This Steam Punk Coffee Machine Hits all the Right Points
In this CGBoost challenge, Jan touched an Eternal Need that fuels so many artists. Coffee. The steampunk touch is nice too of course.
Interview by Michael Haggerty
The CGBoost challenges are as strong as ever. With an increasing amount of community engagement and an ever growing avalanche of submissions it stands to become one of the more ambitious and fruitful art challenges around.
What really helps make this monthly challenge shine is the great choice of themes. I find them on the same level as the huge Artstation events, just focused only on 3D. This month was Steampunk, the month after was “Life after Humans” and the month after that was “Samurai”.
Jan’s piece captures an essential aspect of steampunk, that of its integration into every aspect of life no matter how mundane. It does not matter to the steampunk aesthetic if something simpler could get the job done because that was never the point, add more cogs and add more steam. They have been a constant participant in this event, jumping into several over the course of the monthly challenges existence.
Another great challenge with a series of beautiful submissions, I was fortunate enough to throw some questions at Jan and get a peek behind the curtain of their workflow, style and motivations. Enjoy!
Mike: “Where are you from, what where your motivations for jumping into 3D art?”
Jan: “My first steps into 3D art where when I stumbled across a software called monzoom3D, quite some time ago. I saw the software package in a local store and on the back there where screenshots showing 3D scenes. The possibility to create such scenes, see how the light interacts and navigate around in these 3D worlds was very interesting for me. So I guess that’s when I got hooked.”
Mike: “Do you primarily do only 3D art, what other art do you do and why?”
Jan: “At the moment Ido 3D primarily. But I try to find some time to work on my pencil skills again. I think it is great to be able to realize ideas with just pen and paper.”
Mike: “How long did this particular piece take you?”
Jan: “I think about 2 weeks a few hours every evening. Of course there was a lot of trial and error involved. Whereby the many gears were done relatively fast. I found a dingbat font with gear symbols and i just extruded all the gears out of that.
Also the steam from the coffee cup and the liquid tanks turned out surprisingly good with the use of just one texture on a twisted cone.”
Mike: “Do you plan on working in Game Development? What are your long term goals for your art?”
Jan: “Working in the game industry sounds very interesting and it is a promising sector for the future I think. I recently spent some time with Photogrammetry, which is a nice way to get out into nature, doing some scans and then eventually create some cool 3D assets from those scans that can be used in the next project.”
Mike: “What were the inspirations for this piece?”
Jan: “I listened to some audiobooks. Jules Verne stories and the like. Also a story about a guy called Lord Atherton, some kind of mad, genius inventor, so I thought why not invent a steampunk coffee machine. Cause if you plan to make adventurous voyages around the world or under the sea, you need a good cup of coffee to get you started.”
Mike: “Where did you go to school, what was your experience like there?”
Jan: “I have not been to any art school or academy.”
Mike: “Do you think that classroom learning for art is better than self teaching?”
Jan: “Can’t tell, because all I know in this field is self teaching. I usually had an idea and then tried to find tutorials or other resources to realize it in 3D. Finding a solution to a specific problem and also learning some other things along the way.
So I think it is important to have an idea or goal in mind and work towards it, and that applies to self teaching as well as to classroom learning i think.”
Mike: “Could you include a link to a portfolio or previous work?”
