Who are you?
My name is Evgeny Skidanov. I am 33 years old, I was born and raised in Russia, in the hero city of Moscow. And yes, this is the place where it’s always cold, and where usually you can buy a bottle of vodka, a trooper hat and a Russian doll matryoshka, and where they can offer you a ride on a bear. And it is certainly amazing. But now I live in the sunny and absolutely wonderful country of Bulgaria. My wife and I relocated here a couple of years ago and plunged into our Balkan tale, because in the morning you can swim in warm sea, and just after a four-hours’ drive you can reach the glaciers of the Pirin Mountains and ride a snowboard on fresh, soft snow. And after riding you can taste delicious Bulgarian cuisine in authentic local restaurants called “mehanas,” losing yourself in comfort and bliss. This is what I really love to do outside of working hours. :) Oh, about my work. In Bulgaria I work remotely as a 3D freelance artist. My clients are mainly small studios and agencies around the world that sometimes need the services of a freelance 3D artist providing high quality work.
What are you working on?
Usually I develop very attractive and entertaining hero/header images and teasers, icons for web sites and applications. And in general any 3D illustrations that may be content for any media or publication. Sometimes my friend Igor Ginzburg and I transform boring and flat 2D logos into entertaining and interesting 3D animated logotypes. This is how we create small intros that are used as part of the identity of the brand at the beginning of each video on Youtube channels or video presentations. We love these projects and I can call them gems of our creativity, because we pay maximum attention to details and care in our work. We elaborate very thoroughly every movement in the frame, every highlight, every reflection, creating a flawless picture in the end. By the way, now it is a very good tool for owners of Youtube channels to stand out against the background of growing competition.
Choose a favorite shot.
It is certainly the animated logotype for Hypercompact brand, originally designed by Morgan Allan Knutson and turned in 3D by Igor’s and my efforts. As you can see, this shot was very warmly welcomed and perceived by the Dribbble community, and we are very grateful for that to everyone who supported us and appreciated our work. It scored more than 3,000 likes, and that is just crazy, and we are incredibly excited about it. We honestly wanted to put our souls into this work, and it is very nice when it is noticed by other talented people. It’s just awesome! That is why we love Dribbble. Here you will always get support, you will be welcomed, any other people are ready to help not only with advice, but also with deeds. Here you can find new friends and even colleagues, arrange your own start-up, a group of like-minded people or even create a working team.
Tell us about your setup.
There, everything is usual and pretty standard. Like all illustrators I first try to catch the idea and create a quick sketch on paper by hand using a pencil. Then scan it and agree upon the concept with the client, then turn to modeling in 3D. I used to use Autodesk 3ds Max combined with V-ray renderer in my works. But observing - as other 3D software grows, it is silly not to notice their superiority over this behemoth. So I selected Cinema 4D. It is convenient to work in for a person who has creative mind and wants to achieve artistic results faster and easier, and to concentrate on creative process instead of an unprecedented number of menus, bars, sliders and roll-outs. At some point it becomes tiresome :). You can even grow gray, and I am not kidding! Therefore, 3ds Max was forgotten and now Cinema is my main tool, along with its built-in render. After it, I process received renders in Adobe Photoshop and send ready-for-use, layered PSD sources with clear hierarchy to my customers. Sometimes when I need to work with vector sources sent by customers, I prepare them in Adobe Illustrator and then import them into Cinema 4D. So everything is quite simple in my pipeline.
Choose a favorite shot from another player.
I have chosen this shot. And now I will explain why. Firstly this is an animation! :) Secondly it is looped. So, you can enjoy it forever :) And thirdly, look at the quality visualization!!! It’s beyond praise. I want to lick this joint! I also want to mention that it is very difficult to do this type of work. This is a serious intellectual work. You may find it a boring engineering project. But as my original background is engineering, I can tell you that calculating this cardan joint is not an easy task. And you still have to model it, then animate and visualize beautifully. So thumbs up, Moran Goldstein. I also want to point out that Moran has examples of other gears and joints, you can also admire them for good. And I would also add them here. Actually like his other shots. Go and see for yourself. You will never regret!
Find Evgeny at Dribbble and at skidanov.com.
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