A Snappers 3D Artist Breakdown of Art

Antone Magdy is a 3D Character Artist at Snappers Tech who has worked on TV shows and AAA games. His high attention to detail and creative vision has combined to create some amazing works of art. He tells us his process for creating art, his tools of preference, and the secret to reach success as a 3D Character Artist.

Antone Magdy

Well I am not any different from a lot of artists out there. As a kid I always loved to play games and I watched way too many movies. I had no idea how all these things were made until I watched a TV program that talked about computer graphics. It was then that I knew that this was what I wanted to do with my life.

I’ve been doing this professionally I think for around 3 years (more or less). I worked on some TV series and AAA games, and did facial blend-shapes (this is my day job I work at snappers tech). I can’t talk about the client’s name or what we worked on yet, but hopefully I can soon.

Besides 3D art, I love to play soccer, read, and of course spend my money on video games.

Creative Process

I tend to surf the internet for inspiration and concept art until I find something that I really like, but I always try to find something new in every concept, something to learn, something I never tried, or even try a new program. The key to personal gross is having some sort of plan.

The Attention to Detail: Great References or Great Skills?

I think it is a little bit of everything, but above all it is about the time you give to your model, the time you give to observe the nature and your references, and then you implement that on your models – be it 100% realistic or in a more stylized way .

“Getting Too Old for This”

It all started when I was searching for some inspiration and saw a concept art by Jonathan Fletcher that I liked very much. At that time I wanted to learn Yeti and make a good piece in the process, so that seemed like a nice concept to do. I gathered a lot of references for everything: hair, details, shading, cigars, etc. Then I pushed the concept a little bit more to be as detailed as I had imagined it during the reference gathering step, and kept going until I was somehow happy and thought it was time to call this one finished and moved on to another piece.

Purpose for His Art

This might not look like the perfect answer, but I do art for me because I love what I do and I always see that when I really have fun with my art and enjoy it, other artists enjoy it as well. I like to experiment often when doing personal art, learn new stuff, and get out of my comfort zone. After all, this is how we evolve and become better.

Process for Creating Art from Start to Finish

It is a simple process actually. I find a concept I like, I collect references, then quickly block everything out to get a feel of how everything works together. Then I continue with the rest until I`am satisfied: retopo, detailing, etc. It’s a pretty simple process.

Tools of Preference

There are many solutions and tools but I think my preferred tool of all time is ZBrush. I feel free there, there’s no constraints. It’s just me and my imagination.

I am originally a 3ds Max user, but lately I been using Maya at work. For retopology I like to use TopoGun, xNormal to bake my maps, and for texturing I sometimes use Substance Designer, Photoshop, or DDO from Quixel Suite. I also used Yeti hair plugin for my last piece (Getting Too Old for This).

Importance of Colors

I think colors are very important, they make your art pop and helps to create the mood you want. If the image is colorful you get a happy feeling or if everything is dim you get a sad feeling. I tried to give that “I am old and I don’t care” look with the colors in “Getting Too Old for This” (hopefully I succeeded).

The Secret to Success Unveiled

I get a lot of “how do I do this?” or “how do I do that?” type of questions from artists around me. I will give you all the secret to success as it was presented to me by a good friend. It really helped me grow and I hope it can help you too.

The secret ingredient is… Practice, practice, practice… I said it three times because one time is not enough!

Antone Magdy, Character Artist, Snappers