Interview with Mates Laurentiu… The dangerous Avatar…

CG Today : How do you handle nativity issues, for instance when you work for an Asian or an European client the character and BG anatomy requires to match their native and environment - do u conduct any region based anatomy study?

Larry : Always…  I never feel shy referring anything that could give me an insight on the character or creature; and it’s fun and instructive in the same time. The world is a beautiful and interesting place, so rich in habits, clothing styles and rites you don't really need to strain your imagination too extreme to create something nobody had seen. You just need to look around and see what is possible and translate it into your work in your own form.

CG Today : Hand-drawn or computer, through which medium you feel you can express totally?

Larry : It used to be hand drawn. My pencils were better than my color work, mainly because I penciled for about 30 years and painted just for 5 years or so. But I'm getting better with color and I feel digital work gives me more space to work and less worries about the medium itself (paper can be ruined by more usage of eraser).

CG Today : What all the tools (Software & Hardware) you use to achieve your creative needs on day to day work environment?

Larry : I only use a mechanical pencil with 0.5 tip for all my drawing and A4 paper as my medium. My computer is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ processor, with 6 GB of DDRam, about 1.5 terabytes of hard disk running on Windows 7x64. As of software I use Photoshop CS5 with a four years old Intuos 3 Wacom tablet.

CG Today : why do you prefer this particular software & Hardware, will you recommend it?

Larry : Usually each artist creates his or her environment. I can only say this fits me. There are a lot of people out there working on Linux systems or Apple, using Artrage or Painter so I think this is a matter of personal taste rather than indispensable tools. My strong belief is that it's the artist that counts the most and not the tools he's using. You can draw with a burned stick on a wall. If you're good, you'll make a great piece of art.

CG Today : Creative obstructions, have you gone through, how do you overcome?

Larry : There is no way to avoid that when freelancing. You learn to adapt and hope for more freedom from your next commission or you make time and you paint your own stuff, expressing yourself just to get that out of your system. I think this is what most freelancers do. I cheat a bit and suggest small changes to the clients which are sometimes accepted. That usually brightens things a bit.

CG Today : The night before the beginning of avatar art, what was rolling in your mind?

Larry : I was excited and angry and scared. I was about to drop a lot of things aside to adventure into dark and unknown. I was thinking on how I would be able to survive if there were no commissions and was excited about thinking how cool would be to not depend on a job with a strict schedule and a nasty boss. I was angry because the resources I had to start with where so sparse and expensive considering I already had spare finances. For a year after starting I was constantly in debt but I never thought of just give up and take a regular job.

CG Today : The purpose, goal of avatar art, did you achieved it?

Larry : Yes, I think we do achieve the original goals we set when we began but its place for more here. We started our own publication a while back and if things work out fine we might expand it. We kept things small enough to keep things running but we're trying to get a bit bigger so we can give other starting artists a chance.

CG Today : Do you have any future projects planned or any "dream project" of avatar art, can you share with us?

Larry : There is already in place a plan on printing and selling posters. We're trying to make our magazine as attractive as it can be while keeping a low price to allow access to everybody and plan to expand it into a more useful tool for the "D&D" community. As a dream project, maybe our own game, pen and paper or a web version but that's a long shot considering the resources we would have to invest.

CG Today : As an experienced freelancer, what would you suggest/guide for aspiring freelancers?

Larry : Make your self seen. Put your work out there. Don't give up when things go hard. Work on personal projects whenever you can, those pieces usually look the best and make great contributions to your portfolio. Keep a printed portfolio at hand - you never know who’ll show it to. Use reference and do a lot of study. Use your imagination; you don't get better re-sketching the same old Dragon ball character over and over again. Vary your work - environment, character and creature design. Monotony it's not a good thing for an artist's mind.

CG Today : Is there anything special you wish to share with us and our readers?

Larry : I would like to thank you for the opportunity to share myself a bit through this interview. I would also wish to give thanks to all my clients and tell them that I wouldn't be here without them all. And last but not least, I would like to thank my partner, Steve Gerke, who stood by me all this time, for all his great work.

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Mates "Avatar" Laurentiu

Website :
www.avatarart.com

Gallery :
http://mateslaurentiu.deviantart.com

e-mail :
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (business) or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (personal)

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