Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Isabela Soares. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Isabela, thanks for joining us today. The first dollar you earn is always exciting – it’s like the start of a new chapter and so we’d love to hear about the first time you sold or generated revenue from your creative work?
My first experience earning money as a creative was during summer 2024, I had just finished sophomore year of college. During the spring semester, I was very active in the community of a Brazilian twitch streamer, named Calango. He mostly played video games, but one day he was experimenting with 3D modeling and I started helping him through the twitch chat. A couple of months later, he contacted me to do a simple model and animation based on his drawing, to be shown at the start of every livestream.
The first interaction I had helping him was a dream come true, because I always consumed his content and I liked him as a creator. When he asked me to do something for his livestream, I was so happy to work for someone whose work I appreciated so much. I was so excited that I completed the work in two days. I couldn’t believe that I was going to be paid, while working with something and someone that I liked this much.
Even though the work experience was short, it was great. We talked back and forth about how the model was looking through different steps of the pipeline (modeling, texturing, lighting, rendering). He is a very charismatic person, so it didn’t even feel like work. It was fun, and honestly, a dream come true.
He still uses the same opening scene for his livestream, almost a year later, and everyone in his community knows who I am because of that. He later on contacted me to create a 3D model and animation of his upcoming RPG book. I am glad that he has contacted me multiple times and I am always happy to help him with anything he needs.
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 always knew I wanted to work with art, but I wasn’t quite sure in what area. I have always liked computers, and I wanted to do something that integrated art and technology. My mom is an architect, so that felt like the obvious choice: until I found out about 3D. It was literally what I dreamed of doing, with the freedom of making my own artistic choices while also using different softwares and upcoming technology. I am currently a junior at the School of Visual Arts for 3D animation and VFX. I left Brazil to study because it is a new industry there, and I want people to know how much this influenced my art and my journey as an artist.
When I moved to the United States, I had to fit my entire life into two suitcases. Other than my clothes, I brought my most prized possessions: photos, posters, stuffed animals and a statuette of a Brazilian saint. Throughout the three rooms I’ve lived in since, these objects echoed my personality in physical form and represented my own visual identity. I want to evoke that feeling through my artwork and that’s how I decided that I wanted to be an environmental artist and do everything environment-related. I believe that this experience is what makes me stand out from other environment artists.
I am a CG Modeler and Environment Artist, and I also do Lighting and Look Development. I am very passionate about modeling environments because I believe a good environment has the power to tell a story about the person who lives there. An environment is built from various props, each of which mirror their owner’s personality.
What I want people to know about me, is that no matter the skill level I am at, I am open to trying new things, and I am persistent even if I am out of my comfort zone: in this industry, no knowledge is ever too much. Even though I like modeling environments, I try to have a range of different styles and ideas in between projects, so I am never doing the same thing.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
I believe non-creatives have a hard time understanding how tiring and mind-consuming it is to be creative trying to make a living out of this skill. People often see art as something easy to do because it is so fulfilling and personal. Even though I have fun working on my projects, and it is often very rewarding to finish them, these are the same reasons why being creative is so hard. There is no separation between your work and your self-worth as an artist, and you are unable to separate your career from yourself as an individual because it is so personal.
All the ideas, everything you work on, you’re building it from nothing. You might have some references or something to work on as a base, but at the end of the day, all the ideas are coming from you and yourself only, and only what you know. The industry expects us to work tirelessly and hand in the best work possible, but creativity is something finite, it has to be fed and exercised; it has to grow and regenerate.
While dealing with all that, you don’t have to only worry about being the best in your area – because it is so competitive – but at the same time, you have to be different: you have to stand out, have your style, have new ideas all the time, all while executing them as fast as possible. The industry today expects new materials from artists as if we were machines, as if it was easy and simple to do what we’re doing, just because it is labeled as “art”. For non-creatives who succeed under such conditions, it is hard to see how difficult it is for an artist to succeed under such conditions.
It is easy to say that art is fun and easy to create when you only see the animated movie on the screen, the painting in the museum, or the sculpture in a garden. But no one sees the sleepless nights, the time it takes to have such ideas, and the mind-consuming process that is executing those ideas.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I consider myself a very resilient person, but I wouldn’t say that about myself before coming to the US. I left Brazil when I finished high school, at the age of 18, to study 3D Animation in New York. It’s probably the hardest decision I ever made in my life and the best one at the same time. I am currently 21 and I don’t regret it one bit, I love my major and I believe all the difficulties will pay off in the future.
Leaving home for college is hard, but leaving your country and everything you know to go to college is even harder. Being at a completely new place, with new people, a new language, new food, new habits, new everything, really made me wonder who I wanted to be, what I wanted to achieve and what the hell was I doing!
I had to worry about my studies and my career, while also worrying about making new friends, creating a home, and taking care of myself, creating a new life on my own. That experience in itself – and everything else – was completely new, I didn’t know how to feel or deal with this, but that was the transition between my adolescence and adulthood.
There were many times when I thought about going back home and doing something else.I just wanted my parents to help me do everything as if I were a child again: but none of these times gave up. I questioned what I was doing many times, but I always got to the same conclusion that it was worth and in the future, I would look back at this and be happy that I kept going.
This is the hardest experience I’ve been through in my life, but I believe that translated into something greater for my artwork and my art practices. It is hard to be creative when everything seems to be going wrong around you, but I found inspiration in what I was missing the most: home. When I think about Brazil, I think about the colors, and personal motifs such as my family, my cats, my friends, my childhood. That has helped me get inspired in these hard times.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.isalebasisa.com/
- Instagram: @isalebasisart
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isalebasisa/
- Youtube: isalebasisa
Image Credits
Tatiana Kireicheva – Headshot