We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Michael Howard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Michael below.

Michael, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learned to sculpt from video tutorials and trial and error, and I refined my sculpting skills by breaking down the process of creating to its base parts, then building up the models with layers of digital clay. Looking back, one thing that I could have done to speed up my learning process is observe shadows from reference images, as they define the hills and valleys of different items in the real world, as well as their scale. Observation is definitely one of the most important skills that an aspiring artist can have, for all aspects of design, Material, Musculature, surface texture, the different moving parts of any design are defined by a persons ability to interpret what they see. Time constraints definitely stand in the way of education, I usually find my time torn between my personal artwork and my job, but making time to pursue your passion is definitely worth it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started my artwork journey in high school, although I had initially wanted to work in the video game industry at the time, and was part of a game design course for most of my high school education. After high school, I went into a course for design and animation at college, where my priorities shifted from video game design to VFX and 3D Modelling for animation. I primarily stick to 3D sculpting characters, creatures, and props in Zbrush, as well as texturing them and remeshing them, to make them easier to animate. I am very proud of the progress that I have made in the quality of my sculpts and texturing, as well as the development of my observation skills when observing reference. I like to try new creative methods whenever I can, as well as new software to broaden my horizons and combine different software to change the output of my work.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part of being a creative for me is seeing all the subtle parts of a piece meld together to create a finished project. laying layers of digital clay, the texture of the surface and the digital painting all falling together to create a visible piece of artwork with detail and subtlety to the design, but realism that can be seen and appreciated. After I put all the pieces together and see a pupil dilating realistically, or light reflecting off a piece of metal accurately, I feel a great sense of pride because of the effort that went in to making these things realistic.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

As silly as it sounds, one of the biggest missions driving my creative journey is to work in a digital studio, and experience the development of a 3D tv series or movie, just to be a part of something that the whole world can watch and enjoy. I find that something as simple as providing people with something to occupy their time and bond over is a good enough reason for me to push beyond my limits and strive to do better.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://phantommenace1.artstation.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-howard-675860208/