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Lux: We enjoyed seeing your pictures of sharks and other fishes posted in the modo forum, can you tell us a little about this project, e.g. who it was done for, how long it took, your role, etc.?
 BC: The project was commissioned by Weldon Owen Australia which is a design group that creates books and sells them to publishers. I believe this one was published by a number of companies in different parts of the world. I'm one of a team of about 5 artists that worked on it, some of them work in 3d some in 2D. The whole project lasted about 6 months but much of that time is waiting for feedback on different stages of the artwork either from designers at Weldon Owen or from the biologists that are used as consultants. Great care is taken that the illustrations are scientifically accurate. I would guess I spent between one and two weeks actually working on each illustration.
Lux: The images have a very clean and fresh look, was that something you came up with or were you responding to the requirements of the art director?
BC: A bit of both I think. The client requested a strong yet sophisticated palette and there’s always a requirement to show a number of features, it might be showing the type of scales or claspers or teeth. That means I have to keep quite a clean look and can rarely go too far with dramatic lighting or atmospherics. I think I have my own look though, however photorealistic I try to be my work always has a slightly painterly effect.
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Lux: Did they provide you with reference photos? How did you get the material needed for working up these models and images?
BC: Yes, the client usually provides some reference which I supplement from my library and the internet.
Lux: Tell us something about sharks that you learned from working so closely on the modeling and rendering…
BC:I think learning something about the bizarre prehistoric sharks fascinated me most, there”s some seriously freaky looking fish! Like Helicoprion which had a huge whorl of teeth arranged something like a circular saw! Stethacanthus was another oddity with a structure like a giant golf tee covered in spines on its head! I can't imagine what use these features were but they certainly make for interesting modelling!
Lux: How much work did you do in Photoshop?
BC: There’s a fair bit of Photoshop in most of the illustrations. I tend to render out most of the elements separately and composite them in Photoshop. Because these illustrations take up a full double page all the type has to be laid over the top. Much of the time I have to alter the illustration to fit round the text so having all the elements on separate layers in Photoshop makes it much easier to change the arrangement. I also usually add fog and depth of field in post, it’s faster and it allows me more flexibility. I often render out the background with a depth channel. I’ll duplicate the background and add depth of field to the top layer. By adjusting the opacity of the top layer I can change the amount of blurring on the fly so if the art director wants more or less blurring I can change it very easily. I’ll add particle effects in post too, so in an image like the blue shark with the squid, the shark is one layer, the squid are on four or five layers, the light surface area in the background is another layer and the black background is another. I added layers of fog and plankton between the layers to give a feeling of depth.
Lux: Which version of modo did you use and did you do any sculpting?
BC: This project was done entirely in 203 from what I remember, 301 came out just after so no modo sculpting. There is a little ZB here and there but not that much. The project I’ve just finished, which is part of the same series of books uses a lot of sculpting though, some modo, some ZBrush.
Lux: How long would you say it would take you now to model a new species of shark and would you start from an existing model or just built it from scratch?
BC: I’m terrible at keeping track of my time when working but I think the more complex models like the whaleshark probably took around a day then maybe another 1-2 days to UV and texture them. When I started the project I figured I could build a few base meshes and base all the sharks around them but in practice it didn’t really save much time. Fins have to be moved and so do gills which are the most complex part so I found that the base mesh that I could really reuse wasn’t much more than a cylinder! I did reuse a basic mesh for the typical shark shaped sharks though, things like the bronze whaler, oceanic whitetip etc.
Lux: How long have you been working with 3D software and what was your first 3D software?
BC: I started using computers in 2001 and got into Photoshop about a year later. 3D came a year or so after that I think so it would have been some time in 2003. I fooled around briefly with demos of Bryce and Poser but never really created anything in them. The app that got me hooked on 3D was Wings3d, I loved that app and still think it’s a really great modeller. It doesn’t work well with a tablet though so I don’t use it any more.
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Lux: Have taken advantage of any of the tutorials that Luxology and others have posted?
BC: Yup, I grabbed Andys C9 tutorial as soon as it came out, it was a big help in getting to grips with spline modelling.
Lux: What is your favorite thing about modo?
BC: That’s difficult there’s so much I love about modo, I love modelling in it and the UV tools are the best I’ve used, it’s still a little unstable when UV mapping though. I think my favorite aspect is the whole materials lighting and rendering system. It’s so quick and easy to get good results, I don’t have to spend hours tweaking lights and surfaces. Mostly I’ll turn on GI set up an environment and a directional light and I’m already close to my final result. I love the SSS too, fast and easy like everything else in modo. I add a touch of SSS to nearly every organic surface. Coupled with an incidence-based gradient in the diffuse amount channel it makes organic surfaces much more believable.
Lux: Thank you for your time and insight.
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