Interview with Scott Eaton
Which software’s and renderer are you using for your CG work and what’s the main reason of using those?
For production rendering I am a RenderMan guy. I know it intimately and it oozes power if you know how to harness it. For my digital sculpture I am rendering with a renderer called Hypershot (www.bunkspeed.com). It is a sophisticated, interactive raytracer that can handle millions of polygons without any trouble. So, for speed, I just drop my hi-res models out of ZBrush, and Hypershot picks them up and renders them with full global illumination with no trouble. It is powerful and easy to use, great for when I am concentrating on my sculpture and don’t want to fiddle with the occasionally lossy process of displacement mapping and tuning GI settings.
 ZBrush or Mudbox and why?
I am and have always been a ZBrush guy. There are quite a few tools in there that I can’t live without, the best has got to be the transpose stuff. For proportional modifications to a model, it can’t be beat. Also subtools are very useful and the collective polycounts you can achieve are staggering.
Of all of your artwork, which piece is your personal favorite and why?
I like the full-sized figure sculpture, “iBod”, that I put together for my talk at the Tate Modern last year. It was a grand experiment from start to finish; and attempt at using digital maquettes to develop a concept and then using the digital data to build a full-sized clay figure sculpture.
How would you like to see your career evolve in the next few years, especially in recession?
I hope to continue to work on interesting production projects in commercials and film, but also to take time to create more of my own artwork. Beyond this, I hope to get my Anatomy for Digital Artists course online so people all over the world can take part, and to finish development of my Creature Anatomy Course.
On which projects you are working these days?
At Framestore, I am working on Clash of the Titans. Personally, I am just finishing off a project and getting ready to start on a new one, details forthcoming…
For an upcoming artist what is necessary to understand for good modeling and which are the most common mistakes you seen in the modeling of other artists?
Being and modeler and being an artist should not be two separate things. If you want to good in this business you have to be an artist and a modeler. The most common mistake I see people make when asked to model something they do not truly understanding the nature of what it is they are building. If you are asked to make a robot, it needs to be mechanically plausible, ie. hinges, joints, actuators, motors, etc. In the same way creatures needs to be anatomically plausible, not just imaginary shapes. So study and understand the structure of what it is you are trying to create. Knowledge goes a long ways to creating a sense of realism in even the most fantastic character.
What tips would you give to future wanna be modelers out there?
Learn to draw and keep sketchbooks. Drawing is, and always has been, the fastest way to prototype ideas and to internalize shapes and forms – crucial stuff for modelers, and artists in general.
Anything you like to add? It is your chance now to state your opinion about anything.
I just want to say thanks to everyone who follows my work, often your enthusiasm is what pushes me ahead.
Artist Website - www.scott-eaton.com
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