When Reality Fades Away: Surrealism Invades 3D Art

Posted on May 3, 2013 by victoria

Watches. Heat. Melting. Awry forms. Devastated settings. Torsos of the dreams. It coalesces. Then it detaches. Surreal visual art reminds us of something. Actually, it awakens the most latent parts of ourselves.

Surrealism is like a potion, made in the 1920s for the first time. But it still flourishes and inspires contemporary artists. Surrealism is being used as kind of therapeutics, enabling the artists to analyse the depth of human nature by mixing the most distinct feelings and experiences together.

“Surrealist manifesto” was written in 1924. There surrealism was defined as “philosophy, based on the belief in superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought”. Salvador Dali is considered to be the Duke of surrealism. People, who do not know about surrealism, definitely know about Dali. When he was formally expelled from the Surrealist group, the artist only replied “I myself am surrealism”. S. Dali’s early work “The Persistence of Memory”, a painting set in some kind of existential desert, depicts melting pocket watches and stands as one of the best surreal painting examples ever made.

Surrealism surprises and will never be played out. It invaded the whole art of 3D and reality just fades away. Surrealism stimulates to write one’s dreams down every morning, to free the mind and indulge into a process of automatic creativity. 3D artists impart their inner state of mind into each artwork. Some of them seek for the meditation and others share their dark sides of the moons.

Self-examination, alienation, loneliness, madness, sadness, euphoria, mania, suspicion of a gone dream and all the possible human feelings create a particular and peculiar atmosphere of every work of a 3D designer. Tree-dimensional art makes surrealism to thrive: while providing precise level of photorealism, it includes the most unreal objects, forms and design decisions. I am wondering, if Salvador Dali had such tools, how would his most prominent painting look like?

Grab your inspiration for the mind-blowing masterpiece, while exploring this gallery of surreal 3D artwork.

Caravan Dali by Aram Vardazaryan.

Just imagine what would happen if S.Dali would live nowadays…

Gnomon School: The Fast Track To VFX Industry

Posted on April 23, 2013 by victoria

The development of 3D technology sees no boundaries. Nowadays the amount of 3D effects in movies easily breaks the limits of fantasy. The last animation “The Croods” made by “DreamWorks” required 80 million hours of rendering. If the rendering was performed on a single computer, it would have had to keep rendering the information for 9,127 years in order to finish it. There are thousands of tools, but not enough 3D artists to control them properly.

And it is not the 168 hour working week that could scare 3D designers. But there are actually not that many qualified places on Earth to learn and acquire the real art of visual effects. Most of the forums all around the web twinkle with posts asking which one of the schools is the best to really learn to govern VFX tools. Almost each answer (seriously, no exaggeration) highlights a Hollywood-based Gnomon School of Visual Effects as a must-attend school of dreams. So..is it really the Mecca of visual effects ?

Steampunk in 3D design: Travel Back “20’000 Leagues Under The Sea”

Posted on April 17, 2013 by victoria

Whaaaat..? What is that ‘steampunk’? Definitely, most of you have had some dreams and fantasies in the childhood, where you were time travelling dressed as an astronaut with a steam-powered jet-set and a bag full of coal to launch it.

So, steampunk is a symbolical form of romanticism mixed with technology, seeping both into arts and culture since the 1980s. Aesthetic British Victorian era, American “Wild-Wild West” lunacy, steam-powered technologies – all of these convey direct inspiration to nowadays. This particular genre has conquered all possible forms of art.

The concept was brought to life in a letter sent to science-fiction magazine “Locus” in 1987 by American sci-fi and horror writer K.W.Jeter. He was trying to distinguish himself and his fellows, who were in love with sci-fi technologies in retro style, from the futuristic cyberpunks by saying: “Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on a appropriate technology of that era; like “steampunks” perhaps…”.
Refill your coal bag and read more!

Stories Behind The Image by Tomas Kral

Posted on April 2, 2013 by victoria

“Mostly I care about the story or thought that I put into the image to make it come to life” Tomas Kral

Tomas Kral was still at school, when he realised that drawing is something he is really good at. It has been four years already since Tomas Kral has started working as a senior team leader for visual effects and post production house “UPP” in Prague, Czech Republic. He had a chance to take care of visual effects for such feature movies as “2012“, “Red Tails“, ”Season of the Witch“, “Salt” and “Pandorum“. Tomas Kral is a well-known 3D designer, whose artwork has been published in the top magazines of the 3D industry. Moreover, this artist is the first one to land a 3D modeled man on the moon.

Space Waltz

Read an interview!

Results Are In: Winners of 3D Model Competition

Posted on March 22, 2013 by victoria

For a few days already we have been receiving emails from you. The question was: “Sooo, who are the winners of a competition?”. We told to wait a bit. And we were answered that there are some of you, who cannot. So, finally we stopped discussing…

Challenge was accepted. And winners are selected!

But wait, wait a little bit more. Yes, I know that you can scroll down, but wait. Enjoy that pleasant feeling before you find the results out. There is something to be said.

We have to admit that this 3D Model Competition was extremely exciting. The entire month your 3D models were flowing to our marketplace shelves as a stirring mountain spring. We are more than happy because of that. Are you ready to check the results out?

A Good Look at The Real World by Marek Denko

Posted on March 18, 2013 by victoria

Marek Denko is a 3D designer who attracted the whole computer graphics community with his artwork. The artist had no training in the field of 3D design. But he was always learning from his own mistakes and successes.

Marek Denko’s first job in the industry was as a low polymodeling freelancer for a company in Bratislava. Today he is a world-known 3D designer. The designer’s artwork is highly distinctive with a peculiar touch of his. It definitely bewitches with the level of realism and intense atmosphere. Marek Denko shares with us the secrets of his profession, inspirations, and reveals how to find a way in the labyrinth of computer graphics world.

Sunrise of the 80′s

Read an interview!

Women As Inspiration for 3D Art

Posted on March 8, 2013 by victoria

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.” Joseph Conrad

Firstly, I would like to point out that this blog post is balanced for women. Okay, okay. This is suitable for men also. It is impossible to forget such a nice event as International Woman’s Day. This holiday announces the very beginning of spring and calls each man on Earth to remember a woman. Once in a year at least.

Yes, we know that 3D designers’ society is mostly comprised of men. But let’s face it – most of them have wives or girlfriends or at least female friends. I am sure most of them tried to design a model of a woman or still dream about it. There are dozens of 3D women models. Some of them are created as cartoon, game or movie characters, others remind photographs or paintings, other ones can come from the dreams or be just a visual expression of inspiration a 3D designer caught on the street in the morning. Women are the Muses inspiring 3D feminine models to appear. There is no question about this.

Dear ladies, we cannot send a pot of roses to each of you. Considering this occasion, we have prepared a list of the most fascinating 3D portraits of women. These are the ones no men on the planet could ever have. So you do not have to be jealous at all if your second-half pays more attention to an image than he should.

My Love in Bed

Check out a collection of inspiring women renderings!

Grab An Inspiration: 30 Most Photorealistic 3D Renderings

Posted on February 27, 2013 by victoria

Some people like to highlight that all the glorious art has already been created. Those who say so perhaps forget to count in the endless possibilities of 3D design. Today movies can be filmed in a quarry of stone and 3D designers will add the turquoise sea, verdant pinewood and a surreal house on the shore.

The audience could suspect a house being improved using 3D design technique. But it is much easier to bribe with a landscape selling a matte-painting as the real one. Moreover, 3D designers are passionate to confuse questioning: “What do you think: is this a photograph or the art of 3D?”

This phenomenon is called photorealism. It is like a magic wand that brings a fantasy into the life while is used by a skilled artist. Obtaining render which is indistinguishable from a photograph became the Holy Grail of 3D design since 1960s. The target in this work is to reach perfection. In this particular case it means to imitate the reality to the smallest dots. It requires high level of attention even to the rarest details.

So we want to share our thorough list of the highly professional 3D artwork of photorealism. Hopefully, it will give you new ideas and inspire for the masterpieces.

A Vespid

We prepared a lot of more of the amazing photorealistic 3D renderings!

Okta-studio: “Only time and budget are limits in 3D”

Posted on February 18, 2013 by victoria

It is the second floor of a building in the industrial part of Vilnius in Lithuania. There is a bunch of people staring at the computers all day long. In the conference room a dozen of 3D glasses lays on a table. This huge office is the home for a Lithuanian design studio “OKTA” which was responsible for the special effects of commended Lithuanian movie “Vanishing Waves”. Its leader Vitalijus Zukas reveals their everyday cares and a life in between 2D and 3D worlds.
Get to know what can limit Okta-studio when it comes to 3D world!

Interview with CODETHISLAB

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Simona

There it goes. The unique and promised interview with the winner codethislab of our Halloween Challenge.

Thanks for finding space in your schedule to let us know what you are up to. When doing some research I found a list of fantastic titles that you have worked on, but I couldn’t find out much about you. Tell us about yourself and why you chose to be a 3D artist? Tell us about yourself and why you chose to be a 3D artist?
I started painting on canvas, papers, walls, shirts, everywhere… my life changed in 2008 when I met Code This Lab guys that was searching for a vectorial artist. Despite my lack of experience in digital art, I had a chance, thanks to a Superman painting that they liked very much. After some months I had my first approach with 3d Modeling and it was love at first sight!

Interested? Read more!

CGTrader 3D model store blog

3D models, design and business

Category Archives: Leading 3D Artists