Interview with Matthieu Roussel
Q. Hi could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background in CG and are you self taught or taken some training?
 Hi, my name is Matthieu Roussel and I was born in 1964 in Marseille (south of France). I live in France near Toulouse. I’m married and father of 3 children. I studied and lived in Paris for 17 years. I was student in an art (school, ecole nationale superieure des arts decorative de Paris).
I start working as free-lance illustrator during the end of my study in 1991 and still free-lance from this date. I have two illustrator representatives, one in Paris (www.virginie.fr) and one in North America (www.threeinabox.com)
Q. So, you are a freelancer, please tell us what difficulties a freelancer have to face in getting the work?
The difficulty is to begin to work, calling art director and to show a book, go back home and waiting a phone call. You have to trust in yourself and to believe in your talent. For me it happens step by step, and I had the chance to meet good people at the good moment. If you are a little serious in your work, it should be easy.
The second thing must have enough work to live and find an agent. I was ready to work for ad agency, and finding an agent is the key to work in this field of activity. Jobs are very different, various, and the agent leave your mind free for creation in front of question of money.
Q. What software program(s) do you use for your CG and why?
I start working with Photoshop in 1997, then with Strata 3d for 3d. I worked with this software for several years and change for Cinema 4d, because I needed more tools for modeling.Cinema 4d is very powerful and very easy to learn, very stable on a Mac environment.
Render times are very fast, even on global illumination mode. I use a little poser 6 for realistic human models, and just start to learn Zbrush to complete Cinema 4d for organic modeling. I think Cinema 4d for the moment is my privileged software.
Q. Do you do any preliminary drawings before you model, or do you just start and see what happens and how long on average would you spend on an image?
I always work like that. A good draw before starting modeling is the best way to success what you have in mind.
For two reasons:-
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The client wants to have an idea of the future illustration he orders, and a good sketch gives him confident.
- with a good sketch, I lose less time when modeling, because I know very well what I want to do. I mean, 3d is so powerful than you can lose yourself in the software.
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