Subsurface Talks Jarosław Dzedzej (aka D.J.)

The special guest of this episode of Subsurface Talks is Rob Dickinson - a 3d artist using Blender. Rob is mostly known for his amazing YouTube channel - DecodedVFX where he shares detailed breakdowns of his ambitious 3d projects, entire movie shot remakes, and other Blender-related content. However, this is not the only thing Rob does (in fact he is a real titan of work. He has a wide variety of interests including engineering, movies, and even 2d art. We discuss all of this during this friendly conversation. If you’re interested in modern CGI, fan movies, Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, you will find something for yourself in this episode. We also digress about both the cool and annoying features of Blender, the state of the industry facing the A.I. revolution as well as other interesting topics.
Listen and enjoy!

If you want to find Rob's stuff you can follow his YouTube channels:
https://www.youtube.com/@UC6gJtkKLq7MTkm0SJRpYBWg
and:
https://www.youtube.com/@extrapixels


If you want to follow the podcast host (DJ)
you can do it on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon:
https://twitter.com/jaroslawdzedzej
https://www.instagram.com/jaroslawdzedzej
https://mastodon.art/@jaroslawdzedzej

The guest of the 7th episode of Subsurface Talks is Midge Sinnaeve - visual artist from Antwerp in Belgium. Midge is a creative experimentator known well for his abstract computer-generated images. He creates music videos, motion graphics, VJ loops and all kinds of visual creations with special inclination for digitally transformed/destroyed meshes, fractal-like structures and particles. Midge describes his style humbly saying ‘I just make weird shit’. While weird it may sometimes be it is always amazingly good looking and sophisticated. Midge also shares his techniques openly with the on-line community in his art streams on his YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@MidgeSinnaeve
You can also find Midge’s work on his website : https://mantissa.xyz/
This is the second part of the conversation and we will talk a bit more about the video that Midge produced for Korn’s song ‘Worst is on its way’ as well as some future plans and new areas that Midge is exploring!

If you haven't listened to the first part you can do it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB30mLJOxeI

Listen and enjoy!
(And if you happen to like it - subscribe and don’t forget to share it with a friend or two !)


If you want to follow the podcast host (DJ)
you can do it on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon:
https://twitter.com/jaroslawdzedzej
https://www.instagram.com/jaroslawdzedzej
https://mastodon.art/@jaroslawdzedzej

The guest of the 7th episode of Subsurface Talks is Midge Sinnaeve - visual artist from Antwerp in Belgium. Midge is a creative experimentator known well for his abstract computer-generated images. He creates music videos, motion graphics, VJ loops, and all kinds of visual creations with a special inclination for digitally transformed/destroyed meshes, fractal-like structures, and particles. Midge describes his style humbly saying ‘I just make weird shit’. While weird it may sometimes be it is always amazingly good-looking and sophisticated. Midge also shares his techniques openly with the online community in his art streams on his YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@MidgeSinnaeve

 You can also find Midge’s work on his website: https://mantissa.xyz/

This first part of the conversation revolves around Midge’s journey to 3d art and shifting from freelancing and being hired for his skills to being hired for his own unique style that Midge developed over the years of his personal experimentations. What does it mean to have a style and what is the common denominator that defines it? Are limitations good for creativity? Does working for the music industry open endless creative possibilities? What makes Blender a perfect tool for experimental visual artworks? These are some of the topics that we touch upon.
In the second part we will talk a bit more about the video that Midge produced for Korn’s song ‘Worst is on its way’ as well as some future plans and new areas that Midge is exploring so stay tuned for more in the second part!
 
 Listen and enjoy! 
(And if you happen to like it - subscribe and don’t forget to share it with a friend or two !)

If you want to follow the podcast host (DJ)  
you can do it on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon:
https://twitter.com/jaroslawdzedzej
https://www.instagram.com/jaroslawdzedzej
https://mastodon.art/@jaroslawdzedzej

The guest of 6th episode of Subsurface Talks podcast is Greg Zaal - photographer, developer, 3d artist and entrepreneur from South Africa - founder of Polyhaven.com (a free, public domain licenced assets library for 3d artists)

Greg shares the story of how Polyhaven.com started, what got him into 3d and how it’s possible to make a business out of sharing things for free.
We talk about community challenges for asset creators contributing to Polyhaven. 
We discuss  Artificial Intelligence’s impact on 3D art and asset creation, new exciting features coming to Blender as well as the Blender Conference experience. 

I hope you’ll enjoy the episode and get inspired by Greg’s unusual business (that I’m sure is greatly appreciated by 3d artists all around the world for giving the community access to free high quality assets - no strings attached)
If you want to check out Polyhaven and all it’s assets and endeavours, the best place is : https://polyhaven.com/

Jonathan Lax -3d artist, animator and director of Gecko Animation in London is the guest of this episode of the Subsurface Talks Podcast. Jonathan declares himself as a devoted blenderhead (a 3d artist using Blender for work and really loving it :) ) , a husband and dad. What you will also learn in the podcast, he loves tennis a lot !
DJ had the opportunity of meeting Jonathan at the last Blender Conference in Amsterdam where they only had a brief conversation (but fruitful with contacts exchange). Finally the podcast was a chance of having a longer and deeper talk about Blender, animation, working as a 3d artist and having family life and space travel (yes ! - even that, as Jonathan has worked for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic on some projects around their commercial space travel service).
With years of experience and numerous commercial projects completed (most of which can not be shared due to NDAs) Jonathan shares some wisdom gained on the journey and can testify that Blender has been a reliable tool even for hi-end commercial 3d work (despite not being the ‘industry standard’). We talk about the beginnings of his Gecko Animation studio and how sharing a small success and showing off some impressive work in combination with a good London address have opened the doors to a lot of great CGI work. Jonathan talks about his exciting projects for a Venice based renowned restaurant ‘Quadri’ designed by star architect Philippe Starck. We also discuss some educational experiences he had while teaching Blender to digital artists at Framestore VFX - one of the greatest VFX houses in the world.
So fasten your seatbelts and get ready for another journey into 3d space. And may the force be with you ! (and if you’ll enjoy this episode - make sure to share it with a friend or two).

You can follow Jonathan’s work here: https://www.geckoanimation.com

And on social media: https://twitter.com/Laxy
https://mastodon.social/@Laxy

The guest of 4th episode of Subsurface Talks is the amazing Andres Stephens (aka Draise) , an experienced 3d artist from Colombia (although he also describes himself as half-Kiwi) doing very interesting painterly NPR (Non–Photorealistic-Rendering) experiments in Blender. Andres is also involved in development of Bforartists (Blender for Artists: https://www.bforartists.de/ ) a fork of Blender focused on a more accessible and streamlined user interface. You can find all about Andres’ work on https://www.trinumedia.com/
In this podcast episode DJ and Andres talk about the value of traditional art skill in the age of A.I. and automation. Andres shares his opinions on AI and whether it is a great tool for an artist or a threat to mankind. We dig into the world of painterly shaders in Blender and dive back into childhood memories where great inspiration is drawn from illustrated books for children and puppet animations. 
A big chunk of the talk is dedicated to Bforartists that tries to tweak Blender’s UI into something more easily digestible and accessible for an average user that doesn’t want to memorise a gazillion of keyboard shortcuts. Why are coloured icons important ? Does learning Blender have to be like learning black magic ? Can a fork of Blender add to the benefit of the official Blender release and the whole community ? If any of these questions seem interesting to you - you need to listen to this episode! 
To follow Andres Stephens and his endeavours check out these social media links:

https://twitter.com/Trinumedia/
https://www.instagram.com/trinumedia/
https://www.youtube.com/@trinumedia
You can also support Draise on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=11705563
Bforartists Discord:
https://discord.gg/8hVdUJNz9E
Listen and enjoy! 
(And if you happen to like it - subscribe and don’t forget to share it with a friend or two !)
If you want to follow the podcast host (DJ)  
you can do it on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon:
https://twitter.com/jaroslawdzedzej
https://www.instagram.com/jaroslawdzedzej
https://mastodon.art/@jaroslawdzedzej