Interview with Justin Holt

Q. Hello, Justin. Could you tell us a bit about yourself (age, location, employment etc)? What inspired you to take up a career in the Arts Industry?

My name is Justin Holt and I am a texture painter working in the feature film visual effects industry. Currently I've moved up here to Vancouver to work as a lead texture painter at Image Engine. My road to where I am today was a curvy one. I originally was a pre-med student studying at James Madison University in Virginia. However I was never really happy in the discipline and had always wanted to work in films because of my deep passion for the medium. Some big inspirations for me while growing up were films like The Matrix, Ghostbusters, Alien Trilogy, Predator 1 & 2 and Robocop. I have always been fascinated with the entertainment industry and didn't realize I wanted to seriously pursue a career in it until half way through college.

Q. How did you take your first artistic steps to reach where you are today? What was your first professional work? Please tell us about your journey from Electronic Arts to Image Engine.

The first step I took towards where I am today was deciding I wanted to pursue the things I thought about every day. And that was films. So I dropped out of my pre-med program and enrolled into the Savannah College of Art and Design. One of my brothers was studying there at the time and recommended I transfer there if I wanted to get into visual effects. It took my two years to finish my BFA and graduated in 2006. However in 2005 I was offered a texture artist internship with EA in Orlando FL working on stadiums for NCAA Football. I left school for 3 months to fulfill that opportunity and then came back to SCAD to finish in March of 2006. It took me about 2 months of hitting the pavement and sending out my reel and resume to anybody who would entertain it until I landed an apprenticeship with Rhythm & Hues Studios in LA. After the apprenticeship, R&H offered me a lighting TD position on my first feature film, "Happy Feet". I worked on Happy Feet for 6 months and then was let go because of lack of work at the studio at the time. Fortunately though it only lasted a month before they offered me a texture painter position on my second film "The Kingdom". From there I worked on small texture tasks on a variety of other films before I landed the distinct opportunity to paint the textures for the two title characters in the second installment of "The Incredible Hulk". Due to the work I was doing on a couple of digital doubles for the film; my supervisor Greg Steele approached me to paint The Hulk and The Abomination. I will forever be in debt to him for providing me that opportunity. I worked on the two characters for the next 6-8 months and then was offered a role to work on Avatar with WETA Digital in the winter of 2008. Unfortunately due to work visa complications I was unable to make it out there. So I took a role as texture painter with The Moving Picture Company in Vancouver BC for Zack Snyder's "Watchmen".

I was the only fulltime texture painter on the film and was tasked to paint virtually everything on the 250+ shot award we were given. I had a blast painting the OwlShip and other iconic items in the film like The Comedian's smiley face pin. From there I worked shortly as a concept artist and lead texture painter on "The Surrogates" and then accepted a texture role with Industrial Light & Magic to work on their first feature animation called "Rango" in San Francisco, CA. ILM has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. Having been promoted into the lead texture role within the first 6 months of my tenure there, my supervisors Tim Alexander and Steve Walton really gave me the freedom and opportunity to paint some incredible characters in the film from Rattlesnake Jake to the Spirit of the West to the Mayor to the armadillo named Roadkill. I also was able to build some incredible relationships with some of the best talent in the world. Working closely with Giovanni Nakpil, Kris Costa and Carlos Huante was priceless. I lead textures on the show for almost 18 months and then was hand selected by the the legendary Stephen Rosenbaum over at Digital Domain to be a part of a creature development crew for Bryan Singer's "Jack the Giant Killer". However I was only at Digital Domain for 10 months before I was given the lead texture role with Image Engine here in Vancouver.



Q. You have an impressive portfolio: you've done a great number of interesting movies. I think it will be interesting to our readers to know what was the project you enjoyed to work on most of all and why? On which projects are you working these days?

That is really tough to say. Each project for me holds a special place in my heart. I am adamant on pursing the projects that I want to actually see. I pride myself on working on films I can be proud of and would want my friends and family to see. I had so much fun painting such an iconic character such as the Hulk but also had a blast painting all of the incredibly designed characters on Rango. And my time spent painting hard surface assets like the Owlship resonates differently for me than organic creatures and characters. I can't really pick a favorite because each film has offered me different opportunities.

Currently I am actually working on three films right now. I am painting textures on the final installment of the final Twilight Series "Breaking Dawn" and two other very exciting unannounced projects (one of which I am leading the texture work on).

Q. Can you share a typical texture artist pipeline and what was the common problem you come across in other used pipelines?

I cannot specifically divulge any pipeline related details; however, currently I am using Mari and Photoshop in the creation of my textures. Before Mari, the most common problem for me was a twofold issue. The first was not being able to truly paint in context of the asset at hand. I had to resort to a lot of back and forth in Photoshop and previous 3D paint packages in order to make creative decisions regarding details and variation. The second was seams! But Mari eliminates both issues quite nicely.