The Tenacity and Dedication of Mr. André Souza de Almeida
Mr. André Souza de Almeida or André SiK graduated from Anhembi Morumbi College in 2016, under the course, Design of Animation. He has worked for InVRsion and is now a Freelance Character 3D Artist.
Like most artists, André has had his share of struggles in trying to carve his place in the field of the arts. And people not involved in the arts, those who do not know the true value of art, sometimes (if not most of the time) do little to help. But he chooses to go on each and every time.
Not only does he exercise patience on others, he also exercises it on himself. For this, he says it best:
Study hard, practice daily, calmly and lovingly. Understand that in whatever you do, at first we all get frustrated with the results, but if you have patience and devote yourself every day studying correctly, your evolution will come from a very natural way.
So let’s get to know this wonderful artist deeper through this short feature. Indeed he is one artist we should all watch out for.
Xeno Creatives (XC): ZBrush technology brought a lot to the industry. What processes did you have to learn to be skilled in it?
André Souza de Almeida (André SiK): I do not know if I’m qualified yet ahahaha kidding. But ZBrush is an incredible tool for exploring ideas. I see many possibilities that can be realized if you have the willpower to want to learn to do them.
First, I studied what the great majority of artists began studying which is, “anatomy”. Studying this takes almost the entire lifetime. As such, I am in constant discovery of new ways of performing it.
And also trying to learn other steps regarding anatomy, to go evolving together in the process, making a workflow more dynamic.
XC: What are specific ZBrush features do you employ in the production of your art? Has it helped you in improving your art better?
André SiK: Well first, I start with the blocking of the character, trying to find a silhouette that is close to the concept, using DynaMesh with a low amount of polygons, and finding the primary forms of the character. After I am finished with the blocking, I duplicate the mesh and use ZRemesher to improve the overall mesh of the character and the objects in his body.
I apply a ProjectAll to get the details of the main tool in this new tool and refine area by area. I also really enjoy working with the layers, they help a lot.
I also use PolyPaint to get a sense of how the character would look with various colors. I say the same for noise, I always apply noise to see the details of the objects. For example in making a shirt, I use the UV Master to open the UV. Afterwards, I apply a noise of fabric in the tool of the shirt and the result is very cool.Of course, if you are looking for a more realistic result, you still need more details handmade, with lots of love, affection, and, most of all, patience.
And yes Zbrush has helped me a lot to evolve and apply my ideas, there are so many ways to reach a final result that I am always impressed with this wonderful software.
XC: How did you start being involved in the digital craft?
André SiK: It all started in college, in poly-by-poly when I saw an old cartoon character from a friend of mine. I found it amazing. I was still in the beginning of college and having seen that character made me want to learn more and more about modeling characters. And this same friend, Steferson Rocha (who is a great Brazilian artist), later he introduced me to ZBrush.
XC: What do you think is your edge as a 3D artist? What do you think makes you stand out from the rest?
André SiK: This is a very difficult question. Ahahaha! Well, let’s go. It’s hard to talk about yourself in the third person, but I’ll try.
With so many amazing artists nowadays in action, and so many new artists entering the scene, I always try to do my best in every new job or study.
I seek to do all my work with love and affection, to be capricious as much as possible in each stage of the process–especially if it is a project meant for my portfolio. I do not use the default software that others usually go to. I always try to customize the tools I use to come up with a unique result.
I always attempt at learning new software in search of better and unique results, trying to highlight where I saw that was little explored by other artists. It can be either textures, details in the high model on ZBrush, or even a video presentation of the model, just like I did in my last work Gyda.
I knew almost nothing about Unreal Engine and I was searching the internet for tutorial videos on how to use the program, make the materials apply on the character, rigging to try to make a basic animation just to see it come alive, and then do the presentation video. It was definitely not easy at all. I did the search myself, saw many different videos, but I was very happy with the result that I was able to achieve with ZBrush.
And in the next projects, I think of evolving this more and more. Always learning new ways to improve not only the final presentation but also the workflow of the whole process.
XC: Whom do you do you consider your influence(s)?
André SiK: I have so many influences; I’m in love with their works.
For the 3D Artists, Antropus, Rafael Grassetti, Glauco Longhi, Rafael Souza, Igor Catto, Steferson Rocha, Giovanni Grecco, Frank Tzeng, Gilberto Magno, Danilo Athayde, Caio Fantini, Yibing Jiang, Adam Skutt, Vimal Kerketta, Magdalena Dadela, Bruno Camara, Adam Fisher, Maria Panfilova, Brett Sinclair, Hossein Diba, and many others.
For the 2D Artists, Andrew Loomis, Howard Terpning, James Bama, and Carlos Huante.
In sculpting, Kennis & Kennis, Mark Newman, Rafael Grassetti, and Glauco Longhi.
XC: So far, what were the challenges that you had encountered working in the 3D industry?
André SiK; As a freelance artist, the biggest problem I found is getting paid, sometimes it takes time. Other times people find it very expensive. But some people do not know just how much time and money you have spent to invest in yourself.
Of course I am speaking in only a few cases; these are just some of the difficulties I face.
XC: What is your most exciting project to date?
André SiK: Gyda! She gave me lots of experience not only with ZBrush but with other software as well.
In the past I was always choosing between ZBrush and Maya, but doing Gyda, in order to achieve a result that I am proud of, I improved my knowledge and experience in the following programs:
– Substance painter
– Unreal Engine
– Marmoset Toolbag
– Xgen
– Photoshop
I confess that when we open a new program, that cold, sinking feeling in the belly, why the new is something that causes you startling strangeness, but with a lot of calm and researching you will learn to use the tool.
So in each evolution of the project I was learning many new things to apply to it, and that was very exciting.
XC: Do you have any advice to aspiring artists?
André SiK: Initially I think you always have to create a base, taking courses for beginners, knowing the programs that you want to use. And if you want to specialize in characters, I recommend you take a course focused on Anatomy, because it’s always going to be important for you to apply it in your works.
Study hard, practice daily, calmly and lovingly. Understand that in whatever you do, at first we all get frustrated with the results, but if you have patience and devote yourself every day studying correctly, your evolution will come from a very natural way.
Go into workshops with experienced artists, they have many valuable tips from their life experiences as Artists.
A tip I leave is, set the social networks aside and focus on learning, focus on you, focus only on your main goal. It is logical to get references in the ArtStations from artists you are inspired by.
Another very important thing is to have a group of friends who are with the same aim as you—where you will receive feedback from your work and also give feedback on their work. This helps the artist a lot.
Well this is some of the things I do. It helps me a lot in my journey to become a better artist every day.
I hope I have helped you with these tips.
And thank you very much to the staff at Xeno Creatives for this interview.
It was a pleasure to answer each of these questions.
See you guys!
