This question is funny because it’s linked to some comments I get from the community working on Durian like “the Blender family accepts you even though you are a 2D artist” These kind of comments, thinking I’m just a traditional and 2D digital boy is wrong; cause I’m partially a Blenderhead too.

To give a proof, I have to jump back in time :

checks this :
http://www.blendernation.com/short-film-little-fairy

or this
http://www.blendernation.com/videotutorial-dragon-toon-rose

I started in Blender with 2.36 and the cool splash from Venomgfx, and I speedily adopted it as my first 3D solution. I worked in the industry of product design (computer case / USB key ) while imposing Blender as the standard 3D tool too during some years, and  I still start many of my illustrations (landscape) on a 3D base with Blender:

So, sure; I’m not a 100% Blenderhead but you can understand that I was understanding all the conversations about Blender, even if I rarely opened this software in the Blender Institute… And this is really hard when you are a partially Blenderhead on the Blender Institute!

How did you come to be involved with Durian?

The story is a bit long and from 2005; almost same time the Orange team started “Elephant Dreams” production. I was totally fascinated by the concept of “open movie,” and I dreamed of the concept so strongly that I created my own open movie named “Hereva.”  My first contact with Ton Roosendaal was to ask some advice about my project. I trusted his message telling me in the big lines, if I remember, “without a physical place to gather poeple it will be hard,” and a lot of encouragement too to continue to build it. At this moment, I decided to finish the open movie alone, and did the “little fairy” text above. I learned a lot on this period.

When Peach project started, I sent my portfolio link as many artist to be in. Unfortunately I was with Colin Levy- (that’s fun) on the spare list. http://www.blendernation.com/peach-team-chosen/ Spare list was a bit frustrating, but I continued to follow the peach project carefully.

In February 2009, some years after BBB, I received an email from Ton asking if I was available to be on the Durian core team as a 2D concept artist… and you know after. Useless to say I dreamed of such story on my Blenderhead start.

This one may be a bit difficult to answer, but can you give us a rough number of the total concepts/sketches you’ve drawn for Durian?

Mmmm…. it can be possible; counting the exact number of files (excluding WIP files) with the calculator: 189; but some crappy sketch too in it, so let say around 150 concept and maybe half of them for the final script (I drew a lot of refused pictures too).

Btw, I didn’t scan some sketch before and during the pre-production workshop, and this number doesn’t count the paint-overs, 1st storyboard and sheets with more than one drawing on it.

When you start a new piece, do you usually imagine the final visual? Or is it more of a organic exploratory path to get to the final result?

50/50; I come with my ideas, and the papers/computers with its solutions. The meeting of the both create something new. In this video I show a process that use a lot this:http://vimeo.com/6143607

Based on the recent news item from blender.org, it would seem you have a Blender Foundation training DVD coming out shortly. Can you tell us a bit about this?

That’s true, I do. The 5th Open movie DVD workshop for the Blender foundation named “Chaos and Evolutions”. It will be a DVD about 2D digital painting. This title illustrates the previous question about my vision of drawing: starting always a bit chaotic, and proposing with techniques some evolutions. I actually do the video editing with Kdenlive, and spend a lot of time on it.

Read more info about :

http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/product_info_n.php?products_id=122

Presale is open if you want a copy

After the hours of work, what do you do on the side to relax, or keep inspired?

I like to spend time watching other arts on internet galleries, and try to deeply understand the author and his techniques. I like to read news about Linux software too, and contribute as I can. And outside a computer, I like to play guitar, read sci-fi or fantasy books and cook.

If you could meet anybody from any time and place, whom would it be and why?

“My angel”, “My good fairy”, “My guide” … anyhow you name it/him/her; just to say a big “Thank you”.

And thanks you for reading this and Blender cookie for publishing this.

Thank you David for the interview and the uncomfortable, yet kick arse image below. If you are interested in learning more about Davids work please visit his portfolio site.

Homework: After completing the video, I noticed that if you rotate the arm beyond a certain point, the shapkeys disappear. I spent a bit of time trying to dig up this bug, but if you are up for some homework, post your findings below and lets work to figure that one out.

Note: this tutorial uses the official Blender 2.5 Alpha 1 release.

Support the site – Download includes:

• High resolution .mov Video
• .blend file at the state of the tutorial
• Eyeball textures, Normal and Diffuse

Note: this tutorial uses the official Blender 2.5 Alpha 2 release.

Support the site – Download includes:

• High resolution .mov Video
• .blend file at the state of the tutorial

Note: this tutorial uses the official Blender 2.5 Alpha 2 release.

Support the site – Download includes:

• High resolution .mov Video
• .blend file at the state of the tutorial

Amador Valenzuela

http://digitalblackbook.com/

Michal Suchanek

http://www.michalsuchanek.cz/

Levente Peterffy

http://www.leventep.com

Alexis Van der Haeghe

http://www.vdhalexis.com

Toni Bratincevic

http://www.interstation3d.com
Hope you enjoyed this weeks Fresh Batch of Artists. If you know of an artist you think deserves some attention please let us know.

I am Jason van Gumster of Hand Turkey Studios, author of Blender for Dummies and GIMP Bible, and a general goof ball.

You have been a successful Blender artist for quite some time, can you give us a little insight into what you do on a day-to-day basis?

As an artist, you surely get the standard questions of “where do you get your inspiration?”, “how long did you spend training?”, etc. But looking past that, what would you say your understanding is of what you do? What makes everything tick?

At my core, I am an animator. That moment you can see something come to life and move, gain a personality. That is the payoff. Everything that has to do with animation, teaching and recently book writing, is all very tedious and time consuming. But that second where you see your character come to life, that moment where the student finally grasps a tough concept and when someone comes to you and says how your book has helped them. It is a small payoff but those are the moments that make everything worth while. It is very gratifying.

Like many of us, you have been using Blender for a long time, if you had to pick one (or two, three) of the most revolutionary feature upgrades during that time, what would it be?

The physics and fluid simulations have been huge. Not only is it super-cool, but it is also one of those things that lot of programs don’t normally ship with.

Next, the UV Unwrap is a huge one. When the LSCM unwrapping got implemented into Blender it was revolutionary. Before this system UV unwrapping was my most dreaded task, as was the case for most people. And while it is still not my favorite thing to do, at least now I can unwrap without wanting to throw my computer across the room.

Coming around the second year, things were a lot easier. I actually got a bit of sleep Due to our experiences of the previous year, we had a better idea of what we were getting into and a lot of the bottlenecks we were facing. Of course new bottlenecks always pop up, but with our previous experience we were able to get around them much easier. One of the major differences between the two years were the number of technical issues the second time around. They were much fewer! The first year we had a lot of issues with the render farms as they weren’t fully setup to handle what we were wanting to too and we had a lot of issues interfacing with the farm.  Oh and we lost internet in Richmond for a bit the first year around. All in all, the whole team – both in Richmond and in other locations around the globe – had a great time. I’m looking forward to doing it again.

I understand you are in the midst of several new book projects, can you tell us anything about these?

Of course! I recently finished GIMP Bible, which should be out by the beginning of March. And then I am getting started on updating the Blender for Dummies book to its 2nd edition; covering features in Blender 2.5. Blender 2.5 isn’t quite “documentation ready” yet, so I’m in a bit of a holding pattern. In the meantime, though, I’m trying to do my part by dutifully submitting bug reports. Hopefully, if I can make the time, I’ll also find parts of the code that I can contribute to as well.

The footage used is from http://openfootage.net