As many a young child, I grew up in awe at the CG in films like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. Fortunately, as I grew older, it turned out that this craft was the perfect fit for me as it strikes the balance between art, world building, and technical accuracy.
My first steps in “cinema” were through the editing section in an audiovisual diploma. This was actually a great entrance as it layed out the basics of my cinematographic knowledge from a broader point of view than if I had gone straight to a VFX school.
ArtFx narrowed that down later on. As years went on, I felt more and more of a confirmation that VFX was the right path for me, especially as a character artist. However, I kept a big interest in most aspects of the craft, and I still wish I physically had the time to learn all its aspects.

Last year at Uni consisted of groups of half a dozen people to make entire short-films, mine being From Above. My team and I went along particularly well as we shared the will to make an emotional, well staged film supported by beautiful pictures. We cared a lot for good technique, as an essential mean for compelling storytelling and staging. One big challenge was that we were imposed to get inspiration from Fortiche while our first intent was to do photoreal CG. It was a concession to make, but in the end, the search and development were of better interest than we had ever expected and I believe we are all satisfied with the mood we achieved.

Aside of that I did photorealistic personal project to still showcase to the recruiters what I was aiming for in the industry.

My first works were a short contract on a commercial at Fix Studio, and quickly after that, one year at MPC London. These jobs were quite fitting as I was able to make my first digi-doubles and mainly, discover professional workflows. MPC was also the first time I tried procedural modelling: one of my tasks was to build the CG version of a barbwire fence. Trouble was no one could be certain how much of it we had to replace. My guess was that back and forth in feedback and decisions would be a big pain to apply manually and that it was worth to demystify Houdini for much quicker retakes. I turned out to be the best solution. I was supported in this by my supervisor Elena Vitanza, as big of a Houdini fan as one can be!

House of the Dragon was a bit more straight forward in texturing, mainly allowing me to better learn specific features in Mari and its extension pack. Also, working on a single aspect (modelling or texturing) really allowed for more time than I was used to, to push the asset quality.

Next job was free-lancing for A Running Commentary, and meant going back to stylisation. From Above-Arcanish stylisation to be more precise. I recently worked for them again, doing some concept work for an upcoming commercial.

I am instinctively much less drawn to stylisation than photorealism, but a significant switch began when chatting with Stefano Dubay while at MPC. He clued me in a better appreciation of anatomy and simplification. Working on Pacemaker was an unexpected opportunity, and a welcomed one as well as it drew me out of my comfort zone and made me explore stylized character art. Fortunately, I had solid 2D work to base my models on, thus I could focus on making clean meshes and enhance the charadesign with more efficient 3D features. By the end of the production, I had to design a few extra characters myself, and I had properly integrated the film’s style to do so.

As many a CG artist, second half of 2023 have been tough on me and I struggled to find my next position, even when having interviews with Rodeo FX, the Yard, or PostOffice Amsterdam. I made the best I could out of that free time count by identifying and sorting which skills I could improve. I first focused on anatomy, then I went more generalist path by making a CG environment, trying to combine as many techniques as I could. Finally, I went exploring Unreal Engine with a creature bust, as I would be interested to give a shot at the video game industry to discover new artistic approaches and new challenges.

Luckily, 2023 ended better with starting to work at Royal Post, a small parisian studio attached to Partizan. I started with reaching back to my main skill by modelling and texturing hero assets for a Perrier ad. Later on, this company let me be more of a generalist than I had ever been; I could dig a lot into compositing and even got a chance to do previz and on-set supervision.

Now the industry is giving me a hard time again and I am yet another time looking for work. I keep working on my skills at home, trying to become a better artist overall. I keep an eye on AI, as even with my sceptical point of view I must acknowledge it will have an impact on artists' work (and the views clients have on it). I hope I can keep working in the CG business as I am as passionate as day one, and I can hardly imagine a more fullfilling path. I aim to keep doing great art with my peers, and I am open to any way it will happen!