issue 3 of 3D Art Direct.

To get a free Mojoworld Viewer or 30 day demo of the full Mojoworld product, then you can download them from the original Pandromeda website

3DAD: Tell me about yourself. Where are you from? What is your profession?
AN: My name is Alexander Nikolaev. I’m 36 yrs of age. I live with my wife Natalia in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk in Russia. My profession is designer. My hobbies include computer games, 3D graphics arts, new age/electronic music and marine aquariums, the latter being part of my profession.

… Read the rest

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3D Art Direct is now back! Get the Latest 3D Art Direct on-line Magazine for FREE

By Paul on April 15, 2012 in Magazine

Earlier this year the 3D Art Direct website was closed, the decision to do this wasn’t easy to make, and at the time a number of factors had to have me stop work on the magazine and website. The WordPress site also became hacked and infected, so I certainly didn’t want any of our readers to get bitten by this problem.

Now though I’ve decided to bring back the magazine and add a good amount of security to the website, including a service that now scans for malware every few hours. As you’ve noticed, I’ve changed the format of the site – so I’m really hoping that you’ll find it easier to read, browse and navigate. I’d love to get your feedback on the new appearance.

As you can see at the moment, I’m still fixing previous posts and restoring some of the associated post images.

If you have a website I would very much recommend the services at sucuri.net who will clean malware from your site and then continuously scan for more infections at a very competitive annual fee. They are a very responsive service and some of their last work was done for me over the recent Easter holidays, when I certainly wasn’t expecting them to reply.… Read the rest

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FREE Content Friday : Interview with Fabrice Delage

By Paul on December 30, 2011 in Free Content Friday

Fabrice Delage is known for his persistant objective in trying to gain photo realistic character portraits from using Poser, Vue and Photoshop. We originally interviewed Fabrice in issue 3 back in September 2010 and included some of his best work from his portfolio at the time alongside the interview. We’ve reproduced the article in full here for you to learn a little more about Fabrice and his portfolio.
Let us know what your favourite image is from Fabrice’s portfolio and let us know of other artists that you think manage to obtain photo realism with their images. You can check Fabrice’s current gallery at Renderosity.

3DAD: How long have you been involved with digital art? What were the beginnings?
FD: I started with 3D seven years ago. I already used 2D at work and since I love doing portraits, I wanted to create my own images. The idea of using 3D for portraits came quite naturally.

… Read the rest

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3D Art Direct Magazine Issue 15

By MickeyM on December 11, 2011 in Magazine

Issue 15 Now Published!

Click the above cover image to read.

Editorial:

What makes good sci-fi cover art?

Tribute: Peter Elson

His stunning sci-fi cover art was an illustrative benchmark in the 70s and 80s.

Interview: Chris Hecker

“The creative process is always ‘work’ for me. It’s a certain kind of work. It’s rewarding.

Christmas Galleries

Melissa Krauss, Artur Rosa, and Arthur Dorety comment on their Christmas Gallery entires and reveal their inspirations.

Interview: Susanne Korff-Knoblauch

“Most of the women I portray are the heroes in my stories or my original characters from the games I’m playing…these women often are mages or adventurers and actually live a life not for the faint of heart.”… Read the rest

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Exclusive Tribute to Peter Elson – a Master Sci-fi and Fantasy Illustrator

By Paul on December 2, 2011 in Interview, Magazine

If you’ve been an avid reader of science fiction books during the seventies, eighties and nineties- then you would have noticed some of the book cover illustrations graced with the initials “PE”, standing for Peter Elson, who was one of the most talented in his field.
Peter’s illustrations took off after winning a competition for “Science Fiction Monthly”, with his illustration of “Fantastic Planet” published in the December 1975 edition. His career was helped with the Sarah Brown agency, headed by Carol Butfoy who marketed the talents of a number of science fiction illustrators.
We speak to Carol Butfoy as well as Peter’s sister Pam about Peter’s life and career as an artist, who has in turn inspired many sci-fi digital artists of today. The full interview will be published in the premium fifteenth edition of 3D Art Direct Magazine, to be published in the next few days.

3DAD : What are some of the techniques in the creative process that Peter used that you can bring to light?

… Read the rest

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Watch Video Portfolio of Danny Gordon’s Mojoworld and Terragen fantasy landscapes.

By Paul on November 17, 2011 in YouTube Portfolio

Danny Gordon grew up in New Jersey, in the U.S. He’s a computer draftsman by trade which has naturally led him to 3D digital landscape art. In his video portfolio we include quotes from our interview with him from issue 3.

Check out his video portfolio and if you’v eenjoyed it, please “like” the video at youtube.com/3dartdirect… Read the rest

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FREE Content Friday – Interview with Poser Pro Digital Artist Melissa Krauss

By Paul on November 11, 2011 in Free Content Friday

It’s time again for FREE CONTENT FRIDAY and we are pleased to publish a full interview we’ve had with Melissa Krauss who has been involved with the internet from the beginning. Her specialty has been creating artwork that features well defined and striking female characters. Her artwork influences include text based role-playing games and the natural environment of the forest.

After you’ve read the interview, let us know how you liked it and please share this interview with others using the social media share buttons at the end of the article

3DAD: You’ve mentioned in your last post on Deviant Art that you’ve been on-line since the Beginning of the internet! Did you start posting your digital art very early on in the internet’s history?

No, I did not, I was busy with writing and bulletin boards (now known as forums). Digital artwork was not even in the picture for me at that time.

… Read the rest

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