The explorer © Yisus Castellon
Clay render © Yisus Castellonv
What’s the shape of Explorer in your mind?
Made with ZBrush, Photoshop and Keyshot, “The explorer”, created by Yisus Castellon, conveys the message of innocence and euphoria to discover new things. Let’s find out how he made the beautiful 3D artwork in the exclusive interview with the best cloud rendering service provider, Fox Renderfarm.
- Yisus Castellon
- Freelance Artist in 3D creatures and characters
- From: Mexico
- Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/yisus193
Fox Renderfarm: Hi Yisus, thank you so much for accepting our interview! Could you give us a brief introduction about yourself?
Yisus: Well I'm a happy husband and father, and freelance in 3D creatures and characters. I have worked for some indie titles as a conceptual artist and sculptor, I live in the beautiful city of Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico.
Fox Renderfarm: What’s your inspiration for this amazing work “The explorer”?
Yisus: For this art in particular my inspiration was my daughters, they are just 4 and 2 years old. Even the simplest things surprise them and their taste for knowing the world around them.
Fox Renderfarm: The character is realistic, could you introduce how you make the modeling and texturing?
Yisus: First I do a quick sketch in photoshop to define some character traits. When the sketch is finished, I continue with the blocking in ZBrush, I will define the main parts and from there I will increase the details in subdivisions. For this project I did the texturing from the ZBrush polypaint.
Fox Renderfarm: The coloring and lighting are perfect. How did you make them?
Yisus: I already had an idea of how I wanted the final art, so I took many references of night lighting, the whole environment is made from photos and overpainted, in the render of the character simulate the lighting that had already worked in the environment, to make a little easier the final composition.
Fox Renderfarm: Did you meet any difficulties when creating this work? And how did you solve it?
Yisus: I had them mainly in how I wanted to convey this message of innocence and euphoria to discover new things, it caused a bit of conflict in what pose the character had to do. Something that helped me a lot was seeing my oldest daughter surprised when she saw a butterfly. And that's where it all came from.
Fox Renderfarm: What’s your pipeline of 3D art?
Yisus: It depends a lot on the project, but something that I always use as a base is to make a sketch either in photoshop or in ZBrush. At first I was only dedicated to concept art, but some projects have required me to learn new things such as retopology (this is something that I keep learning) if it is the case of video games, or sculpture for collectibles.
Fox Renderfarm: Could you briefly tell us your educational and work experience along your CG journey?
Yisus: Taking it more seriously, I've been around for two years now, a big part of my education has been watching tutorials and practicing. And I've been professionally for just under a year. I've been working for some indie titles as a freelancer, and the latest project I'm working on is a board game that will include collectibles.
Fox Renderfarm: Any artists or artworks inspired you most?
Yisus: There are many artists around the world who inspire me. But the ones that I think have given me an example to follow and be the artist I want to be are:
1.- Soren Zaragoza
Cinematic_1 mood © Soren Zaragoza
2.- Limkuk
Muse of tragedy © Limkuk
3.- Edgar Gómez
Skeletor © Edgar Gómez
4.- Ancelmo Toledo
Croconel © Ancelmo Toledo
5.- Marco Lorenzana
Arte en Cuarentena...2 © Marco Lorenzana
6.- Daniel Bel
The Flash_Sideshow Collectibles Premium Format © Daniel Bel
Fox Renderfarm: The composition, lighting and coloring of your works are fantastic, how do you enhance your good sense?
Yisus: I see many references from other artists, lighting schemes, color palettes, textures, composition, all these help me to lay out the final image in my head and bring it to reality.
Fox Renderfarm: Any other things you want to share with the CG enthusiasts?
Yisus: Practice daily and always put quality before quantity.
