Interview – Bartosz Domiczek

 

Name: Bartosz Domiczek

Nationality: Polish

Age: 29

Years of professional experience: 10 years since my 3d beginnings, 5 years running my own studio

Started with Photoshop version: about the first CS but it was a long time before my adventures in 3d

Portfolio: behance.net/bartoszdomiczek

Current Position: owner of a small visualization studio

 

In this interview, Bartosz Domiczek shares a bit of his professional life. From giving some advice to the next talents out there, to sharing some of his fun stories as a traveller 3D artist.

 

What do you love most about being a 3D artist?

Bartosz: “I love that after many years of work, it still excites me each and every day. I love the creative freedom, a hint of magic and a childlike awe when hitting the render button for the first time. Since it is such a vast toolset, it perfectly combines with all areas that I am passionate about.

When I started, coming from a digital painting, it used to bother me how much must a 3d artist define to get a decent result. You could create great music with just a few notes, great lyrics with a few words or a great painting with a few brush strokes but nearly everything in 3d was born of sweat and tears of a creator.  At least it seemed so ten years ago. A lot of things have changed, the industry has become much more accessible and some serious issues of the past are now just drag’n’drop things. I also have got to understand that there is not so much difference between 3d, painting or even photography. The crucial element is your planned expectation of effects and then you need just slightly different mindsets to achieve them.”

How did you become a 3D artist?

Bartosz: “This is quite a typical story of evolution. I have been always addicted to some sort of creation and it became the very base of my hierarchy of needs. I started bravely but naively with some traditional art, switching to digital painting in my later teen years and finally finishing my education with a diploma in architecture. All of these just to stray from this path into the world of 3d visualization. I try to combine that experience by getting oriented on arch-viz and receiving some design commissions from time to time, but the creative potential in the industry is so vast that sometimes I cannot resist and find myself in the weirdest projects that I would place really far from my comfort zone.”

Which of your designs are you most proud of and why?

Bartosz: “Always the personal project I am currently working on. As soon as it is finished, I slowly start to notice all the flaws but it just gives me an extra kick to make another one that’s better.

The commercial works are usually filled with compromises and at the end of the process, I can get really fed up with them. In the end, I don’t really feel like crying about NDAs : ) However, there were several projects so crazy that it is still unbelievable that they succeeded after all. I was once asked to help with a refurbishment of an old industrial hall of which several thousands of square meters of interiors were to be thoroughly rebuilt for the entirely new purposes. The only problem was the timing because they had two months from the very conception of “let’s do it here” until when they needed construction to be finished. Two months! This is how long it can take in my home country to just get a building permit from authorities when a project is already finished. Fortunately, the task was set abroad. Then there were 3-4 weeks of producing up to ten renderings a day with all the design process taking place while modeling the scenes at the same time. Most of the physical elements (apart from some crucial structural ones) were manufactured based on the renderings (and some extra top/side views). I had one trip planned in advance for this period (as I had no idea it was going to be that manic) so I simply had to take that work with me (the well known nightmares of making 3d and travel). There is another anecdote from those days: I was at the railway station, rendering on my laptop. Suddenly, there happened to be some suspicious package noticed and everybody left while authorities were to take care of it. Everybody left – apart from me – stuck there, rendering and really unwilling to cease in the middle.

That was the kind of job of which you don’t have any grand images to show after it is done. However, you are left with a few decent stories (I must say that I am guilty of taking up many weird jobs not because they were well paid or gave the creative potential but simply seemed to become a fine story to tell after all would be done). I am kind of proud that it succeeded but it was already many years ago and I strongly believe that my occupational health has improved since those days : )”

What most important lesson would you like to share with starting artists?

Bartosz: “It is not easy at the beginning, especially as a freelancer without much understanding of this market. You are afraid of losing commissions, so you take up too much, stay awake all nights to make it on time and don’t get much richer in the end because your “competitive” pricing is just a serious underestimation. I don’t have a great solution to it. I would just like to encourage beginning artists to save some time for yourself and your personal work. It is the best way to learn new tools, experiment with a software and get some creative satisfaction. You dream about commissions you never get?  You can carve your way to them by making something just for your own fun now and eventually this will be noticed. You can nearly craft your entire career this way instead of letting it be led by fortuities. Don’t be too afraid of letting a today’s mediocre opportunity go because time spent on R&D will give you better chances in the world of tomorrow.”

Who are your heroes in this industry and why?

Bartosz: “I have a bunch of classic heroes as probably nearly everyone does in this industry, but I must acknowledge that almost each day someone perfectly unknown appears and blows my mind. Thus, I must say that my archetypical hero is this common artist that quietly spends his free time on polishing a work that is insanely crafted to the tiniest detail in the end.

I appreciate it because I don’t have too much patience myself. On the other hand, all this feverishness of mine is due to them, those heroes of mine. I get thoroughly inspired too often and would love to work on so many things at once.”

What do you think of Human Alloys models, and what would you like to see from them in the future?

Bartosz: “Definitely the best 3d people on the market. I liked some of them to the point where I wanted to create images with them as the hero pieces. Nonetheless, there are certainly some areas to be improved. Firstly, the choice could be wider because some of them can soon become used wildly enough (due to their unrivaled quality and easiness of use at the same time) to be dubbed to CGI cliches. There can be also some enhancements made in hair and faces representations (those dead eyes). I know these are difficult areas to develop in 3d because human brain easily detects everything that is unnatural about them. I am just used to substitute them with pieces of photos in >50% of cases at the moment.”

What are the things you’re looking forward to in the near future?

Bartosz: “This is a tough question because while my head is really swarming with ideas, I haven’t yet invested enough in any of them to be able to boast that they are coming to life in the nearest future. On the outside, there are some initiatives in the industry that I am really looking forward to implementing into my workflow. I may just hope I will find the right balance between commissioned work and self-development needed to make these things going.”