As a world-leading cloud render farm, Fox Renderfarm, is always willing to support our CG community. As the Gold Sponsor for 3DAwards 2019, we are glad to hear that the 3DAwards this year was a massive success. 3DAwards is the largest and most prestigious awards event for the architectural visualization industry which attracts entries from top studios, freelancers and students around the world every year. Both the winners and nominees have been announced on CGarchitect’s website. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees!
Today, we are honored to talk with Mr. Carlos Costa Blanes, nominee for Student (Image) Category, who steps into the Archviz industry from a student of Archaeology. He tells us how he makes the shift and more about his nominated artwork.
- Carlos Costa Blanes
- 3D artist at Pictury Archviz (http://www.pictury.net/)
- From: Sevilla, Spain
- School: Nuevas Profesiones
Nominated Work
http://3dawards.cgarchitect.com/gallery/showcase/32972
Fox Renderfarm: Hi, Carlos, would you please give a brief introduction about yourself?
Carlos: Hello, my name is Carlos Costa Blanes and I am a 23 years old 3D artist based in Seville (Spain). I hold a BA in Archaeology though today I do nothing related to it, and afterwards I studied a two years’ 3D generalist course, ending up specializing in ArchViz through online self-learning.
Fox Renderfarm: How do you feel about being nominated in The CGarchitect Architectural 3D Awards?
Carlos: It is by far my biggest achievement. I am really happy and proud about it; I could not imagine a better way to start my professional career. It has definitely helped a lot.
Fox Renderfarm: What’s your inspiration for this amazing project? Why did you select this artwork to participate in the competition?
Carlos: I made the artwork with the idea of submitting it to the competition, so from the very start, I knew this would be the image. When looking for inspiration for a project, the amount of ideas and possibilities can be overwhelming. So, I decided I would restrict myself to the rainy/foggy mood.
While working on the project, I came up with the idea to draw a parallel between today’s modern architecture and native tents with those accentuated triangular shapes and added elements that refer to the jungle/forest ecosystem, like the flying parrots or the boats.
Fox Renderfarm: Could you introduce the light design and the composition of this project?
Carlos: The light in the 3ds Max file, it is simply based on an HDRi with no global volumen material as may seem. It is later in Photoshop where most of the tricks happen, using a colored ZDepth element for the overall fog and exposing certain parts of the sky in order to achieve the overall look of the image. It was important for me to have the colour palette defined from the very beginning, knowing I wanted to play with the orange-blue scheme as complementary colours.
Regarding the composition, I had the idea of a lake scene in order to enhance the reflections of the buildings. In order to avoid a flat image, I used some rocks on the foreground and mountains in the background. The buildings were simply located following the Rule of Thirds and I used three of them as I thought that would give the best visual result.
Fox Renderfarm: How long did it take you to finish the work?
Carlos: Probably between 20 and 25 hours in total, from the research for references until the post-production.
Fox Renderfarm: What software, renderers, plugins did you use in this work?
Carlos: I created the scene on 3ds Max and rendered it with Corona. The vegetation scattering was achieved using iToo Forest Pack.
Fox Renderfarm: What’s the most unforgettable and interesting part of the creation process?
Carlos: I really enjoyed and spent a lot of the time trying to achieve a fog that I was happy with, as well as playing with the colours until I got the exact tones I wanted for the scene. There are so many shades of blues and oranges so it took me some time to decide.
Fox Renderfarm: Did you meet any difficulties when creating this work? And how did you solve it?
Carlos: As I said, the main difficulties were the fog and deciding on the colours. I spent quite some time playing with different combinations.
Fox Renderfarm: How long have you been in the architectural visualization career? And how did you make the decision to step into this career?
Carlos: I have been actively self-learning about ArchViz since September 2018, so one year ago. Later that year, I contacted Pictury (www.pictury.net/) - a studio whose artwork I really liked and who were, luckily, based close to my hometown - and did an internship with them from February till June. After the internship, I started working with them professionally since July.
I made the decision to step into architectural visualization because I always enjoyed the process of shading and texturing. Besides this, I really like producing photorealistic images. As I like to experiment with photography in my free time, the photographic component of the industry also appealed to me.
Fox Renderfarm: Who or what project inspires you most in this industry?
Carlos: There are so many amazing artists out there; sometimes it can even be frustrating to look around on different profiles on Behance or Artstation, some people are so good. However, I feel like we should look for inspiration in other areas in order to create something original and not fall in trends.
Fox Renderfarm: As an outstanding architectural visualization artist, what do you think are the qualities that will make a great artist greater? And what do you do to enhance your professional skills?
Carlos: The thing I consider most important today, in order to keep up to date with the evolving industry, is to never stop being a self-learner. The technical component of this industry is quite complex and deadlines are demanding, so you really need to be up to date with the latest tools and technologies in order to reduce production times and focus more and more on the artistic side of it.
I think what makes the most differences between great and greater artists is the light and composition knowledge. There are more and more artists with outstanding technical skills, so I think it is the artistic side that makes the difference. I bought myself a camera just to learn photography and further develop my skills to produce CG images.
(Photos by Carlos Costa Blanes from Instagram @costablanes96)
Fox Renderfarm: What’s your next step?
Carlos: I want to learn as much as possible right now. I think the industry is changing because of the steadily developing procedural techniques, real-time render engines and AI learning, so my focus would be to study those techniques.
At some moment, I would probably also enjoy - I do not know when yet - to work abroad and who knows, to have my own studio at some point.
Fox Renderfarm: Have you ever used Fox Renderfarm cloud rendering services previously? If yes, how do you feel about it?
Carlos: Not yet since my professional career in ArchViz only just started. I have not had the need to use it as a student - I normally always met my deadlines! But I think being nominated for the awards is a great chance to try it.
Fox Renderfarm: Any other things you want to share with CG enthusiasts?
Carlos: Feel free to contact me on my different social media, I am happy to meet people in this same industry. And by the way, there is a hidden frog on the image. Can you spot it?
More Carlos Costa Blanes's artworks:
Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/carloscos96
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ccostablanes/ (3D Artist Account)
https://www.instagram.com/costablanes96/ (Photography Account)
Please stay tuned with Fox Renderfarm, more interviews of the winners and nominees for CGarhcitect Architectural 3DAwards 2019 and industry insights will be brought to you on our website and social media channels!
