Lux: Thanks for agreeing to share your time with us today. I am going to try and not say the word "make-up" for the next half hour. So, tell us, can you remember the very first time you interacted with a computer or came into contact with one directly?

RB: My first experience on a computer dates back to 18 years ago when we had a Mac computer in our office that was used for word processing and such. At the time, I was used to providing my clients with sketches or painted concepts using acetate over photos of the actors to show what they would look like with make-up, masks, whatever. You can see some of this work on the Thriller video I did with Michael Jackson. Sometimes my concepts looked quite a bit different from what I envisioned or eventually delivered. I wondered if the computer could be used as a better way of painting these designs. Someone in my studio said they thought so and told me about this software that they heard about called Photoshop. I went out and bought Photoshop 1.0 for that little Mac. I had never used a computer before a guy in my shop showed me the basics and I just sat down and tried to use it by myself. It was an instant love affair – I was able to freely make changes and variations without affecting earlier versions of my designs. I could re-use colors from the actor’s face...the whole process gave me a sense of freedom and a new way of doing my designs. I use Photoshop on a Mac to this day.

Lux: As computers made their way into visual effects, did you find yourself attracted to them or what was your take on them during say the 1990’s when a lot of the big advances were made in CG?

RB: My interest in sculpting and painting actually goes back to the time when I was just 10 years old. I later got heavily into making stop-motion animations with an 8mm camera. I did all sorts of stuff. As a teenager I was fortunate to know people like Ken Ralston and Dennis Muren who were incredibly creative and were using anything they could get their hands on to create interesting effects and animations. So I was exposed pretty early on to the notion of using different tools to create effects. In the 90's, I recall my reaction to seeing the great visual effects of the day was a combination of fascination and terror. I sensed that the power of workstations (at that time) could really affect certain aspects of what I was doing manually. I was excited to think about how this could add more tools to my bag of tricks, but also slightly nervous that it was something I did not know how to create on my own.

I even tried using some 3D software at the time and was frankly repelled by it. I do not have a real mathematical brain and whatever software I experimented with at the time left me cold. I was and am mainly into creating organic shapes and the early software I played with was too oriented towards engineering and CAD.

Lux: Let's fast forward to today, please share with us how you are using computers and how deeply this has become a creative outlet for you.

RB: I am now pretty heavily into computer graphics, though I mainly use 3D for well, fun. And it really is fun for me or I wouldn't bother. The first 3D software that I could really get excited about was ZBrush. A friend told me about it and I downloaded it.  I didn't even have a real Internet connection at the time and was just using dial-up!  Zbrush was different from anything I had ever seen and I used a tutorial to start getting into it. From there, I just got sort of addicted – I think because the sculpting metaphor was so familiar to me already. 

Lux: How did you happen to come across modo?  What was the first project you attempted?

RB: I remember that well. I was at SIGGRAPH '05 and a friend of mine at Disney told me I should check out modo. Right then we walked across the showfloor and got a demo from Brad Peebler. At the time, modo was just a modeler. I had been using the same base mesh for all of my work in ZBrush and had been dying to modify it. I was instantly attracted to how cleverly modo was set up. modo made it easy for me to change the topography of my base models and I really went deep into using the morph maps feature in modo for setting up animation poses that I would later take into Lightwave 3D. Later I begin to model from scratch in modo. Some of my earliest work was based on one of my all time favorite characters – Frankenstein. I don't plan on starting a 3D business, I just use it as a creative outlet--another way to express myself. When modo 201 was being developed I was so anxious to see the rendering and paint tools that I contacted Brad and asked to be part of the beta team.

Lux: You do a lot of the high detail work in ZBrush. Can you explain what combination of tools you are using at this moment in time for 3D?

RB: I basically use modo, ZBrush and of course, Photoshop. I think the first thing I rendered in modo was an image of my father looking skyward. I loved how incredibly easy it was to use sub-surface scattering in modo. I had tried that with another program and ended up in some interface where I was wiring up this to that and ironically losing connection to the art. modo was so much easier to do SSS. I ended up posting that image in the modo beta forum

Lux: How do you decide when to get an effect from a bump or displacement map in the rendering phase vs. actually sculpting it out?

RB: I actually use both techniques. I do not really have a plan a lot of the time. I sort of lose myself and just start going for it and seeing where the process takes me. I experiment a lot, trying this button and that. I have gotten some amazing effects applying the procedural shaders in modo as displacement maps. There is a lot of trial and error in what I do. But the great thing about computers is that I can do it with no fear. I can always go back to a previous step – if I can just figure out which version I liked. Sometimes I think I am done and go back a few days later and think "how did I miss that" and change things again. In the real world, paint gets dry and thus hard to blend, and clay gets hard.

Lux: What percent of your time on a given project is spent on concept development, base modeling, sculpting and getting the rendering to look right?  How long might it take to create something like your John The Baptist piece?

RB: Well, of course that depends. I spend a lot of time these days in modo actually. I have really gotten kind of swept up in it. My basic process is creating or modifying my model in modo, exporting to ZBrush as an OBJ file, then sculpting and painting in ZBrush. I then export color, displacement and bump maps to modo and then do the final rendering there. Often I put the finishing touches on in Photoshop. I sometimes start in the morning and end up working on my projects into the early hours of the next day.