Enticing Interview with STR4HL about Babes,Weapons, and Abs.
Frideld: So you’re a 3DX artist with a very personal style and a trademark look to your renders. We’d love to know what motivated you to become a 3DX artist in the first place.
STR4HL: Oooh, good question!
So it actually stems from wanting to be able to draw. I’m a massive fan of Artists like Elias Chatzoudis and Artgerm. I really love their art-style and the way they portray the female form. Also, photographers like Ura Pechen and Fedor Schmidt. The way they composed their photos in relation to lighting and a heavy focus on abs (which you can probably tell tend to be a focal point in a lot of my work).
Anyhow, as I said, all of this influence led to a want to start drawing. However, I could never quite get the hang of it and I’d tend to get lost in the sheer amount of info on the subject. Didn’t really know where to start.
Over the years, I started to notice 3D art. I saw that it allowed for creative expression in a similar way to drawing/photography. Thought I’d give it a go, and it kind of clicked with me.
F: So you’ve cited your inspirations and references, but if you had to describe your art to someone who’s never seen it before, how would you do it? How do you define yourself as an artist?
S: Essentially I’d say my art is Pin-Up art (for the most part) with a heavy emphasis on strong, fit women. Often highlighted by weaponry both contemporary, scifi and fantasy. And of course, abs!
F: Yeah, we see a lot of weapons in your creations. They have become almost as much as a trademark for you as the silhouette of your characters. Why did you decide to feature them so heavily?
S: I think there is something really stylish about hot chicks with weapons. Adds excitement and “cool” especially in regard to pin-up pieces. Makes them a little more unique. I think it goes back to influences a little as well; I’m a big fan of female fronted films and video games. Especially where the main character is a total bad-ass but maintains femininity.
F: What’s your favorite female-led movie?
S: Ghost in the Shell is definitely up there. Come to think of it, a lot of my scifi work tends to be heavily cyberpunk based. Also, the very first Underworld film. Super stylish! And The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo! I’d say there isn’t quite enough stylish female led action movies. Which is a shame.
F: So being a 3DX artists allows you to join the world of art not only as a spectator, but as a creator as well, and make a contribution to the media. But what would you say your favorite thing about being a 3DX artist is?
S: It’s definitely creative expression. Especially in terms of creating characters. I very much enjoy spending hours obsessing over every aspect of the characters and scenes I make. The goal is always to make something super aesthetically pleasing, from aspects of the character’s body to the composition and lighting of the image. I hope that when others look at my work, they see that.
3DX is a constant learning process as well. As 3D artists we’re constantly finding new ways and techniques to improve the aesthetics of our work.
F: There are any people reading this interview that are considering or would like to become a 3DX artist, what would you like to tell them?
S: Stick with it! There is a relatively steep learning curve (to do it well) and an almost overwhelming amount of information in regard to all its intricacies. However, it is an amazing creative outlet and super rewarding, especially when your hard work comes to fruition with a completed render. Make sure you have a good GPU, though.
F: Excellent point! Sometimes artists will struggle because they still don’t know what the right equipment is (both software and hardware). Which ones do you use and would you recommend them for a starting artist?
S: I’ve got a bit of an odd set-up to be absolutely honest. I do all my scene creation and test rendering on a MacBook Pro. Once I’m happy I’ll transfer the scene to my PC, which is an Alienware Aurora R7 (i7 8700K CPU with an NVIDIA 1080ti GPU). This does the job pretty well, but I still plan to get a better CPU and GPU quite soon. The size in which you render can have a big impact as well. You can make do with much less if you’re rendering in smaller sizes. In general, though, rendering does take a while.
I use NVIDIA Iray to render as it makes sense with the GPU I have. There are other great rendering engines out there though, such as Octane, etc.
F: That’s a lot of great information! I’m sure it will help a lot of people out there. Finally, as a last question, what awaits in the future of STR4H? What are your upcoming projects or aspirations?
S: A mixture of things, hopefully. Fan-art is something I’d love to do a little more of as I really enjoy it. I’d eventually like to try my hand at animation as many of my own favorite 3DX artists incorporate that into their work. Also, improve my knowledge and use of Blender. Talking about steep learning curves that absolutely has one, but it’s something that can really help with expanding creative freedom.
F: And we’d love to see more stuff from you. Thank you so much for your time, it’s been great talking with you.
S: And you! Thanks very much!
