Mr. Kenny Carmody: His Passion, Influences, and What Motivates Him
At the young age of 26, Mr. Kenny Carmody definitely has things to share.
He has had experience, good and notable experience at that. Mr. Carmody has worked with the likes of MPC London, Goodgame Studios, Virgin Lands Animated Pictures, and Staramba. And he is just getting started.
Get to know Mr. Carmody through the ropes of the digital art industry to emerge as a master of Zbrush technology.
Xeno Creatives (XC): ZBrush technology brought a lot to the industry. What processes did you have to learn to be skilled in it?
Kenny Carmody (KC): ZBrush opened a huge door for me as it did for the whole digital sculpting market whether for Games, VFX or 3D Printing. It has opened lots of different industries. We would have certainly not reached this level of detail on our characters and creatures nowadays in AAA Games or Film if Pixologic Zbrush wasn’t invented.
The software package of ZBrush is very a complex and an agile tool. It requires a lot of time and consistent practice and training to be skilled in ZBrush like in everything you do.
I was lucky to have an amazing mentor named Phil Amelung in the beginning of my studies in 2010. He showed me all of the basics and the tools in it. Also, I watched a lot of Ryan Kingslien tutorials for basic introductions and other tutorials and courses to become a professional character artist and digital sculptor. Nowadays there are so many high quality tutorials and other content.
The most important thing that I had to learn and still trying hard to learn is to train your eyes so your able to adapt any 2D image into a 3D environment. You can bring up so many references nowadays for making photorealistic characters, but understanding how to create it from just reference and not lining up with a camera is a different story. I am also trying to get a feel of real and digital 3D canvas to be able to understand depth and form.
Art is an ongoing learning process and journey and I am really happy that ZBrush is leading the way.
In the end though it all depends on you! If you want to be skilled in it, you have to find a way and create a plan where you see yourself and than start the process with passion and consistent training.
XC: What are specific ZBrush features do you employ in the production of your art? Has it helped you in improving your art better?
KC: ZBrush was and will always be my Game Changer. It totally changed my life and I don’t know where I would be now without it. It has definitely improved my art way more, since I started with Polygonal Character Modeling. I even have a small ZBrush Tattoo on my right forearm so its already a part of me. LOL!
I try to learn all of ZBrush’s features. It boasts of a lot of different methods for the same result. As this is the case, it is always very helpful to have the knowledge of how to setup a project of your needs if you are famliliar with the tool and its features.
I am still a huge fan of Dynamesh because it just allows you to create forms and shapes in a really quick manner, (even though we now have a Sculptris Pro addition). The combination of dynamesh and ZRemesher makes it really effective to test out your displacement on a basic lowpoly toplogy mesh outside of ZBrush.
The ZModeler Brush as well as the Deformer are good additions to the Pipeline, since you can do all of your hard surface work inside of one software package.
ZBrush is definitely my primary tool for production. For concepting, 3Dmodeling, hard surface and the like—whatever is needed for the assigned task. In my oppinion, there is no software which can beat ZBrush’s efficiency.
XC: Was your craft really a passion to begin with, a hobby, or a mere job?
KC: Well, that is a really good one. Actutally, I would say I become one of the most inspired and passionate guy when I saw my mentor sculpt the first time back in college. I wanted nothing more than to become a digital sculptor.
During my first production years I lacked the motivation because I had a different expectation of what I wanted and where I wanted to be. But now I can definitely say it started with a passion. And even though some days seem rough, I know my passion will overcome it.
XC: What do you think is your edge as a 3D artist?
KC: Thats really a tough one.
I just don’t know. I am always trying to improve my personal as well as my professional art alongside being faster and more organized in production. However, I do consider being open for any kind of criticism and constructive feedback and, in general, a positive mindset as my edge.
XC: Whom do you do you consider your influence(s)?
KC: This is going to be a hard one. There are so many phenomenal and really inspiring artists out there that can influence one during his or her creation process. Be it in the traditional or digital field. Let‘s start with traditional Michelangelo is definitely one of the greatest sculptor in history of time. His ability to create these hyper-realistic marble sculptures is just magnificent during that century.
His anatomy and form knowledge was his key to his success. Being able to understand how he creates his potraits and sculptures helps you a lot to improve your own work.
Basically, all artists during the time of the Renaissance Era, Van Gogh, Da Vinci, and Monet. I like them because they rebelled against the order and created art with significant meaning behind them. I also adore Wassily Kandisky‘s work because of its looseness and freshness and you can make your own interpretations about these works.
But VFX wise Aris Kolokontes, Andrew Baker, Akihito Ikeda, Jordu Schell, Andrew Carse, all of the team of Stan Winston are definitely stars in the sky.
One of my favorite digital ZBrush artists are Maarten Verhoeven, Jerad Merantz, Rafael Grasetti, Skin Cheng, and Steve Lord. Their design language is just one of a kind and quality and amount of work they produce is just really inspiring and gave me motivation through out my whole career.
I would also like to give a shout out to Phil Amelung who is one of my favourite artists, he was basically my first contact with Zbrush. I learned everything from him to have a base. So I, again, want to thank him for eveything.
XC: So far, what were the challenges that you had encountered working in the 3D industry?
KC: A lot of people think that we just create games or movies for entertainment and it‘s just fun. But it is a lot more than just that and definitely needs way more recognition.
There are a lot of technical constraints which need to be respected and thought of on a daily basis so different creative departments can also pick-up the published model without any technical issue.
Also, being very agile and open to any kind of change, feedback, and criticism during production either in early concept phase or even a finished lodA model can sometimes be hard to handle. It can change anything by certain circumstances. But in the end, do not forget it is your job despite the many challenges.
You have to bear in mind that it is a collaborative and team-orientated industry. Every department looks after each other.
One of the biggest challenges is that in our industry, projects are mostly acquired by contract. So having a long-term and safe workplace is always difficult to come by. You need to be very flexible when it comes to moving into another country and be open to change companies a lot. Personally, I love travelling and also I think its a great thing to have the opportunity to work in many companies in different parts of the world to gather different views and experiences. However, I do see it as a concern in the future when when considering building a family and a stable home residence, especially if you’re freelance.
Lastly, I think that being noticed is probably the most challenging of all challenges. Your work will only be noticed if you are good. You will only be good if you study a lot. And you will only study hard and work hard on something if you really love it. At the end of the day, you will realize that you’re doing all this to have the opportunity to work on great projects and to inspire people.
XC: What is your most exciting project to date?
KC: One of my favourite and what I consider to be the most exciting projects I have worked on as a Creature Artist was propably at MPC London when I worked on Godzilla 2 – King of the Monsters and Lion King which have always been my dream to work on. I also have some announced projects I am currently working on which will be released soon.
It was also fun working on an amazing AAA Title with an outstanding team at Goodgame Studios which sadly will never be released. There are a lot of changes happening in my production life. I have been freelancing a lot lately for VFX Companies, so I will be posting work I have done really soon. I am not really allowed to say what I am working on at the moment, but I will definitely keep you all updated in the near future. In the end, I have to say I was very satisfied with almost every project.
I am really looking forward to the projects that I shall be receiving in the future.
XC: Do you have any advice to aspiring artists?
KC: My advice to aspiring artists is to stay hungry, passionate, motivated, and inspired whatever happens.
Art in general like almost anything needs to be learned or adapted needs time and consistency. I would advice you to keep reading motivational and art-related books which help you stay humble. Don’t let, for example, ArtStation intimidate you. One day you will become like those artists.
It can sometimes be very frustrating to not see any results or not being noticed, but just give yourself time and let the results will speak for themselves. Also, in production, it can be sometimes very frustrating, so my advice is to hold on to your passion and love. If you do not enjoy what you’re doing, it’s propably because it is not really what you want to do in your life. So definantly take your time to be 100% sure its the right thing as well. Oncde you feel pure love for it, you can definitely do it all the way!
Can’t get enough of mr. Kenny Carmody’s works? You can see more of his works here:
https://www.artstation.com/kc-production
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6713784/
https://www.instagram.com/theartofkennycarmody/
http://kc-production.cgsociety.org/
