Could you introduce yourself?
I have some traditional art background (painting and drawing), and started as a CG artist 6 years ago. Back then I used 16 color PaintBrush for DOS and 3D Studio R2, but it was so much fun! I am originally from Russia, and moved to US a little more than a year and half ago.

What are your main inspirations for your artwork?
Almost everything - everyday life, books, music, people, interesting places... Somehow the impressions combine and mix in my head, and form a picture, and all have to do - to put it on a piece of paper, or canvas, or model a scene.

What's your favorite genre, theme?
I think, mostly portraying. Peoples faces are so interesting, so unique! Your thoughts, events in your life - they affect your face.  You can "read" a life story on old peoples' faces! I also love making landscapes, still lives, architecture. I'd say - everything except Sci-Fi, it's beyond my abilities.

What are your strong points?
Texturing and lighting, I suppose. At least, it is the most enjoyable part for me. I am aware that my scenes are over textured sometimes, I can't help it.

Tell us a little about "Memories of Alexander Green".
This image is a remake of my old painting. Alexander Green was a wonderful russian writer in the beginning of the century. His stories have such a special mood - a fine mixture of real world and mystery, soft surrealism and sadness for "things that might have been". It was not an illustration, I only tried to catch this mood.  I wanted to adjust it to the 3D style, so I had to remake the composition, add some more details - what worked well for painting, would not work for 3D. Honestly, the whole scene is a complete mess - the street is in a wrong angle to the girl and the buildings, you can see that the reflection of the car is wrong - the car "hangs" in the air. I only tried to keep the composition, and did not care about having a correctly built scene.

How did you model the face?
I did a very low poly model first (about 400 faces). Probably, because I have worked with low poly modeling for a while, I feel quite comfortable with it. I like to go from general look to details. Most of my models start as very simple spheres or boxes, and then goes adding and turning edges, welding vertices, etc. It is just easier to control the proportions when you do not have too many little details to worry about. The main thing is to make the head to have its own character when it is still at the low poly stage. Then I converted it to a patch grid, edited it until it was smooth, then converted it to a mesh again, and added some small details. Probably, not the fastest way to do things, but I prefer it to using MeshSmooth, because it does not change the general shape and proportions, and gives me more control on the curvature of different parts.

How did you texture it?
Simple planar mapping, only the diffuse map, and a little (3-4%) self-illumination. The diffuse map was a standard color scheme for a face ("yellow forehead, rose cheeks, green neck" :)), and was set on 50%, mixing with the color of the material itself. I tried to make a young face, which is pretty smooth, so I did not use a bump map for an ~500x600 image, just played a little with smoothing groups around eyes, nose and lips. Later, when I had to re-render it in a larger resolution for printing, I added a little bump for a fine skin texture.

How did you make the hair?
Patch grids. Since this scene was supposed to be viewed only from the camera, I cheated: applied the plain mapping again. Just rendered the model from the camera view, saved the image, and used it as a "template" to make three maps - diffuse, bump and opacity. I did it after reading Steven Hagg Stahlberg's wonderful tutorial.

What kind of lighting did you use in this scene?
I had 6 lights in this scene, all of them were target spots. One big filling front light (almost brown), one dim relatively cold back light, three warm and bright local lights, and a volumetric light from behind the tree, which softened the whole scene.

How do you decide the lighting of a scene that isn't so much a real world situation?
Lighting is lighting everywhere! Deciding how to place the light sources depends on the composition, where I want to drive the attention, and, besides, it is possible to find references in the real life for anything. There are some simple exercises to get the feel of how the lighting works. Say, just walking, try to pay attention to different lighting situations - what is the difference between the lighting in a bright, sunny day, or just before the sunset; or right after sunset, but before it gets completely dark. Or pick up, for example, an apple and try to understand what kinds of light sources affect it for this moment - direct light from the window, reflective light from the walls, light, that bounces from surrounding objects, how they mix together.

How do you achieve such a soft, glow like appearance?
Well, I do spend a lot of time arranging lighting. I never use gray or white default lights, set hotspots almost to minimum, play with attenuation settings and atmospheric effects, and always try to set as much environment as possible right in the beginning. I like to mix several light sources together -- 2-3 spots from almost the same direction, but in a little different angles and different colors. In some cases, I place two target spots close to each other, one of them is bright and casts shadows, and the
other does not, and is quite weak, but it softens the shadows without decreasing the contrast and adds some hue in the shadows. Ambient light could do it, but it makes the whole image less contrast and does not let to have different shadows density in different parts of a scene.  I use target spots more often than the other kinds of light sources, because, for me, it makes it easier to control the direction and dispersion of light. For the materials, I try to experiment with different layers of texture maps, opacity settings (that part with the extended parameters is my favorite), self illumination maps, which are often over-looked, but are very handy when I can't get a desirable result with only lighting.

How did you so effectively create the human figure?
There is not much of a figure - the head, the neck, the part of upper chest and only one arm, all are patch grids. But I made a 2d shape of the body (front and profile) - just to help me to keep the proportions and suggest the stature of an old person. The hand was made completely from patches. I made it in the default position first, applied the texture map, and then "bent" the fingers. It was convenient to use patches, because it let to adjust the density of the model on different stages of modeling.

How did you texture map the facial features with such accuracy?
Accuracy?! Oh, no. Back then I did not know how to use the Unwrap UVW modifier, and I did not have  much time to spent applying map coordinates to different groups of faces. Besides, the hood could hide most of the possible mess. I rendered the model of the head on the black background from the front view, saved the image, cropped it so that do not have extra background around the head, and painted over it. Made the diffuse map first, then desaturated, and made the bump maps - there was a composite map for bump, made of two images. One was for little wrinkles, which were not modeled and to emphasize deep wrinkles, and the second for the skin texture. The textures were pretty big. Then I used the planar mapping again. When you make the maps in such way, all you have to do is just hit the "Fit" button, and is matches perfectly. The trick is to have the texture rather blurry on the edges, then you do not get the stripes.

What are the maps you generally use for your facial textures?
Only diffuse and bump maps. I kept the shininess very low, so I did not need shin maps. I do love using shininess and specular maps for metal and wood surfaces, but never happened to use them for the facial textures.

Could you classify them by importance for you and explain your choice?
Well, it depends on what kind of surface you are making. For Matilda the bump map was definitely the most important. Maybe, I just love bump maps, they are my favorite. I just think: each surface has its bumping, just look around. Bump maps help to make a 3D model more "alive", plus they help to create more complex colors bringing variety of hues, which is difficult to make using only diffuse maps and colored lights.

How did you make the hair?
Matilda's face and hair are actually one object (the ears are separate objects, it just happened). Again, diffuse, bump and opacity maps. Those little gray hairs on the sides are simply sets of renderable splines.

Do you have any tips or techniques on how to maintain the traditional feel to your imagery?
Oh, no, it's probably just my favorite color schemes - I love warm lighting and different shades of yellow, brown, ochre, and I try not to use "raw" solid colors. Mostly, I've noticed, I use relatively close hues in a picture (say,  from ochre, red ochre to brown and red...), and then add one or two spots of a contrasting color (green, blue...). As to modeling, even if most of the shapes were started from primitives, later, while building a scene, it is very important to remember about such nice old things as rhythm, balance, contrast, movement.

What kind of lighting did you use in this scene?
I had 5 light sources. There was one back light (back/our right), two front/left lights (one was casting shadows, the other did not, and made the shadows look softer). It was an experiment, so all three of them are about the same color and value, but they mix with a very dense black fog. Besides them, there were two small target spots  for Matilda's face and the mask.

How did you model the mask?
When I was modeling it, I tried to make everything honestly. Again, from a low poly model, then with the patch grids, and then - back to mesh. So I made the front surface, then copied all the faces, flipped the normals, and built the faces between front and back surfaces  to get the thickness of papier-mache. The front and back sides have different materials. For the front side I used a blend material for different parts - paper-like, rather matte bumpy surface, and golden paint, with  specular and shininess maps. I was very proud with the result at that time.

Are you happy with the Venice photo you used in the window and the way it looks?
Not really happy, but I did not want to have an almost front view of another building through the windows, parallel to the window frames. And I liked the play
of bright and dark parts, the rhythm of the architectural details, so I decided: "ok, let's think - the canal twists here; this mask needs a nice view to look at".

How do you plan the lighting for your scenes?
It depends on a scene. Mostly, I use a main light source, a back light, and several local lights to emphasize some details. I usually leave the ambient light almost black. Sometimes I can have 20-30 lights in a scene, sometimes only 2-3. What I always do is - use the fog (even if it is very thin, it adds some "air"), and I set the fog at the same time as lights, so they work together.
 

What is your favorite images between these three?
Probably, Still life - I learned a lot making it. I love each picture while I am working on it, and usually hate them in a couple of weeks after they are done. I start to find more and more wrong things in them, and want to remake them completely.

Are these images left untouched, or do you process/enhance them after rendering?
Yes, I drew the steam on the train in Memories, and added a very transparent lighting effect in Picture Publisher to make the edges of the images a bit darker - it makes the picture look al little deeper. And I fixed an ugly seam under Matilda's brows.

Do you make the whole scenes in 3d or do you composite them?
I make the whole scene in 3d. Sometimes, while modeling, when the scene is too "heavy", I make some objects separately, and then merge them in the main scene. But I always set the lighting and atmospheric effects for the whole scene.

Could you classify these different points by importance in a scene to make it look good: modeling, texturing, lighting, composing?
I would say, composing_and_lighting/texturing_and_modeling. I never separate those things. Composition is most important to me: if the scene falls apart, how can I continue? Lighting is very important for the proper composition. Dark and bright areas, the rhythm of lights and shadows - they make the composition. Bad lighting may kill a perfectly modeled and arranged scene. For the stills, I always set the main light sources right after I have a rough model. It helps to understand what to do with the textures - what places need some work, and what places can be left almost plain. The same with modeling - where I need more details, and where a rough model might be enough. But probably, the main thing is the feel of a picture. I do not know how to explain it exactly - it's what catches your attention first when you look at a picture, what emotions it calls, the main reason why this picture was made... You know, sometimes you may see a picture, the lighting is right, the modeling is excellent, the composition seems correct, but the image itself looks dead... Here, I think, an artist is similar to an actor - if you do not feel what you are doing, it is really difficult to make a nice picture.

How much planing goes into a scene before you start working on it?
Mostly I start with a fast sketch, to catch an image in my head. Then, when I am building the scene, I need to draw more detailed sketches for some parts, try to find references in real life and in the books for some details.

How important are sketches, drawings, ... to your artworks?
Very important. When you are modeling a scene, there are always so many details to pay attention to, so many little things to fix - having a sketch helps me to keep the general idea, "a big picture".

Do you think traditional art skills are important to become a good 3d artist?
Obviously. It is just a different tool, you use software instead of brushes and paints, or clay... I think, if the goal is to create a picture, not just exercise in modeling/lighting/texturing - traditional art training is necessary. Somehow 3D pushes to pay more attention to technical stuff. Drawing, painting, looking at art, studying art history helps not to forget things, which are common for traditional media and CG.

Do you see yourself at the cutting edge of art developments or are you re-making an imagery and style of the past with the most expensive and difficult paintbrushes?
I never thought about that...To me, it does not make sense to repeat traditional painting styles in 3d. It is not possible to re-create the warmth of real paintings, remake the texture of canvas and paints (even with the most advanced after effects), all those half-transparent layers, play of brush movements. In the best case it will look like a print of a painting. On the other hand, 3d has so many advantages and offers so many things that are impossible for traditional painting! What I am trying to do is just make pictures and avoiding the plastic look.

What are the strong points of 3D Studio MAX?
For people who came from using 3d Studio, like myself, MAX is easy to learn, interactive, fast. It is multi-purpose, and you can create the same model using 10 different techniques and chose which one is more comfortable to you. I love MAX's material editor, and it tends to be greater and greater with each new version.

What do you think of the default scanline renderer?
Honestly - nothing. There is not much to do about it. If I do not like the result of rendering, I try to find workarounds.

Are there any artists at 3D Artists your particularly admire?
Yes, many. I love Timur Baysal's and Jeremy Engleman's works, they are geniuses. I admire Steve Burke's sense of color, I love Eni Oken's fantasy world.

What are you tired of seeing in other people's works?
I like to see original works. If somebody did a picture, he was trying to say something, took time to create a scene, was interested in something particular, and that's what I try to recognize in an image. If it is not perfect - well, we all are learning, are not we? What I dislike to see is remakes of stuff from Star Wars, Toy Story and Godzilla, even if they are nicely modeled and textured.

What will be your future plans?
It happened, that I've got my dream job at Cyan, and now I am completely happy where I am. Maybe, when I will get too old, and my eyes get tired, I'll go back to painting :).

Thanks.