1. Hi Harsh, thanks for talking to CGTantra, Can you please tell us something about yourself ?
I have international professional experience in Computer Graphics for over a decade across the globe in countries like Canada, Australia, and India.
Always having keen interest in art, comics, photography, I pursued my passion more seriously when I joined a school in Vancouver Canada named Vanarts. There I majored in Sculpting and Game Arts specializing in 3D Modeling and Texturing for Games and Movies. Upon graduation I was offered a fulltime job at Electronic Arts Blackbox Studios.
After enjoying Canadian Work and Life culture for a few years, I moved to Australia in 2006 for better opportunities and climate. Few of the Movie and Game titles he has worked on are Need for Speed, Skate, Wanted, Jumper, Space Chimps, Madmax and more.
Currently residing in Australia, he is working as Senior Character Artist for Movie VFX and Game Cinematic. He excels in generating realistic human characters and Fantasy Creatures, which includes various tasks ranging from High resolution Modeling, Texturing, Hair FX, Lighting and Promotional Renderings.
My typical day starts with a Chai latte on my way to work, I check my mails, and the first thing that everyone is suppose to do is check Dailies. It's the rendered 3Dmovie progress of the project we are working on. I write down my suggestions on what can be improved in terms of whole art aspect, and comment particularly on characters as I am the lead and responsible for it. Then jump back to work.
It's pretty exciting and challenging which is what I always dreamed of since childhood, so I can't really complain.
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2. You are quite known an Indian in the world of CG Modeling/Sketching. Can you take us back through the journey of how you began and how you reached where you are today?
Thanks for kind words. From as far as I can remember, I grew up messing up my house walls with crayons and watercolors and getting beaten up by mom. I was born in a family with medical doctors with no painting brush but stethoscope and thermometer in their hands. But a huge benefit of my parents being doctors was, I got to have a look in their anatomy and medical boons. This gave me a great interest in human body and life in general. I always loved sketching and painting. When I was about 16 my dad went to US on a official tour and brought me back a computer. It was very basic and older platform. And that's what scratched my underlying urge of learning computers and graphics in particular. It was around the same time when Jurassic Park got released, and that was it. I liked that movie so much that I did all sort of research on how were the dinosaurs made digitally. Somehow I got to install Photoshop and 3D Studio for DOS and I really liked it.
After completing my school, I started looking for courses specializing in 3D, but at that time there were not many 3d courses available in India. So I had to go with Advance Diploma in Multimedia from Arena. I learnt a lot in terms of graphics and multimedia in general. Though the hunger for 3D still starved me, before I even graduated I got a job in Graphic Design firm and worked there for 1 year. Then I did get my hands on 3D a little when I was working at Pentamedia graphics in their CBT division. But that was not enough for me. Very soon I switched to a small but very talented French based Games Company in New Delhi called Tegmen Games. The guys there were awesome and dripping creativity. The owners of that company were French and the CEO himself was very young & talented and lived with us here in Delhi itself. That was great hands on experience with professional 3D Gaming and CG. The more I worked the more I learnt how much traditional fine arts are useful as a base. After working there for just more than a year, I took a big step.
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I got enrolled in Game arts and Design course in Vancouver, Canada in early 2004. That was it. I have to say the culture of teaching and learning was so different from what I learnt back home. There people were really serious about their job. Teaching or learning. It was like seeing the 'Big Fish'. It opened my eyes. The school concentrated half year on just pure Traditional studies like, Life Drawing, Sketching and Painting, Sculpting! I have always as an artist, been heavily involved with the human figure, so from my first day I loved it and took Sculpting much more seriously. I knew I don't have much time as it was not a usual 4 year art degree, but a compacted know it all 1 year course. So I had to work really hard. First year was real fun and there was a lot to learn. It opened my views in terms of my personal learning and the cultural differences in Indian and western art.
Second year was all Computer Graphics and 3D which I gulped. As I already had some experience in 3d before, I picked up really fast. Right after graduating from Vanarts, I got an offer from EA Games Canada, which was my dream job as I always played car racing game Need for Speed when I was young. And to get to work with the team who made such a cool game was really exciting. After working there for a while I moved to Australia in start of 2006. I wanted to explore more and the offer I got from Redtribe was quite attentive. I always loved Australia and wanted to see it, so I thought there can't be any better chance. All I can say now is the move was for only better! J
3. In what way has the introduction of CG in the world of Creativity helped change the face of technology you induce in the characters you create?
The more technology gets better, the more it urges the Artists to exploit it. These days there is so much demand for high end renders which include characters and elements, and for that high end processors and graphic cards are needed. And I being an artist makes it sure that I make the best use of that technology, and further take it to the next challenge. These days Movies and Games like Hulk, Hellboy, King Kong, Lord of the Rings, Gears of Wars, Crysis, Call of Duty require highly detailed characters, creatures and objects that are made in advance modeling software like ZBrush, Mudbox etc which are only possible cause of the latest graphics cards and heavy duty processors. Same goes with lighting as well. Rendering realistic scenes needs higher number of render passes which demands high-end hardware. So the conclusion is, more the artists strive to generate better looking graphics and highly detailed characters in my case, it demands for better and advance technology.
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4. Which part in CG do you find the most difficult and why?
This might sound tricky, but truth is the hardest part for me in CG is Time Commitment. The hours that need to be spent not just at work, but after work on personal learning and projects is quite demanding. It's very important to advance myself in these days' rapid growing technology and new techniques which are appreciated at work. As it is said, you never stop learning. But it sometimes gets really hard for me to disconnect myself from social life just because I am practicing myself or learning something new. Each project I do or start needs high commitment and time. And it's a difficult job to balance between my healthy life and hard work that I juggle pretty much everyday.
5. Can you explain to us the demand for CG artists in the job market in both India and abroad?
With movies and next-generation games these days using high quality graphics, there is more demand for artists who are hone these skills. And with globalization these days, a lot of work has been outsourced to India. We have talented artists to do the work, but in my opinion there is still a lot to learn when it comes to international standards. But surely with increasing number of international students studying abroad, they are bringing back the knowledge, quality and experience to India. Bottom line is, if you are good, industry will hire you!
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Model of Clint Eastwood |
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6. What do you think is the basic requirement for any person to create ripples like you in the field of digital art / creativity, as it never was easy as well when it came to narrating stories! Depicting them in a pictorial format is making a face to that piece of imagination!
Giving audience a feeling through a visual narrative has never been easy. We have been enjoying storytelling since a long time and now have advanced our ways to entertain ourselves through various media such as Movies, Computer Games, Comic Books, and Action Figures etc. And for it to be a successful movie, game, or a CG Character, it always needs to have a good story behind it.
Dedication, un-stoppable urge to learn and patience have been three biggest factors to me for where I am now. Growing up in a family of doctors always encouraged me to study harder with dedication and take my profession seriously. And it is that nature that grew into me. It is also the perks that I get once the movie or game that I worked on gets released. Just the satisfaction to see the CG characters running, breathing and talking, as if I have given them a Life, gives me this energy to take my future projects to next level and do better works.
Also a major part of my success has been my fellow colleagues and friends that have inspired and encouraged me. It is very important to learn from them and build good team relationships. You will always find someone better than you, its not the quest to be the best, but to take a part of every great artist you meet or learn from. It's always good to be humble and appreciate what you have learned and taught, as it is said; "The more you share knowledge, the more you get".
My resources have always been a great help to my pre production before I start any project. I have hundreds of Anatomy, sculpting, painting, references books that serve me as a great learning resource. I'm also a huge movie collector, so they come in handy when I am thinking about the story for any project. It’s always good to have a shelf full of resources that can come in handy for your projects or personal growth.
Biggest thing that I have learnt in this art profession is, Observation! The more you observe the objects, their shape and form, how they react to light, their material behavior and such, the more you learn about the subject. And easier it gets for you to replicate that in CG. So take a camera, start clicking around everything and anything and Observe!
7. How do you start when a character is given to you? Can you please take us through the process?
Before I start any project, I write down some background story of the character. What time is he/she from? What is the age? What's the Genre like Futuristic, Fantasy, Realistic, and Hyper-Realistic? What type of clothes does he wear? And mainly what drives the character?
I do some research, flick through my resources of books or movies, and start collecting some images online. Google is my best friend when it comes to online reference searching. I spend quite a fair bit of time doing my pre planning. Once I have an idea of what I am looking for, I jump onto concept sketching or very rough drawings either done by me, or from a concept artist in the production. I sometimes take my already modeled basic human body and block out a very rough 3d shape. Quickly change its form and shape in ZBrush or Mudbox, as they are really good software to mockup 3d models really fast as if you are doing real life sculpting. Take a screen grab and do a paint over in Photoshop.
Once satisfied with the painting, I start building a base mesh in my basic modeling package Maya. Then I take that base mesh into high detail digital-sculpting software ZBrush/Mudbox and add all the necessary details, like muscle anatomy, cloth folds, skin stretch marks around the muscles, skin pores and scars. As these software gives me the freedom to subdivide the model to insanely millions of polygons, hence giving me the freedom of pure sculpting.
When I'm done with modeling, I start painting in ZBrush itself using polypainting. ZBrush gives this really cool way of texturing in which you can paint directly on the model's surface using various textures and alphas. And when done I can directly export finished Diffuse, Specular, Cavity, Reflection, Glow, such maps from ZBrush and take them further into Photoshop for texturing.
Once in done with textures, I export the model with Displacement or Normal maps and render all of the textures together with Mental Ray, as I really like the Sub Surface Scattering shader in it. Do some Image based lighting and get a nice looking render. Some tweaks in post processing software like After Effects or Photoshop, and done! |
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8. Which are the major institutes that provide appropriate courses in CG painting / sketching?
Through my experience and knowledge, I have learnt that it is highly important to study Traditional media first, and then get into Computer Graphics. When you work in the industry, everything that you do, from animation to 3D modeling to lighting, is based on fine art principles. Such as Life Drawing, Sketching and Painting, Sculpting, Anatomy studies, etc. So it becomes the very foundation of your art career. Don't get confused with separating fine arts with CG. They both go hand in hand. I have found many modern digital artists going back to earn that traditional foundation, which have made them better CG artist.
So again my suggestion will be, before you join any CG school, give it a thought to do some Fine Arts, or at least a school that teaches both of the skills.
Few of the Indian and international schools that I have seen better reels or heard of are following. I also have worked with some graduates of these schools that I feel honored to have worked with.
Academy of Art University (San Francisco)
Animation Mentor (Online)
Gnomon (Hollywood)
MAAC (India)
National Institute of Design (India)
Vancouver Film School (Vancouver)
Vanarts (Vancouver) |
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9. What is the message taht you can give to the young aspirants?
Learn the craft that you really love and interests you. Do it for the love of it, not just because you want some salary or because you think it's a cool job to have. With arts there has to be passion involved only then you can be creative. Work really hard so that you can hone your craft. You have to stand out of the crowd to be heard. There are no real shortcuts. Genuine love and dedication for your work will speak for itself.
Produce a strong portfolio. Show only your best work; keep it short and to the point.
More importantly make friends. Connections in the industry are very important and can help when you most need them. When you study, your fellow classmates can be a great help not only during the schooling time, but later in the industry. Be humble and show you have a great team-work capability. You never know you might end up working with you fellow classmate. Respect your peers as they might be the biggest help you ever wanted. Learn from their techniques as every artist has a different style.
In the end, work hard and chase your dream. If you have put in pure love in what you ever wanted, it will definitely be yours!
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Hope I have answered your questions to my very best and I will feel great if it is helpful to you. Thanks for reading and have a creative day. All the best
Harsh Borah
CGTantra Forum Leader
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