PaulHellard: PaulHellard: Hey, I have one, I have one, [heh] Can you talk a bit about the ‘d’artiste: Matte Painting 3’ book you just completed with Milan Schere and Damien Mace. What it was like juggling your work and life as well as producing this book? We’re extra excited here at Ballistic Publishing too by the way. There’s a special name you guys interviewed in the book too wasn’t there?

Heyo Paul,

I definitely can shed some light on that! First of all, when I was first asked to be one of the co-authors, I was beyond ecstatic and so humbled to be a part of the next book series, which previously featured other titans of DMP artists of the community. A great honor to be featured in the book. I gave it some thought to see how it would have impacted my schedule (which would have me starting to work on the book around late January or so), and after careful consideration, I accepted wholeheartedly! I had to take into consideration that I was doing full time at work, my active CGWorkshops that I would be teaching in February-April, and then again in June-August. Also personal things that were going on as well as family responsibilities.

In the end, it was actually much more work that I thought it would be…creating 3 full blown personal matte paintings for tutorial breakdowns (one has a fully composited shot which can be downloaded later to study), thoughtful comments on all of the beautifully submitted images from other artists around the world that I chose for my gallery, as well as working on a deadline to get it all looking great, checked and making sense with our wonderful editor, Mark Thomas, and the man Paul Hellard himself!

I was totally booked for the first half of the year teaching, doing this book, and working at Blizzard. Amazingly, I still managed to make time for my family and friends as I went out every now and then to see a movie or have a social outing to relax a bit before I delve head on right back into the thick of things after hours, and every weekend until our deadline in June. Life is still very important outside of work again, but every once in a while you can burn a bit brighter to get the job done for the bigger picture.

Working with other high caliber artists such as Damien Mace and Milan Schere was pure awesome as we all bounced ideas back and forth for each other on what should be included in the book, which themes for our tutorials, and how to present it later on to the world. Working with the team down in Australia via Ballistic Media/CGSociety was another great experience, and I can see now how they are publish some of the best art books in the world.

For the book foreword, when I was asked who totally inspired us today as artists, the first high level choice was Michael Pangrazio. And when I had heard we got a hold of him, and he accepted to write the foreword and do a Q&A with us, it was a such a dream as he is one of the most influential master matte painters of our time. His list of credits is incredible, as he started back at ILM during the Star Wars movies in the late 1970’s. From then on he’s been doing work on pretty much every ILM movie until he cofounded and moved to Matte World Digital. After a bit there, he moved on to work as the art director for King Kong, and has been there ever since. Of course being a gigantic Neverending Story and Hobbit fan, both of which he has worked on almost 30 years apart, I asked many questions about those movies!

I’m continued to be inspired by his life experiences and am so honored by the fact I am doing a book with him. We all coordinated around the world to make a two hours session with Pangrazio happen. From me speaking in LA, to Milan in Toronto, Canada, Damien in London, to the guys over at Ballistic in Australia, then finally at 10am in New Zealand for Pangrazio. Quite a feat, but it was a real treat to be a part of that history and to speak to the legend himself.We actually have our entire Skype interview session recorded somewhere. Definitely a treasure to hear, and I hope one day we can share it publicly!

Thanks to everyone for the immense journey on creating D’Artiste: Matte Painting, vol. 3, can’t wait for everyone to see it.