Featured Artist

Jesus Alvarez

Location:

Madrid, Spain

Occupation:

3D animator / Visual Effects / Creative

Specialty:

3D animator / Visual Effects

Please tell us about yourself, where you are from, and how you got started in visual effects.

I'm from Madrid, Spain. I graduated in Fine Art, so that I'm comfortable drawing, painting and creating images. I found 3D animation to be a great tool for making art. After all movies are called the seventh art, right?

You come from a fine arts background, when/how did you make the transition to 3D?

Well, just a year after I graduated in Fine Art I did a Master in Animation 3D/2D. At that point of time (1993) the 3D world started to move quickly with the release of ALIAS. I found it to be an amazing tool to create art and imagery.

Who and/or what are you inspired by?

I'm inspired by nearly everything in the visual effects world. I love seeing the depth and breadth of talent out there.

Whose work do you admire?

I admire all visual effects where I see dedication and creativity.

Which piece of art in your portfolio are you most proud of and why?

The work on the movie "The Devil's backbone". It was a great challenge. One of the main characters is a dead boy, where every single shot required a 3D skeleton, a swarm of particles, and a bleeding gash in his head.

Could you take us through your creative process when starting a new project?

I consider myself as a Generalist, so that I often take on a project from scratch, and that allows me to follow the whole process, from brainstorming, drawing story-boards, modeling, texturing, lighting, animation and rendering/compositing.

What programs and hardware do you currently work with? And, why do you choose to work with these software packages?

There are many programs to work with in the profession among others: Maya, Photoshop, Boujou, Combustion, RealFlow, Elastic Reality and so on. Each one provides me with a particular tool.

What’s next for you? Are there any new projects on the horizon?

I'm always eager to get involved in new and challenging projects. Lately I'm working in Ads and TV commercials.