Building 3d Concept Art

We talked to a self taught 2D and 3D concept artist Gilberto “Soren” Zaragoza from México about his work and favourite tools. He gave us some tips on how to maximize your work and achieve the desired results.

Introduction

My name is Gilberto “Soren” Zaragoza, I’m from Jalisco, México. I’m a self taught 2D and 3D concept artist and I’ve been working as a professional for videogames, animation industry and collectibles for three and a half years.

I started as a colorist at Metacube Technology and Entertainment. Then I begun working with different departments on many different projects like graphic novels, concept art, storyboarding, matte painting, modeling and texturing for advertising and animated films for almost a year. After that I became freelancer for personal galleries and some indie games. Then I had a chance to work for Disney Publishing, Shattered Image Films, Televisa, Factor 3,Wargaming, Warner Brothers, Namco Bandaí and some other companies.

Creating Characters

What I’ve learnt across the years I’ve been working as a conceptual character designer is:

• always achieve desired results
• never stop learning new stuff
• practice and discipline mean everything
• never forget the basics
• take some time to learn anatomy (from human anatomy to every single kind of life form known). It gives tons of information that drives to start creating beautiful or terrifying creatures

Preparation

As a conceptual character designer I need to visualise the idea. I have to think about the created universes, the background story, where he/she came from, if it is a warrior, a scientist, a primitive or an advanced race with every single detail from the general structure of his/her body to the tiny details like scars. Everything has to fit, this process goes side by side with the storytelling to give the character or a creature that extra punch that makes the client or the viewers immediately imagine the whole scenario and feel complicity. And this process involves a huge research to get a lot of textual and visual information.

Tools

I use Zbrush for most of my work. Sometimes I combine it with something else to achieve the desired results. When I started doing 3D stuff I was totally ignorant about polygons, vertex, uv’s, maps, etc.  Zbrush was the perfect tool to execute my ideas  without caring about all the technical difficulties I found in other 3D software.

Building Materials

I haven’t really been involved in animation of ready/low poly models because I’ve been working as a 3D Concept artist and digital sculptor. This year I started studying technical stuff to bring them to game engine myself.

When it comes to building materials my choice is Keyshot, as it allows me to save a lot of time. Moreover, I always try to simplify my task by using previous polypaint work in Zbrush.

Putting Emphasis

I like putting emphasis on the gestures, dynamics to show the personality of the character/creature, as it is really important to imagine the design under certain circumstances. This is really fun because I have to find the balance between what works in real physics and what does not but  looks so catchy so that it helps to achieve the desired results.

Gilberto “Soren” Zaragoza, Character Artist