We recently connected with Darrell Abney and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Darrell, thanks for joining us today. One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?

There are definitely some things that I’ve noticed in my art career after a long time that I didn’t give much thought when I was breaking into the industry. When you are breaking in, you are lazer focused on finding that first job that you don’t have time to think beyond that much. I feel the hardest thing is finding a job that satisfies my creative goals. The hard truth is, some jobs might satisfy it for a bit but then the project changes or the people change and it’s really hard to sustain this long term. Or they may be creative but the pay or the environment is terrible. So to fix this, you can change jobs, which is really easy to do early in your career, or you can also do personal projects which can be a great creative outlet.

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.

Hi there! My name is Darrell Abney. I am a digital sculptor with over 18 years of 3D art experience, specializing in Character Visual Development Modeling for the film industry. I have a passion for translating 2D character designs into appealing 3D models and sculptures. Currently, I work in the Visual Effects Department at Laika Studios where I focus on modeling and texturing characters for their upcoming film Wildwood. I have also worked in Laika’s Production Design Department where I helped jump start the new film as a Visual Development Sculptor on character maquettes with the team.
Prior to working at Laika, I worked at Industrial Light and Magic as a Senior Creature Modeler where I had the opportunity to work on films such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi (modeling the Porgs and Captain Phasma), Aquaman, Kong: Skull Island, and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
I have also worked at Sony Pictures Imageworks as a Senior Modeler on Angry Birds, Hotel Transylvania 2, Alice Through the Looking Glass and Suicide Squad. Other notable past credits include American Horror Story: Season 3 (where I designed the forest demon creature), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 & 2, Star Trek Into the Darkness, as well as teaching courses at Think Tank and creating various online tutorials.
I also worked for 4 years for Sony Playstation creating 3d character art for Playstation 3, Playstation Home, and PSP Games.

I was born in Nashville and raised in Kentucky – I grew up drawing, sculpting, and a huge fan of monster movies. I attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh to study a mixture of Industrial Design and Special Makeup FX that led me to getting my start in Special FX as a Makeup Artist working on animatronics. Throughout my career, I have been fortunate enough to experience living/working in London, Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Diego, and currently in Portland, Oregon with my wonderful wife and puppy.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I enjoy the process of making a piece from start to finish. My main goal has always been to “make cool stuff” while making a living. It’s not always easy but I don’t know what else I would be doing. I feel with art you can keep getting better where as with sports at some point your body gives out. I guess one day my hands will give out but I think I have a while to go!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Being an artist can straight up suck sometimes. But the payoff is that it super rewarding. I’ve seen my name in the credits of several big films. While that doesn’t do much for me anymore, at the time it gave me a great sense of accomplishment. During my personal projects I feel a sense of calm. Sure there is also the insecurity and painful hurdles you come across as you go, but finishing a personal project really feels great, especially if it turns out nice. I learn something new on every project and that drives me too. I like to have at least two personal projects going at once so that when the creative fire dims some on one, I can bounce to the other one. Then bounce back again to the first. I don’t always work this way sometimes I just do one thing and take it all the way through.

At work, getting paid to be a artist has it’s ups and downs. When the project ends and if I am proud of the work and I learned new skills and met new people, then I call that a huge sucess.
Sometimes my work contributions are more of an art technician, because not every task at my job asks me to use my creative art skills. Lots of tasks require me to be a good artist, but use my technical skills. Sometimes I get to be creative or sometimes I am more of a craftsman. As an artist, I find myself and others are always striving for creative tasks. If there is a chance to add my own artistic touch to something, even if its just figuring out what the back side of a character looks like, or figuring out how a piece of armor on a tail would look, it is hugely rewarding.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.artbydabney.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artbydabney
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrell-abney-53367b4/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/artbydabney