Step into the captivating world of Mugen, a 28-year-old French freelance artist who has taken the 3D art scene by storm in less than a year. Since diving into the realm of 3D creation in August 2023, Mugen has been on an exhilarating journey, balancing professional work with an insatiable passion for 3D artistry. His dedication and talent recently culminated in a remarkable achievement - clinching first place in Kaizen's prestigious Sunrise Serenity Challenge, which is sponsored by Fox Renderfarm, a leading cloud rendering services provider and render farm in the industry, with his mesmerizing piece, “Distant Heights”. This masterpiece beautifully captures two figures basking in the tranquil aura of a distant landscape, perfectly embodying the challenge's theme.
Join us as we explore the rapid ascent of this rising star, uncover the inspiration behind his award-winning work, and gain insight into how Mugen is reshaping the 3D art landscape with his fresh perspective and boundless creativity.
Fox Renderfarm: Hi, Mugen! Thank you so much for accepting our interview! Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Mugen: My name is Mugen. I'm a 28-year-old freelance French artist. I've been digging into 3D since August 2023, it's been quite a thrilling journey so far, doing that in my free time, trying to mix it between my work and improving on 3D as much as possible!
Fox Renderfarm: It's fantastic to see your work recognized as first place in Kaizen’s Sunrise Serenity Challenge! How does it feel to be celebrated for your achievements?
Mugen: It really felt amazing, it was the first time I was actually participating in such community challenges, I never had enough time before nor the confidence to participate in such projects. It actually gave me a huge mental boost regarding my work and the quality of it, I'm still quite fresh new in 3D and I didn't think I could actually win something right away!
Fox Renderfarm: Could you give us a brief overview of the project that won you the community winner title in Kaizen’s Sunrise Serenity Challenge?
Mugen: "Distant Heights" was really interesting to work on, it's also one of the very first render I made in a 16:9 ratio! To describe it really fast, it's a calm and peaceful scene of two characters admiring a "Distant Height". I tried my best to match the theme of "Sunrise Serenity" and I'm really glad people actually enjoyed it that much.
Fox Renderfarm: What was the initial spark or idea that led to the creation of "Distant Heights"? Can you walk us through your thought process?
Mugen: Well, I had multiple iterations of that piece before coming to something I liked, tho I knew from the start I wanted something similar as this, I really enjoy creating scenes with giant rock formations, and it's something I would really like to improve on, making more and more complex scenes with more and more interesting rock shapes. So yeah, I knew that kind of scene would perfectly match the theme and I had that idea weeks prior actually making this render!
Fox Renderfarm: How did your creative process for "Distant Heights" differ from your other works? Do you have a standard working pipeline?
Mugen: "Distant Heights" realization doesn't really change from my other pieces and my current workflow, I've been grabbing and learning around a lot of big artists, buying courses, and learning along the way, picking the parts that I like to make my very own workflow I guess?
At first, I knew, the rock formation would be one of the most important parts; so I started with this, building a lot of rock formations that could be interesting to the eye, I knew I wanted some kind of "sharp/tall/impossible to climb/non-realistic" rocks, so I have a bunch of rocks that I sculpted myself in ZBrush and also some rocks that I bought and I just mix it together, scaling it up or down and after working on a material, a really simple one, but it does the job.
After I mostly work on the midground, background; placing all the trees, the grass, letting the light pass in between to hit where my characters would be. I place my character, trying to find an interesting yet calm pose, and at last, I always work on the very foreground and place final details (butterflies, birds, etc).
Fox Renderfarm: Could you elaborate on the specific artistic techniques and tools you used to achieve the intricate details and lighting effects in "Distant Heights"?
Mugen: Well, my process concerning tools and techniques is pretty simple, I don't use many addons, the only one I use for my nature scattering is called "Secret Paint" from -Orencloud, I've been using that addon since it got released a few months ago, and for me, it was a game changer, it's in my opinion way easier to use than Gscatter or other nature scattering addons.
Regarding the light, I am only using a sun, I use a sun with a simple node setting, that I've learned watching some really interesting videos, it's called blackbody node, and I set the emissive value of my sun to around 12 and the blackbody node allow me to set up the sun "warmth" or more likely, "what time is it in my scene".
I just follow this chart and I pick up whatever value I want knowing that it will be set right and correctly from the start, I then, don't have to pay attention to know if my lights look right I can just focus on the scene itself and just tweak the angle of my sun for it to hit perfectly where I want (so far "Distant Heights", I picked a value between 4500k to 3500k).
© Mugen
Fox Renderfarm: What was the most challenging aspect of creating "Distant Heights", and how did you overcome it?
Mugen: Funny enough the workflow was pretty simple. I did not have a lot of struggle working on that piece, everything just came together and just sorta "clicked" if I had to point something, the only part I spent a lot of time thinking about and trying out was the sky, it's just an image, scaled out and put far in the background, but I struggled a lot with it, finding the right colors, the appropriate scaling, and eventually at some point I found the perfect match!
Fox Renderfarm: Are there specific natural elements or artists that consistently inspire your work? How do these influences manifest in your creations?
Mugen: Well I, of course, have to say huge thanks to a few creators, who just literally taught me everything I know, I started in August following the Max Hay course, this man is such an inspiration for me, he did countless work that I inspired from, even the last piece I just released on my Instagram is heavily inspired from one of his works, the other courses that I followed were from the Sweeper3D, I learned a lot, about Nature environment following his courses and I have to say, if "Distant Heights" looks that nice, it's mostly because of these two 3D Artists.
Riders of Doom © Kuldar Leement
There is another artist that I always inspired me, and I would like to mention him here, named ‘Kuldar Leement’, his pieces are just mind-blowing and such an inspiration for again, a lot of my pieces, when I lack inspiration, I just go back and check his pieces.
Fox Renderfarm: Can you describe a particularly memorable moment or breakthrough in the project's development?
Wip © Mugen
Mugen: Well the memorable moment working on this piece was when I just started to see the potential of it, after making the block out, I knew that this has potential and I think I just worked on it for like 10 hours straight. I was pretty satisfied and knew I could do something with it. I also really loved rendering the animated version of it for Instagram, it turned out pretty nicely!
Fox Renderfarm: Are there any particular scenes in your work that you are particularly proud of or that viewers might overlook at first glance?
Rise © Mugen
Mugen: Well there is one scene that I worked on for like a few weeks, it's called 𝑅𝑖𝑠𝑒 and it's the biggest personal project I've done so far. It's a 40-second animated render, and I'm really proud of it. I've been working really hard on it, trying to sync the sound with the visuals and it was quite a thrilling personal challenge, for me and my PC!
Fox Renderfarm: Could you share your experience using Fox Renderfarm's cloud rendering services for your projects? In what specific ways has Fox Renderfarm helped you with your projects? Have you found it to be useful and has it saved you significant time?
Mugen: I used Fox Renderfarm a LOT before I had my current setup, I was using Fox Renderfarm to render almost all my animations, and also when some projects were just too big to handle for my old 2070super. It was pretty useful, saving me a lot of time. I have to say I struggled a lot at first to set up the right settings in your render farm, but once you managed to make it match your blender version and all, it's really simple to use.
Fox Renderfarm: Are there any other projects that you are currently working on that you would like to share with us?
Mugen: I try to make a few renders per week, sadly this month I just don't have much time at all, I've been utterly busy at work and I don't really have much free time for myself.
Though I have a big project, that is in the pipeline, I would like to make a short animated movie, around 5 to 10 minutes, though I don't have any pictures or stuff that I can show you and I still lack critical skill issues concerning animations, animating characters, it's for me, really hard, and I'm currently learning as much as I can! Also having a website under construction that should come out in a few weeks!
Fox Renderfarm: Lastly, in your opinion, how can new artists develop their unique voice and style in a world with so much existing art? Do you have any advice for the new joiners in this field?
Mugen: Concerning new artists, the only thing I could say, being new to it myself (in 3D) I would say, 1. never give up, 2. Always try to improve, those are the main keys for me; I'm rarely satisfied with my work, and I think this means I'm always trying to improve.
You should at first do it for yourself, I have a lot of messages asking me if you can make money or live out of 3D art, and I think that shouldn't be your first concern, you should make art that you like, that makes you happy, rather than focusing on the money aspect first, we're so lucky blender is free, it's literally free to express yourself in 3D and we should be grateful for that, a lot of medium in the art are really expensive and I see a lot of 3D artists that are also giving up on AI and I think that's irrelevant if what you want is to express yourself. Don't be scared of the first steps in a scene or an empty scene, it will come out good, eventually!
Thanks again to Mugen for accepting our interview! Wishing new heights in you and your team’s professional career!!
Mugen’s social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mugendoesart/
