Who is HobbyHopper? I am 50 years old of Japanese man, who has lived in the U.K. for about 5 years, whose real name is Sadamu Higuchi -- and no, I am not an Iraqi :-) I am an electrical engineer working working for CDMA mobile phone development in a laboratory. I am getting old and my favorite engineering work is now being done by young engineers *sigh* -- Alas, I am just doing engineering management now. However, this management job is stressful and this fuels my drive for my 3D art work! How long have you have you been rendering? I started my 3D work about 3 years ago. I started doing 3D because my son gave me some 3D software tools as a gift (He had won them in a contest). Before then, I created my art using 2D tools and software. Special thanks to my son for his gift, which opened up new avenues for me! Since then my art was moved to 3D. Do you have traditional art experience? I used to draw MSDOS-based 16-color images for computer programs which is an extremely useful resource for my 3D art. What are you currently working on? Besides my real job, I create my 3D artwork as a hobby. In the field of 3D, I am submitting 3D images to many galleries now. However, I think Renderosity is one of the most friendly sites. I can feel American freedom and democracy here! What software do you use and why? I use "Shade" made by EX-Tool Co, Ltd. This tool has Bezier Curves modeling and ray-tracing. This is low cost and popular software in Japan. What do you think your best piece of work is and why? I like "Zoroaster-29". This has very cute girls and good perspective view. I tried to express summer sunshine and shade under the arcade. Fortunately I had found a good view angle of the girls in this image. The contrast of the sky and architecture gives the feeling of summer too. Why do you like to work with 3D software? Basically, I like craftsmanship and art. 3D tools are an easy way to create as opposed to something like oil paints, which are not easily re-drawm or redone. Also 3D tool allow me to check out many camera angles and often, I find the best one by chance! I like that element of surprise. What inspires you? I have an interest in fairytales, science-fiction, you know, stories such as Star Wars. I like to create images such as musical stages and my characters are my favorite shape. How has this online community (Renderosity) enhanced your work, relationships, and learning? Other artist's images here always give me inspiration and make impressions on me. To know the culture of each artist is my favorite thing, and their images give new ideas to me. I look not only at the "expert's" image but also beginners images too since I think all images are great for ideas. I also enjoy the comments here. I think this culture at Renderosity and the commenting mechanisms in the galleries most helful and inspirational. -- It makes for a nice community "culture." It's so nice to get feedback from people too, when they tell me Which part of my images gives them the most. This is good feedback to me! Parting Comments / Advice to other Artists? Thank you for taking the time to read my interview. I looked around all of nominee's image galleries and those were excellent! I would love to exchange information with them about arts in the gallery. Please give your helpful comments to members in the Renderosity gallery. Renderosity has good art couture! Thank you! HobbyHopper
click here to visit HobbyHopper's Gallery

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click here to see the nominees for September 2002 Click here to learn more about the Artist of the Month