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BlenderNation Exclusive Interview - JunSkywa1ker

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Jun Skywa1ker creates amazing anime style characters using Blender, and often uploads them on sketchfab. I did an interview with Jun, asking him various questions and a step to step on one of his more impressive works on sketchfab, Sword Maiden.

Give us an introduction, who are you, how old are you, what do you do, where do you do it?
I am creating art as Junskywa1ker in Osaka, Japan and I am 33 years old. I have a lot of experience within the domain, and I recently worked at a small video production company in helping with the creation of videos for companies (baseball team, etc).
How long have you been creating art?

When I was child I loved drawing. When I was an elementary school student I wanted to be a manga artist like Akira Toriyama who created Dragon Ball.
I started work for a video production company, this is when I actually started creating art as a professional. I worked there for 4 years. I started using Blender in 2013.

How did you learn as an artist, school, self learned?
I studied at school for half a year. I learned the basic of art and digital tools, and then started helping with the video production company. I started to learn Blender 4 years ago and I am completely self taught. I've been watching tutorials on Youtube almost everyday.
Studying at school is not fun to be honest, I was not motivated over there. I was able to learn more interesting art at my own pace at home.

You won my heart with all of the Chrono Trigger renders, are you planning to create characters from other games? If you are, which will be the next game?
I was surprised that people in Sketchfab liked the game characters I modeled since I only started anime style character modeling half a year ago. Prior to that, I modeled realistic characters. I felt the limits of achieving photo-realism and decided shift my art style completely. I returned to my roots by remembering the characters I drew of Akira Toriyama-sensei when I was kid. It is more of a natural feel creating the characters of ChronoTrigger for me.
People in computer graphics are usually into art by Pixar and Hollywood, but I realized that there are good art style in Japan as well.
For my next work, it would not be game characters. I'm planning to creating anime characters like DragonBall, RWBY or something similar.

I see that you post a lot on Sketchfab, would you recommend it to artists out there, and why?

I started Blender because of the beautiful renders I saw using Cycles. It is showed on a 2D space same as a 2D artist. You can show your work on 3D space in Sketchfab. 2D artists can never do this. Sometimes I feel difficulty of showing works on 3D space, but you could get the ability of expression.

Sword Maiden is one of the more impressive works you made on sketch fab, you mind doing a quick step to step on how you created it?

Step 1 - Started modeling the face using my terrible sketch as a reference.

Step 2 - Painting texture on the 2D space and 3D space with reference.

Step 3 -  I was planning to use Bloom in Sketchfab so I added white color on the parts where I wanted that effect, because Bloom shows most with whites.

Step 4 -  Moved the slider of Bloom in Sketchfab and done!

Why do you use Blender as opposed to different 3D softwares?

Because there are a lot of people online provide great tutorials about Blender. I only know different software Maya but I feel Blender is easier to use for me.


What do you do to take a break from art? How do you refill your artistic energy?

I experienced being sick so I scheduled to take a walk by the doctor's advice. Sitting in front of PC for a long time does not help one come up with a good ideas. I also watch anime.. well not only watching, I screenshot impressive scenes and capture great moves.


What can we expect from you in the future?

It will take a while but I want to create my own anime, small video or something. This might be a mix of 3D animation and traditional 2D animation. If it's possible.


Any tips to artists out there? 

This is my own opinion. I struggle with making models but creating a lot of fan-art is a good experience. I think designing and modeling characters characters are actually different abilities. I'm training because making fan-art can focus on modeling characters. If you want to design your own characters, you can not achieve that even if you have no skill in modeling characters. I think stealing good parts from other artist is a basic of art.

And last words?

Happy blending!

Hopefully you guys enjoyed this Interview. Even though English isn't his first language, he did a great effort at answering the questions.

If you want more interviews let us know in the comment section below who do you want to be interviewed next!

Links:

Jun's Artstation
Jun's SketchFab

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