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Some artists dream
of bringing life to their creations. Anders Kjellberg (better known
on Renderosity as cartesius) transcends imagination. His attention
to detail, composition and lighting qualifies Anders for the title
of Master 3D Artist!
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Although he resides
in Sweden, he is easily at home with Renderosity’s global
community. From the moment Anders discovered Renderosity (in 1999)
he has been a well-respected and vital member of the community. Not
just for his artistic talent (which is remarkable), but even more
so for his willingness to interact with artists—professional
and novice alike.
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So, what motivates
Anders (cartesius) Kjellberg? I was excited to sit down with him to
find out the mystery that makes up the man, the moderator, the
artist ...Â
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Anders, in
college, your interests varied; from literature to historical
studies. With your intuitive artistic talent, was formal art
training or computer science also part of your university
experience?
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Actually I never
got around to getting a degree in Literature (although I’ve
studied it) but I do have a B.A. degree in Art or rather History of
Art. I’ve always been interested in art so when I got the
chance to study its history I took it and it resulted in a paper on
Albrecht Durer’s Melencolia I. One of my favorite
pieces of art ever.
Â
 Melencolia I © Albrecht
Durer
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I’m also
enrolled as a doctoral student with the Department of Historical
Studies, Umea
University, where I’m working on a dissertation in the field
of History of Ideas. The dissertation is very biased towards
history of science and deals with how Nordic scientists during
primarily the 1800s attempted to explain the aurora borealis: what
was it, where was its origin to be found (did it emanate from the
earth or from space), and where in the atmosphere was it located?
Hopefully I’ll finish it one of these days!
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Computer Science
was never really on the agenda for me. I’m a humanist at
heart and although I enjoy computers very much (I still remember my
first Macintosh Classic) I’ve never taken a greater interest
in them apart from what you can do with them. How you can use them
as an extension of your personal creativity. Of course you can
study those aspects as well in Computer Science but I preferred to
sit home and play with the machines instead of studying
them.
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Although
you do not have formal traditional art training … your
attention to detail is flawless. Does your creative eye come to you
naturally? Where did you gain such an incredible grasp for
lighting, composition?
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I’m a firm
believer of details! There is a saying attributed to Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe; God is in the details. I believe that as
well. For me detail is what makes something “real,â€
that plants this something within a framework I can relate to.
Details might not always be seen but they are always there, and
helps the viewer to—consciously or
unconsciously—believe that what they are viewing might be, if
not real than, at least plausible.
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I think it also has
a lot to do with my fascination for reality. Every now and then
there are discussions on the CG forum on reality versus fantasy:
which genre should CG be used for? Some believe that if you have
these powerful 3D tools at your disposal, why re-create something
that you theoretically, just as easily, could snap a photo of? For
me this discussion is like discussing what you should cook with
your brand new oven: should you cook fancy meals all the time or
should you stay with the not so fancy.
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In my eyes it
doesn’t matter, cook or create whatever you want! Reality
with all its beauty and flaws is what fascinates me, but if you are
into magical creatures, futuristic spaceships or the Orcs of Moria,
then create those!
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So much of a final
render depends upon good lighting and I can’t really say I
know 100% what I’m doing when I set up the lights for a
scene. I go with instinct and feeling. If an area is too dark I try
to lighten it up with a low level Omni or perhaps an area light.
Too bright and I try to fix it by adjusting existing lights
combined with perhaps negative light sources. If I can’t get
the desired look in the render I’m no stranger to render
several passes of the same scene and composite them in
Photoshop.
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Composition is
something that probably comes very natural for me as I rarely need
to focus much on it. I arrange the scene the way I want and like it
and apparently I hit something universal once in a while as I often
get good criticisms for the composition of my images.
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Without
question you have mastered lighting and composition within your
Cinema 4D creations. What other artistic programs do you use in
your works of art?
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I cannot do
anything without Photoshop. I use it for creating textures and for
post-processing my renders. I know many of the older CG artists
might have a certain aversion to using any 2D application for
enhancing renders. When I started in 3D around 1998 there were
certain purists that voiced the opinion that; if you
can’t accomplish the desired result within your 3D
application, then don’t bother at all. For me they all
work together—if you can’t get the shade just right in
3D then fix it in Photoshop!
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Another application
I use frequently is Maxon’s amazingly powerful BodyPaint 3D.
Virtually every scene I do today in C4D utilizes BodyPaint in some
way. Once you get over the initial threshold it’s a very
powerful piece of 2D software for postwork—frowned upon by
purists.
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At work I use
Autodesk Maya, another very powerful (albeit more difficult)
application. I’ve been using Maya for about a year now and
although the [learning] hill isn’t as steep now as it was 10
months ago it’s still pointing up.
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I also have ZBrush
but shamefully I haven’t used that for quite some time now. I
had to reformat my computer last year and the process for
re-registering ZBrush was so complicated that I never got around to
it. Speaking of ZBrush, I’ve had my eyes on Mudbox for the
last couple of months and if I can somehow justify the cost (and
that I actually already have Zbrush), I will most likely get a copy
soon.
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The CG
programs that you use are very complex. How many years have you
been modeling? Do you create your images on a Mac or a
PC?
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I believe I started
with Bryce around 1998, or 1999, and I was hooked immediately.
I’ve always been a doodler but as the doodles I scribbled on
paper never resembled the vision I had in my mind I never really
started to draw or paint seriously. When I discovered Bryce it was
like a whole new world opened up for me. Finally I had a tool with
which I could transfer the ideas from my mind onto a canvas, even
though it was a virtual one. I used Bryce for perhaps two years
before I started looking for additional 3D software.
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I don’t
really know where Bryce stands today regarding modeling
capabilities, but back then you were restricted to either basic
primitives, or you had to model your objects with another
application and then import them. Displacement modeling in Bryce
was however extremely powerful, but I never mastered that part of
the software. In other words, modeling in Bryce was extremely
limited. So, I decided to find an outside application and started
browsing the market.
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Back then I was on
a Mac, and there were not that many 3D applications for Macs (for a
couple of years I’ve been using a PC, but I still have four
Mac’s lying around the apartment). I tried the demos of
Lightwave, Strata 3D, and Pixels 3D but none of them suited me.
When I finally got my hands on Cinema 4D, everything
clicked—I knew immediately that it was the software for me!
It was easy to use, intuitive, and overall it gave me the
impression of being manufactured with creativity in
mind.
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In 2001 I got a
student license for C4D R6, and I’ve stuck with that software
ever since. The student license is a great way to get into 3D if
you are still in school, by the way. With Maxon you get a fully
functional version of the software, no restrictions whatsoever
except that you are not allowed to use anything you create for
commercial purposes. The idea is that you learn the application,
create a killer reel, get hired as a CG artist and then purchase
the commercial version.
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Dad, Is That You?
© Anders (cartesius)
Kjellberg
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With so
many artistic awards, and your works of art featured in several
magazines, do you still consider yourself a
hobbyist?
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I suppose I can no
longer really call myself a hobbyist, no. However, I don’t
consider myself a professional either. I love doing 3D but
there’s still so much I don’t know. Every time I fire
up C4D I learn something new. When moderating the Renderosity C4D
forum; I learn a new trick or a new way of thinking every week.
Someone who has been using the software for perhaps two months
might describe how to accomplish something and I go, “Wow, I
never thought about it that way!â€
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Your images
tend to be photorealistic (Gauge and The Pilot),
with an occasional dash of whimsy (Dad, is that you?).
With your superior lighting skills, many of your images (although
modernistic) have an Old Masters quality about them. Do you have a
favorite artistic period, or an Old Masters’ artist
(Caravaggio, Raphael, Jan van Eyck) that have
inspired your works?
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I’ve learned
a lot from studying the history of art. The problems I struggle in
regards to light and color were problems also for the old masters,
and they all approached the problem from different directions.
Caravaggio is, for example, the master of focused and tight light,
much like placing Omnis of spotlights in a scene. Others, like say
Vermeer, mastered the global illumination technique, where light
appears to be surrounding and illuminating that scene in a very
natural way.
Â
  © Anders (cartesius) Kjellberg
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My favorite artist
of all time must be Albrecht Durer, a German artist of the Northern
Renaissance. I can’t really put my finger on what it is with
Durer that makes him so brilliant, but he’s been my favorite
artist since I was, perhaps, 10 years old and discovered his Bible
illustrations. I’m also very fond of the Flemish artists of
the 15th century—the Breughel’s, for
instance, have a very special place on my wall.
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I can see a
lot of your favorite artist’s within your artwork. On the
subject of inspiration, several of your images(At Least
There’s Paper and The Beast … I
especially love the drool) reveal a hint of dark humor. What
inspired those images, and how does your wife and colleagues react
to your sinister wit?
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At Least
There’s Paper was my reaction against all those shiny
interior bathroom renders that are still very popular. Everything
in those images is spotless and clean with not a hint of a smudge
anywhere. With Paper I decided to do the worst I could so
I fired up Bryce and went to work. It was great fun doing that
image and I’ve actually thought about revisiting that scene
and see what I could do with the same theme today.
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At Least There’s Paper
© Anders (cartesius)
Kjellberg
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The Beast
started when I tried to model the nose of our dog! It’s a
seemingly very simple shape but proved to be more difficult than I
expected. Once I had the nose I continued doodling on the mouth,
and it sort of grew from there. This image is in fact a prime
example of what can happen if you just play around! I had no real
idea of what I wanted to do when I started but slowly this head of
a beast started to take shape. The blindfold was added as I wanted
to see if I could model the folds. I modeled the helmet as I
didn’t want the poor beast to be bald! All in all, the whole
image is the result of me just playing with C4D.
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The Beast © Anders (cartesius) Kjellberg
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My wife is actually
one of my biggest critics. She always has opinions—especially
on shadows. I can work on a scene for two weeks and when it’s
finally done she takes one look and says, “Cool, but the
shadows are all wrong.†She also has a very dark streak of
humor; so we fit very well together. [laugher]
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Usernames
always fascinate me. I understand that your username is derived
from the Latin version (Renatus Cartesius) of the 17th
century French mathematician and philosopher (creator of the
Cartesian coordinate system), Rene Descartes. What is the back
story to your opting to use his name over
others?
Â
It started around
1998, I think. I had just discovered Quake II and online playing,
and I needed a nickname. At the time I was reading a lot of
literature on Western philosophy in the 1600s, and one of the
philosophers was Rene Descartes. Like you mentioned the Latinized
version of Descartes is Cartesius. So, I chose that name as my
online Quake nickname (actually I was very close to choosing
Leibnitz instead).
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It was kind of fun
since almost everyone else had names like Killer, MastahFragger,
Owned, or something like that. I ran around with a nick from a
French 17th century philosopher and
mathematician—I Frag, therefore I
am! [additional laughter]
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The nick stayed
when I started frequenting CG forums, and I suppose it’s so
well established by now that I can’t change!
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Are you
strictly a CG artist, or have you dabbled with traditional
mediums?
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I’ve dabbled
with both oils and water colors, but it was only in 3D that I found
the creative freedom I needed to express myself. You need to be
able to draw when you do traditional art, and I cannot draw to save
my life. Not entirely true, but I’m truthfully not very
skilled at drawing, so although I wanted to create I
couldn’t. One might say that I had a sort of vision of what I
wanted to create, an idea, so I created it and it didn’t look
even close to what I had imagined.
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I discovered CG
quite late in life. I was almost 30 years old when I realized I
actually had a talent for creating images in 3D. When I discovered
the computer, and then 3D, I realized that here was finally a
medium and a tool that allowed my ideas to take shape. I found it
so much easier to sketch and create in 3D than using pen and paper.
I still, in many cases, prefer to use the virtual canvas instead of
traditional tools.
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One of my
all time favorite pieces is Workbench. What was your
thought process in its creation? On average, how long does it take
you to create an image?
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That image came
about as a result of a very informal challenge in the Renderosity
C4D forum. The challenge was to model a flintlock pistol and we
had, I believe, one month to complete a scene with the model in
place.
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I had no intention
of actually making a certain image when I started out. I just felt
that the pistol in itself was a fun challenging model. I bought a
replica of a flintlock pistol that I used as reference. Originally
I planned to render the textured model in a sort of display case,
or something similar. Ultimately I figured it would be more
interesting if it was shown in an environment not usually
associated with old pistols. That’s when I got the idea of a
bench with tools, boxes and drawers; sort of like an old workshop
for the finer sides of blacksmithing.
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I think I worked
for two or three weeks with that image, a couple of hours each
evening, and interestingly enough it’s my most successful
image to date (it won an Excellence Award in Exposé 2, and
it has also been featured in several magazines). I’ve worked
longer on other images but this one came very naturally for me, and
apparently that paid off.
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Workbench © Anders (cartesius) Kjellberg
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You have
become a vital part of the Renderosity community. How did you first
discover Renderosity?
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It was during my
Bryce days. I was searching the Internet for places to meet fellow
users and Renderosity quickly became a daily stop for me. The
atmosphere here was very relaxed and open compared other sites.
Once I started using C4D I slowly migrated to that forum.
I’ve stayed there ever since, first as a regular member and
then as a moderator.
Â
Many in the
Renderosity community know you as the co-moderator of the Cinema 4D
forum, yet, I wonder how many know that you were also the
site’s contest moderator? Outside of Renderosity, what field
of work are you in?
Â
My fulltime
employment is as a 3D artist with a company in Stockholm, Sweden,
called Fantasy Interactive (FI). I’ve been working with FI
for about a year now and I really enjoy it. The work I do for FI
can broadly be divided into two categories: icons and
illustrations. The icons are used in online applications and can be
visualizations for things like Print, Help, or Archive. The
illustrations I create are usually connected to the stuff we do for
our clients, and can be as visuals.
Â
I have a lot of
creative freedom, which I enjoy very much. It can be a very
challenging and demanding job sometimes, when deadlines are looming
at the horizon, but it’s also very rewarding—it’s
a kick knowing that an icon you’ve created will be clicked by
millions o people! I use Maya 8.5 for about 90% of the stuff I do.
If there are tasks I feel more confident in doing with C4D
I’ll use my favorite application instead. Especially when it
comes to modeling polygon modeling in Maya, which is still a
cumbersome process compared to C4D!
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The only drawback
with me working in Stockholm is that I have to live apart from my
wife. I work in Stockholm and she in a city called Orebro, so we
can only meet during the weekends. We’re coping pretty well
so far, at least we’re still married. [laughter]
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With so
much responsibility, how do you find time for your art? How do you
divide your time between, work, art, and
home?
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Sadly I’ve
recently had to step down as Renderosity Contest Manager as I just
couldn’t find the time for it! I work roughly 8-10 hours per
day and when I get home I usually had some Renderosity stuff to
deal with. There was always at least one or two contests running at
any given time, and we usually had as many brewing for later
launch.
Â
A lot of things
have happened this last year and I haven’t had as much time
as I would have wanted for personal stuff, but I really hope 2007
can change that. I’m still staying on as moderator for the
C4D forum, though!
Â
That is
great news that you can still manage to stay on a moderator of the
C4D forum, as I know your expertise would be greatly missed. On a
personal nature; for someone who is of Swedish decent, you have a
remarkable grasp of the English language. Was English part of your
educational experience from an early age? Have you traveled
extensively?
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I haven’t
traveled that much, really. I’ve been to France once and to
Great Britain maybe six or seven times. I’m pretty fluent in
English and there are several factors for that. The first one is
probably the most basic one as well; all children in Sweden start
with English classes in school at the third grade, when
they’re around 8 or 9 years old. English is then mandatory up
to ninth grade, so we are more or less bi-lingual from an early
age.
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Another important
factor is that (thankfully) we don’t dub movies in Sweden, we
use subtitles instead. So all movies on theatres, on the TV or on
DVD are all in their native language with Swedish subtitles, which
means you’ll learn the language by watching the screen,
listening to the dialogue and reading the titles. The natural
exception for this are of course movies aimed directly for kids or
that kids would be interested in. When say Pixar’s latest is
running in the theatres they always give two shows: one dubbed
matinee and one with subtitles in the evening.
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All this combined
makes English almost like a second language here in
Sweden.
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Thank you
Anders for taking time out of your busy schedule to share your
thoughts and artistic insights. One last question … what
advice can you give an aspiring CG artist who yearns to emulate the
meticulousness detail that goes into each of your
pieces?
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Thanks, it was all
my pleasure! If I were to give one serious advice it would be to
observe the world around you! Don’t just let your eyes sweep
but once in a while you should stop and really take a closer look.
You’ll see the intricate cracks in the ice, the fine nerves
in a leaf and the way the paint on a crushed soda can is chipped.
These are all details that may not be noticeable at a first glance.
However, remove them and everything you see will be dull and stiff,
much like a flat 3D render. Imitate these details and your renders
will come to life!
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