#40 - Vitaly Bulgarov

all right we're gonna go live now let's go yeah who are live are we yeah nice can you guys hear me okay what a NATO what an intro soundboard dude you are Howard Stern like you've just become him I just want to make sure I just wanted wanted to make sure that everything is working well you know what I mean you know what I mean so your thought your voice is very sexy much I love it I know thank you I know I you know I know I don't know which whose voice is 6-year minor years I think you know just an European accents they're all super hot dude I haven't been talking to you in since like forever I think last time we were talking it's when we went out in Irvine right it was it they're one of the most initial meetings like which one of those I don't remember oh yeah I think yeah I think you're right it was a vine lunch with I think with Jonatan guru goes there Anthony Jones was all our fun yeah and then we went also for dinner with oh you were were you worried with that would asking the dinner with flashing there was one dinner I missed because oh yeah stupid reason decided to me like the red meat with Fausto and Aaron Beck all the other savages outfit oh never forgive myself dude so awesome all right no I mean we've been life since like couple of minutes and then I all right yeah yeah and this man doesn't need any introduction I would say is that correct is that the right thing to say Valley battalion Andrew can I can I just say that you Vittal you just don't you just really don't need any introduction anyone who's here should already know who you are if you don't know if you don't know who vitaly is you leave and maybe unsubscribe from this channel and I ain't got worthy yeah you're not worthy to listen to this if you don't know who that person is now dude I've been always one of your work I remember when you released the black Phoenix and and I saw it I was like what on earth is going on here what the I was so excited to see that study thanks a lot relax used to coming for you means a lot you've been a huge inspiration for me so thanks thanks a bunch you're too kind did you the fidelity of your work is like I always been like what the how did you and what even like I don't even understand now and now we're actually seeing that thing on the screen is that I'm assuming some lot of it is cat or this specifically was something I open it this one it's a it's a black widow spider tank because it's kind of a combination I guess of all of all three favorite work clothes it's got some cat it's got some ZBrush kind of a free-form right sculpting and then it also got some sub D I opened them all at subdivided model so it's a bit slow in the viewport uh yeah just thought you know just to keep our eyes entertained while we're talking for sure for sure yeah I mean I wanted you to paint something but oh it's you could tell me paint a horse and I'll go jump off a cliff cause I can paint it now you're you're you're a savage though dude yeah we haven't been chatting a lot recently you've been always busy you've been always you know it's funny because like any time I was trying to get you an RFA or even just even get you out to you know hang out and get a beer or something was just like I'm busy did last year and the beginning of 2015 16 was a bit kind of insane it was kind of a great lesson for me then don't try to bite more than you can then you can chew what do you mean like I had this kind of a periods like I couldn't do anything so I I think I'm slightly wiser I'm still a fool but like slightly wiser I don't do as much yeah so it's and it's better that way I think like a more productive healthier currently and so yeah I'm very happy to be here tonight thanks so much man I really appreciate it I'm trying to say it's not healthy to work on five projects the ones yeah I'm working on four right now but it's more paced in its right way so if not projects what the yeah but it's not it's not like full-time it's very known as scheduled and regulated and we can talk more about this stuff and it sounds like a lot it's actually not that many and and it's uh and it's healthier much healthier like I sleep eight hours like I feel great it's been it's been good yeah yeah I mean all we were working yourself is the worst thing you can do you know especially you know when you're at your level of skill you're basically so I would consider yourself to be a leader of hard surface design in the industry right now I don't think I know that many other artists out there that can produce the quality that you're producing I'm sure there's a bunch they just don't policy like a lot of rooms I don't know I mean there's one person that comes close to you but it's still I mean stop it thanks man out there that I know of and that's what that person obviously is not posting much but otherwise you know you would beYOU hear about those those people you definitely see those designs online and you don't see them if you don't see them they don't exist you know that's that's my assumption yeah I'm telling you like one of the most humbling experience was working with Boston Dynamics I saw some of their cabs of their engineers those are the most that badass 3d modelers like seriously if you think you can 3d model like you just open one of they're like hydraulic pump or like something like this that is insane it's so cab and it's just as a cherry I'm you know on the cake like it's a freaking functional robot light so I think like so far but from what I've seen those are have been like the craziest models I've seen so this it's it's insane and like those people they never post any of this I mean you see like their engineering awards on the walls and stuff but they're always in their labs and you can't see any of that stuff online you only see the final product so and there are a lot of guys like that yeah I mean in in engineering it's definitely there's a lot of people like that and it but it's still different you know what they do is more I guess you have more experience in that too because you've been building max like real max but yep but in engineering there's um you know everything is done towards it's more done towards the function and making sure that it's actually going to work rather than the design itself and what I was implying here is more of a design aesthetic aspect to it you know and I really really respond to that because it's one thing to see engineering you know CAD models and be really freaky and excited on how they look and like how amazing this works really look and knowing that it all of it is functional right yeah but but if there's no design there's there's no excitement about it it's like I think a great parallel is looking back at Apple early days of Apple or the time when they started release I think was Mac 2 or Mac 3 the the one the one that was like a monitor and a computer and it's very very colorful looking thing and you know when Steve Jobs were having conversations with his engineering and design team he basically settled on the design that he liked and then what he said to engineers was make it happen I don't care I don't care how are you gonna do it just make it happen and what it what it does to you know technology software software hardware whatever that is it's it's pushing the boundaries to achieve something new something else that everyone else would consider it's not even possible to do right yeah if everyone would be if if the industry would be driven by engineers only then every computer would look like like an old PC basically like you would never have iMacs you would never have you know tablets or anything like that when iPad was released everyone was laughing at like what the I like tablet would like well it's not a laptop doesn't have a keyboard that you know but at the end of the day it's like right now it's the most popular one of the most popular devices that is out there seriously so you know I can I can tell just by looking at how industry just even computer industry works right you could tell that design can drive industry in the directions that you would never imagine they would go into right oh yeah totally I think that's how I think that's how I started working in in the product field without actually being an engineer and really understanding really have an in-depth knowledge about the function mm-hmm because the certain cases that would be like Oh guys I don't really know how it works it's like they're like oh it doesn't matter if you make it look good you're going to challenge the engineers you're going to inspire them and like really come at this you really need to know that right so there's a healthy balance there but I totally agree with you that we live in this and I think part of the consumer economy and the world we live in its also partially to blame because we're kind of this total constant chase of novelty right and as a consumer uh it's it's it catches kind of like three aspects right the first to function like is this computer faster right but then also there Gotama 'kx like that a little smart idea is that in terms of usability and then also like this is look good does it make me feel happy when I everytime you turn this thing on right so I think this now within this kind of a interesting kind of bridge and cross-section of different fields right we have a whole new generation of CEOs and and and top executives that grew up playing video games man come on like Elon Musk was playing quake competitively right like monkey yeah in space excite actually that's what that's where we met I think the first time when you mature you took me on a tour to SpaceX thanks to game by the way I didn't get using I didn't take you on the tour to space man do I your connections I still know some people there so I know but my water game is that you should I should thank Simon because he was the Simon if you're listening thanks so much what I gonna try to get him on this podcast actually you know to talk with him excellent yeah yeah so what I was saying like you if you get like people like you'll a must playing games and and you know we get people who who drive technology and how the technology works looks I grew a grown up you know being added players of video games or like in even just science fiction movies then of course we live in the time where things will eventually look different right yeah in terms of like what is it what is aspiring design even means right so yeah I think I think it's a good good time to do 3d and design or 2d any any sort of art media I think it's a good time for sure yeah if looking at worthy industry is going I can definitely tell that being a designer and being good one or at least aspiring to be the best in the industry as a designer is a path to go because what it's going to take you what is going to get you is stability if you do I don't know if you decide to do you V sort things that are very technical but not necessarily creative or design related that's the that's the things that will slowly become a past you know I can give you like a it's funny because like everyone like when you look at software for instance when you know when you look at let's say uber right you have a you have an app you have this service it's awesome it's basically pushing taxis away it's it's cheaper people that drive uber are way nicer than taxi drivers and all that stuff and people people you know can make a living out of it you know I think in there is quite a lot of people that live in Sacramento for instance and they commute every day down to San Francisco just do burr because it's so so good to actually do it in Silicon Valley nice because everyone is taking uber over there obviously but just recently they've they've announced uber announced that they gonna have autonomous cars they're not going to have drivers in them you can basically call in autonomous car that is going to drive you around to the right place without a driver in it so that alone is like a small industry that just raised up and slowly started to die because everything becomes automated things that can be done as a regular labor are basically going away you know yeah so it was kind of interesting what you said the fact that you know when you're when you're doing 3d when you're doing art in general something creative creative work is going to get you somewhere until you know they've gonna create AI basically makes things better than we do so yeah which can eventually happen but wouldn't be surprised it's kind of its kind of scary and fun and interesting at the same time because yes you know you're I think you're at my age or around my age as well you were born in and it's actually yourself especially you're from Eastern Europe as well so you know uprising or upgrading upbringing is pretty similar to mine yours actually and and the funny thing is that you've experienced a lot of same things that I've experienced and and that is you know being in the place where there was no internet and then like slowly discovering what internet really is when it started to you know expand from America to Europe and then eventually to Eastern Europe getting to know like art 2d and 3d and you know seeing Craig Mullins and all that stuff you know regular phones the the rotary phones and like everyone had zeroes in their phone number you like that guy I don't know : cuz he's 0 yeah just cause I remember that um we're seeing my parents still got one really have like two and one of them I think they kept one of those of course nobody uses that but it's a nice of very hipster like that's so funny do you remember seeing first cell phones in the school oh yeah did all the gang rape had a cell phone when I was in school did if if I dude had a cell phone like he was a gangster yeah it wasn't bad you don't want to mess with that guy yeah cuz like everyone's so poor around like whoever had money he's usually had some mafia ties yeah oh yeah I got my first console to play you know at the time where like it was a PlayStation 2 was already out and I got my Sega Megadrive 2 or something to play like Mortal Kombat you that I was all collecting metals on the street than just you know the scrap metal that's how I made money for my first console you know damn remember having my first Amiga 600 dude I was I was bowling there because I was like one of few people in the in our neighborhood that had computer like all our hockey yeah that's Buller yeah I think I got it for like birthday or something like some like one of the significant things that happen in my life was just getting that I was so happy dude but what I'm what I'm getting at it's just like you the thing the amount of things that changed over the last 20 years it's just like so amend like even thinking about life five years ago about what we had five years ago versus what we have right now the amount of convenient things that you get from life whereas Amazon YouTube even YouTube right yeah I mean you use real disability today just it's it's cereal yeah it's funny how quickly we get used to it you know it's like it's almost like we always had it you used to have a dial-up internet connection you would be so freakin happy to load an image that would be loading for like 20 seconds yeah I did my first my first freelance I was still in Moldova in my Technical University I didn't have internet where I lived where I was renting a room and I would take this floppy disk and you know like what did the small square block what's whatever they call like a floppy dics I was a three-inch or something yeah yeah it was fine I was in three-inch later on yeah and in the first freelance for like a game I was working on I would send it to like underground internet cafe you know with just export like his obj zip that think and would send it going there pain like time to put it to use the Internet so like the communication was only you know it's specific hours it was it was very interesting yeah my first Internet was going to internet cafes you know like going there and and I'm connecting in browsing forums and is exciting but you know I think my first internet was dial-up when i headed at home and then there was a guy who got like really fast internet so he started reselling it to everyone like putting illegal cables everywhere of course he did and that the payment depending on what time you would log in it will be either really fast if you were once sleeping or really slow if everyone was online so it was like funny times but the amount of things that changed you know right now at Amazon you have I don't know YouTube all the streaming services all the art schools self-driving cars iPhones there and all their phones that basically are your GPS computers like the phone itself right now is way more powerful than really good computer ten years ago and it does everything for you yeah that's pretty much does everything for you it's your camera it's your camcoder it's your food ordering service it's your nanny or I'm gonna workout tracker like there's just so many things you can do with the phone right now and GPS and you can even dive with some phones so just kind of kind of crazy crazy - yeah just like thinking how things going to change in the next 20 years that's going to be interesting too because you know right now as you said like we're getting used to things very and we really it's really hard to appreciate those those things when they're already here like once they I'll give you a good example my phone stopped working for for a day that's the problems with it I feel like I lost my hands Oh what am I gonna do with my time now just pray exactly yeah what what what the hell am I'm going to do with myself right now right now without a phone um yeah it's it's kind of powerful so it's you know it's gonna be interesting what's going to happen in next 20 years especially from artists perspective you know like seeing how VR is expanding and now like looking at VR I'm asking myself whether that's going to be even a thing because AR is right around the corner to that this can supposedly be something even more exciting than the VR itself you know yeah and those what was the was the name of that Microsoft thing that they're doing not the hololens there was something else that is basically AR and the way it works is it's basically image projected straight i don't know what it's called i think yeah you go yeah i don't remember the name of it but basically the the whole concept is that there is a device somewhere in the in the room like you're in the room or maybe in the city or somewhere if there's this device that operates that that thing I don't even remember how it's called basically what it does it's it's projecting an image towards your retina and it's it scans environment to find your eyes and then project images to your eyes I think the demo day which they were having a demo on the on the side were there there's like a huge whale emerging from like a basketball course in court and then like you know splashing the water there's like little girls sitting on them lying on a bed and like she sees like a little dancing ballerina in front of her that kind of stuff it's so trippy because apparently the way this device works is exactly what you see in this video it's just obviously video is a V effects but but the whole concept works exactly that way so it's just like imagine like sitting in the I was having this this idea was talking I think it was on one of the previous are cafes where you know you have Pokemon go for instance right imagine where you have games where AR is projecting attachments or things in the environment that don't exist and you see them and you can play without looking in the phone you just walk around and talk to yourself basically yeah that's kind of the ultimate destination for all of that hopefully when we when we get old we'll get to play games like that because yeah I'll be interesting that was magic magically to someone Adam Adam mentioned magically I think that's that's what it is hopefully yeah I think that's what that what that was boy dude what got you into CAD I'm curious that's an exome was a kind of I'm not very linear journey that I didn't really plan um so what happened is so if you like kind of a quick detour right so my initial background right I started in video games quite some time ago maybe like 12 years ago doing 3d modeling right yeah and then slowly progressed towards like doing using like 2d and 3d to do concept art and then eventually like tools got good enough and you know you could develop a workflow just using 3d for for design right and so that one of the mechs the black Phoenix project the ambulance Mac mm-hmm the guys at the Intuitive Surgical with it which is a surgical robotics company I think they saw it and I think this was some of the ideas and like combination of like the aesthetics and also just some practical ideas there that they they like the thinking about it and at the time I was working on transformers I was at ILM and that was already finishing the project and the director of product development he invited me to just come over to intuitive today into its Intuitive Surgical just to check it out and I think you might have even listened to ashes podcast and I think you heard that my dad is a surgeon and he was like dude just like come over here like this is how the 21st century surgeries are done and I heard something about da Vinci system I and I when I heard about it a long time ago I thought that was kind of a concept I didn't know that these sexual exists for 10 years there's young companies that they use that and for people who don't know basically imagine so this robot right it's it's it's a system that's got like four well I'm talking about other products got like four mechanical robotic arms that are remotely controlled by a surgeon through a set of what you think I don't know that what you have to slow down with that slide change too much to miss assets to I don't know how to make it slower like you know I'll just go back go back to to this story so basically so I went to check out the surgical system rather than entry system and what it does like instead of opening a patient open like his chests open to do the surgery right what you could do is to just make small incision points where depending on the instruments it could be eight millimeter radius or like 12 millimeter whatever right yeah and one of the incision points get injected with a service copic endoscope and the other two or three depends on a procedure could be injected with this small robotic arms and they the tip of those arms the end with a circle and here is that got the same degrees of freedom and the same dexterity as a human wrist except they're even better because they're so small and they can reduce the shakiness and the hand and everything so basically this is really the way of making the surgery kind of like this is the future way of making a surgery right yeah and and when I check out the system like actual on a they have like a training facility with like kind of a a model of a human body and you see how precise it is and how intuitive the motion is like I really I was really blown away by the fact how just precise an awesome day and and the people that work on it they're really just geeking out and it's so much like you can they're like you know when you work in the art department on the movie or on the video game and people really like what they do like in terms of just jamming like jamming and ideas and brainstorming all kinds of good stuff the same you get with engineers except they making something that is actually good for Humanity right and and as we had this conversation I I started to just kind of brainstorm some ideas what you could do and and as it almost as a half joke their director said like well why don't you just make a concept for that and you're like yeah well and it's like sure and I came back after the tour and I made this arm mm-hm everybody armed that was supposedly do that but that was more so they send me what they wanted to be like but they wanted to try like a different visual language and I did something quick it was like under one day and I send it to them and they instantly offer me jobs I hate for us and I and I tried to explain hey this is what I my strong strong sides but this is the things that I don't know so I will have to figure it out and by that by by the things I didn't know I meant like okay if I do something how do I give it to engineer they can't open an obj file and that was like three or three and a half years ago or almost four I don't know so it and so as I started working with them at the same time I also started doing some freelance for Intel do kind of the same thing and my colleague at the time at the Intuitive Surgical he showed me my 3d which is a CAD model er very simple one comparator like solo works where you can make a very complex assemble assembly of parts and calculate everything from weight and cost and everything right so this was just the CAD modeling but the guy who created it I think his name is Michael Gibson she's she's really kind of a genius programmer but also with artistic mind and he writes his hope mentality for that software was to give encoded moment of inspiration when you feel inspired you have an idea you can just open this officer and you can sketch out a CAD model or you can make something quick yeah and when I tried it I really liked it because it felt a lot like exercise softimage xsi to me right-right-right by some reason for for some weird reason it felt like a weapon you know very kind of Click Clack precise and just seen see it out of metal like i really like the feel for it and because i had to do some CAD while and into the surgical I think I went through the threshold while the software was still kind of new to me and it becomes really just easy for me to use and that's how I started using it more and then after working like for your and a half a thing or less than a half an intuitive surgical I went to Intel and I kept using that but I still I still use like sub D modeling and I still use ZBrush it's just from from that moment on it's the whole new world of possibilities for design opened up you know what you do when wants to start doing cat ah even if you do this just for entertainment design just the way you do this and I know you like you already use that like you use fusion 360 right yeah yeah yeah based on like which do you really really like it in terms of just the tools and I heard you really love it and it's badass war so yeah yeah it's a little different than boy yeah it has a different different philosophy behind it I feel muy muy feels a little more organic in a way like it feels you have more possibilities to create more organic looking things and more organic looking shapes yeah you definitely can you can do a lot of stuff I know there's I was talking with the Eddin gracio and he was showing me like how much things you can customize that software so that was kind of impressing thing to see the only drawback that I that I saw there compared to fusion 360 and you know I guess it's just a matter of being really used to using something and knowing it that you don't really want to change after you do that the only thing was just like those little quirks and Lomb things that kind of weren't so intuitive or like for instance one of the confusing part for me was that when you build something you can't really tell whether it's a surface or a body you know like you have to connect surfaces they have to be connected first to create a body or like I want to move something and it doesn't move the whole thing just moves to one of the surfaces it was just like kind of frustrating to get freeing things connected and then do boolean's I you know that might have been also older version that I was using whereas for instance when I was using fusion 360 I could tell right away if something is a body object or not because it was just even more friendly like yeah so friendly yeah yeah exactly it felt it's gas helps in cancer to get into things in ammonia it's gas certain things that at first death might feel like a disadvantage right but then you see progress and depending on what you do it they actually feel like they feel right like you understand there it weren't random decisions that were intentional for like specific and now I'm doing certain things I've been doing parts that have to be very precise hmm so like for example I would get like the server more and I need to design in casing for it there would be like made our carbon fiber and I would need to make sure we use all the space that we got like without sacrificing the range of motion and you can kind of really tricky for me and because you like all the supporting guide the guiding system that you make in more using snapping tools mmm that stuff is really strong and at first like I really kind of didn't like it that felt like it was slowing me down because it almost like it makes a comma sign it's almost I can imagine you make this sentence and after every war there is a coma right like it's almost like kind of messing with your flow right yeah and at first I didn't I didn't quite get it and maybe this is somewhat similar to what what you had and then as I start doing more just precise stuff and I there's also like community is pretty amazing in terms of just like reading and checking out tutorials or just like documentation and all the commands and because you can customize it all you can really just change it all yeah like the software is written in HTML so it feels like it's still I think it's still growing as something that hasn't reached its potential and I feel like if let's say more people start to using it's gonna definitely become hopefully more friendly let's say like fusion because apparently fusion I think it's a bigger bigger teamwork than a fright I don't know what I its imagine you its new child of Autodesk either really placing yes into it okay so it's not just like let's say one man that carries out his vision and I know like there's trying to reach more people right so yeah I would imagine it would be probably different I still want to spend some more time with it because I only spent maybe like few hours infusion right and I liked it and I felt like dude if I spend more time it would be you know why don't you why don't you join one of our streams we're gonna have Curtis Chan who's the Evangelist of fusion 360 he knows everything about the software and we all know it but is that we're gonna have them on twitch stream for April N squared I just need to check my calendar one exactly we we've scheduled that mmm and you know if that time works out for you you should definitely join us gonna be me and asked on that stream so can be a lot of fun dude the dad dad be great yeah yeah please let me know yeah 27th 27th there we go it's on 1 p.m. right I know it's 6 p.m. 6 p.m. all right 6 p.m. 27th check the chicken that works then alright so yeah they were sit right now it kind of works how the putting in the calendar it and what's gonna happen yeah all right hell yeah yeah yeah dude I can tell you uh stop messaging me Metro because I didn't disable notifications um what I was about to say oh yeah um when I saw your black Phoenix right this that stuff you did like how in the he did all those details and um and then I think we I think we're talking about I think I was bugging you would like tons of questions and then eventually figured out you were doing like my 3d and all that stuff and I think I also had some conversation with Carrillo during that time and you know jumped into fusion that's how I started doing that as well I can tell you that you know you've inspired me too to go cab I pretty much for 99.99% of hard surface designs that I do right now for anything is not in fusion I've designed liking but you've seen some of the stuff that I did for we've been working on this together on the ghost in show yeah like an amazing dude that's like alright I thought it was eight you paid like a though you do stuff in Cather you know what was funny that's gonna give you a funny story it's not spilling any beans but did you are a workhorse anyone who works with for anyone who doesn't know how fast Batali is he's probably the fastest guy on earth and anytime I'm working in the project that like with you I feel so embarrassed because like I can ascend like one or two renders of something that I've designed like yeah that looks awesome and then you said like 20 renders of something you like 10 times more complicated like hell you just just made me look like an then the other way like I had to do some environment stuff and I would send one freaking room and you sound like 20 and they're all amazing in the lead so you know balance I think it's yeah so it's just like you know for for some of the some of the directors and production designers out there is just like they they just like yeah you cannot compare anyone to beat Ali because he's just like he's a he's a beast mode he's a absolute savage thank ya dude you have you lose but we've been on couple of projects together now like the white weights adenosyl i'm kent some of the council big shows dude yeah we've been on Tron and that was ELLs can a bummer y'all I mean ghost in the shell' coming together so oh yeah that comes out and we'll be able to show some work hopefully yeah that was a fun fun project I'm still doing some stuff with him but kind of a light vivix know next shot kind of design design stuff so yeah that's awesome I saw I remember you were the for you and me were actually first people on the show do you know that I I think I heard but I didn't I didn't think about you and me were the only artists that were from the very beginning till the very end on that show yeah it's kind of impressive better gonna be that's kind of cool yeah better good not I'll be I'll be ready ahead really really sad yeah dude what you been up to recently uh so I've been is there anything you can talk about from yeah actually at least can mention that so I'm trying to I've been trying to split my kind of work in a week keep going at the entertainment design while doing most of the work for for product design right so like also design so my main kind of going project has been that mech the large main robot with Korea future technology which is a SIL South Korea based company and that down one has been quite an incredible journey because of the well they pretty much let me do whatever the hell I want there which is incredible ah but also like I need to work with Jews I really need to understand the constraints and limitations and whatnot right so it started like they'd like me to do a lot of early designs and now it's just CAD to make the stuff that connects really build and so this has been kind of a one continuous project for the past somewhat I don't know quite a while and the other time I spent I've been working with Boston Dynamics and my role there is way less involved so it's just kind of a shell like exterior shell pass on one of their battle robots projects and you might have seen one of them the Atlas yeah so like I work in there I'm just designing robots in pretty insignificant I'm just making pretty awesome that people are just master that's like didn't really do much on that one because like they really worked out everything and I just did some shells on top to cover and like up to their specs for like the clearances for the range of motion and again like this style like it's not it's not damage like I think I feel like what I need to do is say like with Korea future technology down is way more difficult and more involved so this one it's not as involved but it's an amazing project like awesome awesome learning and I'm very feel very very lucky to be working on that and the other time well as I mentioned I still do some stuff on ghost in the shell and also working on the battle angel oh nice you're with the with the light storm crewed end yeah so Ben Foster Dylan Cole it's been amazing experience like those guys are incredible and yeah so that so that's kind of been ongoing project as well and they funny enough like you asked liked about the the stuff but I feel this kind of a split helps me to really just cross inspired two different fields so for say when I work on the entertainment project like if it's a game or film I'm trying to ground it more in reality in terms of function and and just to try to make this stuff make more sense right and when I work in a product I'm actually trying to make it a little more crazy than you would usually do just because I know at the early stage you get the concept design stage of course then you'd rather go crazy first and then rationalize because eventually the reality will hit you so hard you you'll have to really redo everything but when you start and working with engineers if you can make something to just fill the Pumped and inspired by even by your energy and like the effort you put into your work it feels like it comes back like that's how I think you men should really Apple but I feel like if you really have that sort of front-end vision for an idea and it might not be the same it might not look like in your concept are growing right but it it might push the thinking right about the problem in a certain way that it would inspire are the tech people working on this and and and maybe you will meet somewhere in the middle like I had this experience and working at Intel we're working so I work at Intel at NDG it's a new devices group it's this part of Intel that specializes on wearable tech mm-hm and I would have this thing when I was deliberately asked you sometimes push certain limitations just a little bit just enough to to see the benefit of better design versus the limitation and just to kind of speak less an abstract term imagine a watch right and imagine that you need a third and a certain thickness D to fit all the compartments all the tech stuff in that stuff and in the case yeah and say we go like you know you would have to be twelve millimeter but when it's nine millimeter it looks so much better because like a better proportion you can now you can really chamfer that so it's got to look even thinner and then you split it with like let's say use like a rubbery material and then I polished aluminum it now looks really slim and you do both you make you would make one up to the spec and then you would make one it's a little pushing technology and that way you really show here's what we can do but look how beautiful they would really look and I think this sort of experience really helped you to uh to fill the value in concept design and as an in general like and I feel like in the future we'll see you a lot of that stuff and by a lot of the stuff I mean like people going from different fills and doing back and forth from like video games to the product design and hopefully it's gonna just make the whole tide go up you know we'll make it look better you know the products will be more exciting and less like just sterile and things like that you know it almost feels like with the advancement of hardware and software you're less of a you're less of a specific artist let's say 3d artist or texture artist environment artist all we all become more of a generalists where software becomes so easy where you can learn it really fast and yeah and be proficient with it and use it for your work and to a point where some of the some of the tools that you learn they're so well Streamlight that it that it can be used whether it can be used in film or or even video games recently you know it's actually like how much more polygons video games can push that you don't have to limit your poly count that much you still have to four consoles but you know it's it's growing and growing and becoming more possible to use higher risk characters like I guess great example would be you know even looking at Uncharted games or yeah that would like me and I think the head itself from uncharted 4 like drake's head has more polygons than the whole body in uncharted 3 just to give you a check just to give you an example and so it's like constantly constantly and continuously growing like when I was working with you on ghost the shell and I just can't wait to show that stuff but I would create stuff in cab and send the files and they could basically use it in production like they would print it out or no yeah yeah yeah that's a huge huge advantage I think for for entertainment agency yeah and that's that's almost like you're stepping into what set designer role really is so you had Scott Nash Snyder who's a set designer in film and in you we were discussing like how close illustrators these days are getting to what set designers do and how really those those two roles start to cross over and create like this more cohesive more productive entity that that basically makes films happen faster and yeah and with less resources let's put it this way yeah it was kind of interesting and what I really admired about yourself and I had this I think the first time I spoke about it was a couple years ago when I had my talk over at Art Institute in San Bernardino which is by the way available online if you search it it's like four hours talktime you I need to listen to it what's the call again it's Art Institute San San San Bernardino I Google that with my name next to it should be somewhere but should we put yeah I think I even have a heaven on my own put profile my user profile but what I was saying there is like when you're becoming an artist in the entertainment industry especially is that you can be either 1 2 % er which means that you're so good that you're getting work and everyone wants to hire you or you're going to be the 98% of what you know like if you go on on main page deviantART you know which is either so I got so much average like it's just really you know those artists are not gonna get hire those artists have to look for work and that's basically how it looks in the entertainment industry right now you're going to have certain percentage of really good artists that are basically like everyone wants you because you're so good because that you didn't know you're delivering the quality now was I think I don't know if I was saying that during the talk or I was mentioning it later you know there's only going to be one beat alley there's only going to be one Mike Nash there's only gonna be one fellow still and then people just gonna copy that and I was gonna be like you know we tally babies out there basically you know using your foot abash your your kid bash elements and building their own stuff but it's never going to be the level on which you're working on and what I really admired about your work specifically yours because I believe your top 3 or top 4 designers out there that I really look up to because you've always been pushing the boundaries you've never been settling into like oh I'm good at this this is this is fine I don't need to move any further than that any time I talk with you I'm like my mind is blown because you're mentioning things like holy you're doing this now oh the thing that you're just posted you did it four years ago like likewise dude like same same goes to you so when I hear that it's getting Mirian spired I think it was a conversation you had with ash actually during the collective podcast you've mentioned something that really resonated with me and I think with a lot of artists as well is that whenever you expose yourself whether you're teaching or releasing acids and like you did with your kid bashing for instance right you're leaving some some of your legacy behind and you're exposing yourself to an idea that you're not in that comfortable spot anymore were like only I can do this and no one else and it's gonna be awesome because I'm so special no you're just like putting this is done I can move move away from that because I've already done that I've done it for so long that I don't need to repeat myself over and over and over now it's hard to do guys like you making yourself if you feel vulnerable in the same time but you know this will naturally force you to come up with some creative new exactly and chill to feel and it's it's it's always hard to do and but only kind of like you only in retrospect you understand really the value of it like I looking back I realize like there's so many opportunities I would never be able to even to be able to work on because if I would just try to like oh this is it like I only gonna do this and that's it so yeah yeah yeah you have to push yourself you always have to push the limits you always have to find something new to learn and improve because if you're just gonna stay in one spot you know what happens when you stay in one spot for too long it's just like you wake up and like holy everyone moved on oh yeah you're you're either getting better or worse you don't stay in the same spot anything even exists right so yeah yeah that's true that's true I think someone was asking on the stream and we're gonna go into questions but we're gonna go in the questions entry soon but someone was asking about books and I have been having spammed by ash recently and he told me specifically to talk with you about the the mastery book oh yeah did that book is incredible if you get another bridged version like an audio books like I think it's 16 or 17 hours I just started listening to it yeah it's really really good uh because you know like we I know you like books ash and uh you know yeah we constantly share them together I'm not gonna do yeah have you seen that no yeah okay cool yeah like instant you had to read this but like with this book what I liked about it's a very it feels very thorough study what is it exactly what is exactly mean to acquire skill set and and then what to do after like what what do you do with a skill afterwards right and it's it's sort of like a great recollection of existing stories and also a theory like a very in-depth here what does that mean what what experience of that particular Lusa scientists of his life could mean for you and I think at the end of the day the biggest kind of value of it it's really to break things down into kind of actionable steps something you do to take of the pressure and the sense of overwhelming you can say anxiety of like okay what do you do next what do you do now like and at the end of the day it really helps you find to come to realization that you only need to develop your own voice and because like and there is something that hurt it's from another book but also like it says something like this it's envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide right and it's like it's it's like if you think about it it's so true because like everybody's got their own different potential and you only want to be the best version of yourself and understanding the only you got your own set of a life experience that no one else got that means you have this niche just for you to do sort of things that you want to do you just really need to work on understanding what that thing is and then apply very very disciplined approach towards getting good at that stuff right and and that book is just so in depth on that like it's pretty crazy how many thing are covered is not there's no stone left unturned and funny like I posted I finished it I think like two days ago on Sunday yeah four days ago so I finished it this weekend I just like listen to the remaining like seven hours or so and they when I post an Instagram a recommendation about this book a few a few guys and if you're listening thanks a bunch for recommendation because there was another is another book they recommended also called mastery but from different author so this one I'm talking about the big one it's from I think Robert Greene and there's another one from George oh my god I forgot about George Lucas this summer no it's uh oh my god I forgot but like there's another book a smaller mastery and George Leonard yeah and he he was like a black belt Aikido master and also like a fighter jet instructor like so and that book really goes in-depth in dealing with Plateau and I think Dad like if you need to really want to read both of those books sure and that I will not try I will definitely do I already started the first one I'm on the first on the second chapter right now some guys I already or you listening imma listen I mean I don't have time to read I wish I had I listen to those when I go for a walk or to the gym or something like that or you know I can just place it in my headphones and and enjoy the sort of you know yeah hearing the same thing and the thing is like for the second book I couldn't find an audio book so I had to read it right dude that book is awesome it's like and you know we talk a lot about like oh this is set your goal be clear achieve and like work hard and the other book it talks more about how to appreciate the inevitable plateau mm-hm and like it does it in such a graceful way that you really get to kind of enjoy your daily routine even if it's something you've done like a million times and I think especially if you're in today's world of being kind of overly informed with what everybody is doing it feels like the is just so much stuff going on it feels like you never have enough time to do what you want to do and the other book it has more like a cow calming effect on just like do just focus on daily practice and enjoy the practice it's like being on plateau is is a juice of life in a way because that's what most of your life will be made of yeah and if you can't enjoy that then you do you're missing out on life altogether and yeah like looking back at all the kind of tougher years of just developing and like building portfolios for for career and all that stuff I realized like yeah that's very true because you just enjoy doing what you do and eventually you will you will get kind of a through this threshold of learning that you can actually produce something with your voice in this you know so yeah do books must definitely a must I'll try I have you have you tried them good to great oh yeah absolutely yeah it's it seems to be very similar what I liked about mastery at least from the first chapter that I read or listened to is that it's a very scientific almost a historical sort of breakdown of exactly every every talking point it's just like it's it's driven by examples it's not like anecdotal evidence it's it's it's really scientific approach to why and and how very much like good to great like when you listen to good to grade there is nothing there like any of the points that I've made in that book they're based off 40 years of research like throughout research of the industries like every single industry not just one specific idea or one specific thing that just happened to work to support you know you're talking point which a lot of books that I've noticed do data that is just they just like conveniently find one thing that works for the book and then ignore hundreds of others that you know it's quite contrary right now whereas this one is just like how can you even argue with with 40 years of K research you know where every single way regardless whether it's a technological or software boom or whatever whatever the like you know there are certain principles of how you should run the business in order to make it successful and what you should not do ever when you're running a business and it's based on any any industries with like so many examples and how it's just like to a point what's failing and what's really working in and why and it seems that the mastery book is very similar in a way you know it's it's at least the way it starts and I can't wait to get it done I get it they like just kicks in maybe and unlike our for when you realize that it's also can be very personal like I liked it great that it really can help you to set the right mentality for for you know the business development yeah and and this book is almost like hey how about we talk really in-depth just your personal journey like use as as a craftsman or like an artist or as an author whatever you whatever you set your mind to and it's also there's nothing uncovered and book it and nothing like knows no stone left unturned in a way it's like okay well I remember that you know I had this plateau or I remember there was this problem it even talks about like social dynamic when it's like for example if you have a mentor that at some point how do you develop your own voice you know yeah and like there's so many things that are just practical so yeah totally and that book and that now makes you want to release into good to great because I think they do correlate a lot yeah I've read that book for time or listen to it four times it's literally that good it's so awesome I'm probably going to end up doing the same thing with the mastery book because I really from the very beginning I loved what I would I hear they're you know it's just like I really want to have a almost scientific breakdown on why your arguments are making sense like if you're if you're backing it up with data and with the proper breakdown of you know most prolific minds and how those Minds work and how things are basically you know laid out in their heads and then you can find the parallel of that in your own journey that's what really resonates with me because like for instance I was I was reading that book I were reading again listening to the audiobook I can remember the name of it I was a compound effect and as much as I think you guys recommended me you yeah as much as I loved that book because it the way it's the way it's written the way it's read by the author it really gets you pumped like you really want to be creative and really do something right with your life it's it's really for just motivational stuff it's perfect the only thing that that I found frustrating is that some of the assumptions of the book and it's you know the book overall is really good I would still recommend to read it or listen to it but one of the things that was really frustrating is just just like a lot of things are anecdotal like they might work for you that might not you know whereas when you listen to Goethe grade and as I'm listening to mastery it seems like it's just yeah it is what it is and you cannot even argue with it it seems it seemed that way it's funny as you as you mentioned about plateaus and you know personal journey the truth is and you you know you know that as well is that you're never going to be on the steady sort of linear or you know a progression where it's always going to be you're always progressing you're always doing better and always if everything is happening is awesome and you never run into any problems or plateaus or anything like that the realities it's almost like a bell curve that like a oscillating curve like there's always ups and downs right you're going to have those moments where you're really having a breakthrough it's like yeah this is finally working getting into 3d everything is coming together this is fast this is great a lot of work and then it's just like months later it's just like nothing is working this is crashing like I don't I don't get this new software i don't get that i like i can't find motivation so it's always going to be apps and downs and it's never going to be just this one the one one constant thing but the great thing about those books when we when we talk about them and when you really try to apply the ideas and knowledge that are in those books is that it gives you sort of like a blueprint how to improve even if it's just a percentile improvement over what you do Bailey that percentile over time will compound in a way that you can't even imagine now it's almost like saving money like you might think that 1% of your savings it's not really that much but you know maybe for first ten years you're not gonna see big difference but next ten years it's just like how in the hell that one dollar turn in two hundred thousand you know yeah same with the practice you know yeah same exactly you if you just develop a match kind of a very quiet joy for daily practice and this is your part of your ritual it will it will be a compound effect for sure like dude I was reading ad today so from from this smaller master ebook right and and the he was he had this paragraph about the thing like a really awesome golfer from like 70s who basically his whole kind of approach to do how he did go because he had a very high consistency of like winning tournaments and whatnot right so and he would say like that it's 50% visualization forty percent set up and only ten percent it's a swing and and if you think about it like it's so appropriate to let's say how you do design or art whatever right it's because your visual like how you visualize what you're gonna do it's it's a big part of your practice because this is basically a free practice hour that you get without even being in a formal computer right yeah and then the your setup is like okay do you have a good software like do you really know this software do you have a powerful hardware to really go fast when you need it the same things like this so this is your part of your setup and on only 10% is when you sit down and execute you know yeah you agree with that yeah it was also this thing you know when you visualize something and you sit down and your finger already and it doesn't work you're getting frustrated but if you're going back again to the idea why why would you read those books like it's waste of time I would rather practice you know but the small blue print is the idea on how you should conduct yourself to be more productive or to find answers that you might not find necessarily yourself is that in them in the event and the moment where you sit down and you face the problem that you don't know how to tackle yeah once you once you get like at least a hint of what can be done it just it creates that cycle that you know snowball effect are like all right if I fix this little small thing and I started to understand how this works from there it opens up more gates oh this is how it works oh so I have to look into this thing next and then after that there's ten other things that are in there in this nice nine year old path and then it's just it just like starts to expand and expand you get more knowledge and more ideas and you know and more answers and that's how you find the answer to your specific problem by just you know applying those techniques and applying it you know it's a really vague here but you know when you have a blueprint like for instance let me let me talk about this book for instance that you said it was a essentialism I think that was one of the books that you you were yeah I was real like that all that one is that Jonathan Jonathan guru bu you know him right like that yeah yeah you recommended that book to me and I really liked it and there was one more eat that frog so if not now in plastic yeah if you combine those two two books which basically say this focus on two or three things in your life that you really want to do and then everything else is really low priority and the second thing is started with the hardest part first and get that solved and once once that's done then move to you're and easier tasks if you really start applying that logic to everything you do in your life you'll find that there is nothing out there that is too difficult to be done yeah great yep so amen to that brother and amen we can we can stop here I can go home now hope everyone convinced when you to read books yeah you should you everyone should that's that's the way that's the way you learn that's the way you progress you know even if the book itself is not really related to art itself a lot of the ideas apply to how you solve problems in art as well you know because it's just like you know software is Regis technical issues and even finding design language and finding your own style comes down to the same thing the practice and having the right mindset to to the practice you know finding the right solutions finding the right references to look at or even just challenging yourself of things that no one else will be looking at you know like one of the reasons why I never look at art station or deviantART or any other other art forms anymore I just stopped like it's just I don't really need that it's a it's a big bias to to your work whenever you look at someone else's work another artists work what happens is just that it's just like you're gonna end up doing something similar even if you don't want to somewhere in your subconscious you will remember the imagery that will just get you inspired and you're gonna do something similar it's not going to be anything new so I try to look for references elsewhere and what it's fashion or you know even just like weird psychological religious stuff where you look into things that normally you would never think could apply to card at all just finding those weird small subject matters that can be applied into into your art it's to the art itself I had a great experience working with John Gaeta when I was working on Jupiter ascending movies turned out to be really shitty I it was one of the best experience to have because John basically tackled my my mindset to look into references completely different than I used to before when you know if I was creating say an hour more like a you know sci-fi armor or something like that I would be looking at okay sci-fi arm or Google cyberpunk robots and like that and you would usually get the same repetition of language that has basically been there for ages and used by everyone and so everything looks pretty much the same no like with him I would look into bugs into close-up a microscopic close-up of ants or something like that I don't know I did and it was like really challenging experience it was one of the first sci-fi projects I was working on too so it's just like a perfect sort of segue from everything else that I was doing because it really challenged the way I would be looking for references you know and you rarely get that chance to to be challenged by someone who's really smart and if you if you cannot get that then try to you know challenge yourself with with something unorthodox and even just reading books like the book itself can give you ideas like what if I do this all of a sudden can give you that idea right what if I started looking at you know underground life like some bugs or some snails and some like into like really microscopic view and that gives you an idea for environment art you know why not I mean you can find so many ideas in nature whether its pattern is or a lot of functionality or anything like that you know so yeah exciting stuff exactly all right dude let's get to some questions I know there's ton of them for you man uh-huh there's a lot um the first ones from Eddie he says hey guys Vitaly I'm money to do a six-month sabbatical to work on my environment concept abilities do you have any advice or something that you recommend for sabbaticals yes hey Eddie well first of all it's awesome idea Congrats this is great I would recommend start with a shorter sabbatical because if you if your person will be six months it will make you feel like it's a lot of time and my first sabbaticals were like two weeks it's when I was back in Russia working videogame like when very person was 2 weeks then I was 2 months and this will help you to iterate and understand your how you manage your time personally and like for example like for me was a lot of things that came kind of a new like for example like I had to before starting planning my day I started with log in the day just to try to understand word where exactly I waste my time and like I was able to find like few items that I couldn't even didn't have to do per se and if I feel you have if I feel I have a lot of time I feel like it's almost like it's a big-budget project six months and a lot of time and I'd say give it a warm up give it like two weeks but don't really tell anyone that it's like oyster sabbatical like treated like work like if you stay home but treated like bored get up at the same time plan your day carefully and really see try to use this let's say two weeks as a sort of kind of a test to learn more about yourself because everybody's different and everybody's got their own way of thinking and their own way of kind of getting in the zone where the when they're both both relaxed and focused at the same time because that's kind of the step you want to be and if you can't stay in that state like for a long period of time that it's great but yeah I just give it give it a try give it a short one see what kind of a lesson you can learn for yourself and keep it keep the log of it like keep a document like I always have a like a word document open for my daily like goals and priorities and if you give yourself let's say two weeks at the start I really look into the discrepancies between what you expected at what and what really happened and kind of give yourself a retrospective once you're done with a two weeks period because I think this is where all the gems are to really understand certain kind of things about yourself as I said like everybody's different and certain things work for some people certain things don't so I think if the sooner sort of the faster the iteration is for that kind of a soft learning process the more scalable it will become on a longer period of time because like 6 minutes 6 months is awesome like you can totally change a career your career for six months if you do it like very kind of strategically and you're prepared for it so just like you know and imagine you have to start a business and someone just drops a twenty million dollar on you most likely you're not going to be very efficient with with that amount of money but if you start let's say with twenty thousand first or even like a thousand you need to survive on that and make it profit you'll really establish the foundation and again Eddie I don't know like what's your for example your current sort of status on your personal journey like towards mastery of like efficiency and so you it may be you ready I really don't know so take everything I say please take with a grain of salt and at the end of the day do what you think is right but if you haven't done something like this before maybe it's a good idea to start with it with a smaller I think that that's it but good luck man this is awesome I'm very very excited to hear that should add to every everything you say you can add allegedly and then you're legally sound allegedly yet I can you can take it to court yeah allegedly what I would add is you know have a goal for your sabbatical like know exactly what you want to do and once you do that then you know treaty as you're about to win the million dollar lottery if you do it right and yeah it's super important everyone is different I can agree like if you don't really plan ahead and take a lot of time off and like just treat it as a time off just to learn new things what's going to happen you're just going to be on YouTube and Facebook and playing games and not really progress and because like I still have a lot of time when you really treat as a job that's a whole different different story yeah it because or yeah go ahead yeah go go ahead sorry no yeah while you were still in Facebook you could use the apps you can block your Facebook yeah there's only worse let's say on Sunday afternoon that's it like you can totally make make it easy for you to kind of sell this constraint that's all thank you yeah yeah now it's just like it for it's really difficult to be to be productive like force yourself to that level productivity and keep it consistent you know because there is always going to be vices and distractions that will just make your life like I can now perhaps you can take a nap or whitson TV now you have to do that the only ones paying you you know what I mean yes always that a trap like that that just makes you know the time you take off to learn something cannot be can turn out not to be a worker a while because you're just not not having a structure so having a really good structure helps and really forcing yourself like even if it's really uncomfortable it's like I'm making my life a mess or making my life really difficult for myself where you should I mean that's how you're going to learn that the it's like with workouts or in progression in general that you really start to progress and make leaps in the way you you become better at specific thing like what are you you're learning modeling or what not is when you're struggling the most and you're trying like a madman to find an answer and the the amount of failure the amount of things you're doing wrong along the way and even the the answer is really simple what it gives you the satisfaction of finding the the actual answer and making a progress progression and find okay I finally figured out how to do shaders or a skin shader and now I can use it in my work now I can improve it and now I can make it even better you know but the struggle and the failures and hundreds of renders that went wrong and trying to find the right setting by just changing the numerix by 0.01 in in the shader tree that has hundreds of nodes and you're frustrated frustrated because every time you have to rerender hundreds of times and it takes forever to see the results that's when you progress because you just like you're building yourself that resilience to keep going even if it's uncomfortable and nothing works you know yeah no I agree well one else another thing you could also do to deceive there helps you can find yourself a body that can hold you just accountable for whatever the tap the goals you have so you can give yourself per say like a goal for this week that is realistic but also challenging enough and and your by your your friend can can kind of keep you accountable for that so that could also that could also help you to kind of fight those those temptations and distractions to to spend time that doesn't contribute to to to achieving that goal you can ask Andrew how much should we give one another I'd learned squared writings mostly just me oh you would wish to see my my my um private chat with Ashe just like barding me like you suck it up stop being lazy times gonna tell you that we got a bunch of questions that we're asking about like when and how you got your start in the industry I'm not even gonna tribute to one person asking cuz pretty much everyone asked it oh nice sure ah like how old were you and how did you get your first gigs yeah okay um so let's see I started before even making any money out of doing modeling and stuff my brother was working into like an internet cafe and I was making maps for like half-life quake 2 counter-strike later on and that was pretty much my kind of a first being exposed to 3d and then school which is like a post Soviet Union type of like public school we had technical drawing I think when you're like 15 or something like this you just do that that's kind of what you do it's cool you look draw details at like machine parts and like three different angles and perspective like isometric views but basically that was at the time I think around fifteen or sixteen when I realized like I kind of like something that has to do with three so I was really doing that by the time I finished my high school so I think my first kind of local local jobs they were didn't pay anything but there was a good good start to do it was like kind of very shitty version of local architectural visualization so that was and I was ready to do anything man like to do that that could pay basically and because we didn't have anything like these in terms of Education in my country I thought you know what maybe I could get something related with computers so and because I was somewhat good in math in school I went to become a programmer which is a total fail right like two years after being try to become a programmer University I was already doing like freelances doing some of the modeling and the way I started it was kind of the same way you do today like you model something you posted online and I did a lot of like I would model like a truck trying to make it very close to a real truck you know and I would do like fifty percent like fantasy stuff like armors and swords and like 50 percent more like mechanical just trying to learn as much as I could about modeling and funny like at the time I couldn't get a job as a modeler because a potential import employers would laugh at me that I only could do was modeling like you had to be like a generalist at the time like it was like hey what about the animation and this I'm like uh I don't know what modeling is hard enough for me so I only do this for now and it was like it was I don't even remember like it was almost like a point of humiliation with like this chick comes out and she was like this I'm gonna use your word mache allegedly this awesome local like animator and and everything like she could everything and and she's like no no you will never get a job just doing just one thing I was like alright sure so but I kept trying and I started doing more characters and that was kind of the beginning of the so called next-gen I think uh when it started more of a kind of a freelance friendly in overall industry which is like 2004 yeah middle of 2003 already um so my very first I think it was like online browser-based Russian RPG game where I was doing like swords and and and helmets like I was all very fantasy and the thing was like about that project they it wasn't they didn't separate a concept artist and 3d modeler that was like a 3d artist hey we need the three artists so and you get it to ask hey we need like five swords and decent that just do that and there was no it was basically in our direction like you I would just do that and they either say they're total or they accepted and you get paid and if they don't like it you don't hit a your your artists did you work you don't get paid it was awesome experience so this is something I think I was seventeen or eighteen but then when I went to university I had like a first experience of actually doing more of a professional work in terms of like how it was treated more seriously by the employee and it was the first freelance doing the models for expansion pack of the first-person shooter called fear and there was some modern games they never get made so I think that was the start and that's when I think realize I really just enjoyed doodling with Tweetie like just like doing 3d modeling and from there it was after two years in university I decided to quit I got a job offer in Russia and moved from Moldova to Russia to work in a science fiction film that was also never get made but it was a good good experience nevertheless and then I went to work in the game and an MMO game also in Moscow while continue working on my portfolio and also started working in the working with American companies that do video games and like models for them so essentially was mostly modeling with a little bit of kind a filling in the blanks for concept design and as well but my day job was doing a lot of concept and also a lot of 2d for costume designs and and armor designs weapon designs for the for the MMO will be working on so essentially I had two jobs at the time that was around I think that was from at the end of 2006 till 2008 beginning 2009 I was like I would have two jobs like one normal hours in the in the office and the freelance afterwards and it was very difficult but I think that was also kind of how you how I was able to pack more practice hours in like yeah you you said show you pack four years of practice in two years ah standing yeah yes and and that really helped and that when I think the end of 2008 I got a job offer at work at Blizzard so looking back I think like quitting University it was actually a very smart thing for me to do because by the time for sure my classmates graduated and I already had like a two years of thing experience or like three years actual working experience and then got my job at Blizzard cinematics so it was like it was a very good it turned out well I didn't know at the time I think is a lot of luck and I just got likely to meet a lot of a lot of people but also work a lot so it was I think it makes it both and from there like after three or four years of Blizzard I started doing more and more 3d sorry 3d design using less 2d and less pain over and just like doing more 3d as my primary media for doing design stuff and started doing some first product stuff it was a company called red the red they do camera I did some work for them and then did stuff for Oakley I do you know any cat at the time but I really felt like just passionate about trying to push the aesthetics towards something that is both futuristic but also practical and realistic something that can be can be done and that's when Robocop happened so work in the Robocop reboot and then later transformers and a terminator and kind of from them from from their own I was I wasn't ready at Blizzard I was doing a lot of freelance and and I think the other part of the story I kind of already explained at the beginning that's how I started doing cat so I hope this somewhat in the convoluted way covers no it's a good breakdown dude alright thanks a show um alright so I think we have time for one last question and I think it would be good to wrap up with like uh how do you manage your time daily no Berto asks how do you manage your time daily and things like war time and workouts and freelance and personal work and basically keeping track of everything that you do beyond just your main jobs yeah so yeah don't worry curious about sleep schedules - for what it's worth so my my sleep schedule got much better I think for the past year I do not sacrifice my sleep anymore like he used to be terrible and now it's always at hours and on the weekend I can even sleep like a nine hours and it used to be very bad and not very healthy I feel like if I don't sleep enough I'm less productive so I think that the sleeping schedule is important to keep it consistent and also enough getting enough hours and you can still get a lot you can still get stuff done and I feel like I haven't sacrificed my productivity by not sacrificing this sleep time I'm somewhat of a what I call like an owl vampire schedule I like working at night and go late at night and do that I work from home and that helps me a lot by you know kind of setting my schedule that I can get up late and just work from home right also some of my like I work with South Korea so like they have their schedule is very different so sometimes we'll have like a Skype meeting for work like at 1:00 a.m. right and it's solely fine like 1:00 a.m. like us time per se so I think from if you read any book on on time management right so the foundation I feel is the same for me like I do exactly the same thing like by the book just trying to pray setting the priority do the hardest thing first the most important things first like any task yeah you usually can break down what are the three parts like the component of this task that would make 80% of results so you know the Pareto principle like - 20 % of effort would create you 80% of the work right so I usually try to start with that and the basic idea how I set in my schedule like an actual list you know like a schedule that is written down is I try to deconstruct every project every task into as many simple actionable step that you can't possibly mess up like even if it's something very simple it's like you need to run some errands like you I would write my I would write like okay ten minutes to prep for driving then a kid - fifteen minute for the drive then fifteen minutes to buy the thing fifteen minute to come back and like a kid and I would try that all right I would write it all down even if it's not work-related right and I think was it the was it Richard Branson who said there is no work time and life and work time in life or like working uh sir so I think just a sound like there's no work time and play time it's a lifetime and everyone's treated like it's just your life you don't you don't separate work from life you just life just learn life just leave your life is happing that sometime you work and some time you sleep and some time you spend with family is that part of the life though yeah and I think that really helps at least it helped me to set my kind of mindset right to not stress out that you know you sometimes don't pack everything in one day because there are thing outside of work that you also want to be doing yeah especially like you have been practicing it doing the same thing over again for let's say like 10 years you want to be able to just set things in a way that you enjoy your day so I always keep a log for for my goals for today and I always write them down also on my phone and because it's just accessible and sometimes so let's say if you're in the gym and an idea comes in what you want to do or like adjust how you want to do it I can I can just write it down on my phone because it's just accessible right and I have this thing that I would call like lace and then a master list of them plan and the master plan and now this the difference is that the list is just everything I want to do to perceive this is a project and there is so many things you want to do and by project I mean literally anything that has a beginning and the end like if this is just a simple design that will take you two hours like I said a very quick it's still a project right if it's not that big that takes 10 years it's still a project and at least I would write down everything I want to do like no constraints if like if I would have infinite resources I would do that and this is unfiltered list becomes a master list which is something I would I would just make a more like a realistic take on what I can possibly realistically achieve right and and once you have these master list you can give a micro deadline to each step to each component like each mini task of that list and then I just work from that list and I think the biggest challenge always is to just stay on that list without being distracted right unless this is there is an amazing opportunity to do something that wasn't in the listings gonna make it better but usually that that doesn't really happen like I feel at least for me I'm very bad at like multitasking like if I try to multitask like I just more suck at acting than doing everything at once yeah yeah I really can't do this like I can't even I can't even listen to audiobooks or like podcast while I'm working I can only listen to like familiar music per se like I can't distract I don't want to be distracted right saying so so like for example like because of that I really try to give myself this chunks of like a blocks of time that will be uninterrupted and in between them I would schedule mini breaks and the way you know like a will your willpower is just a muscle that if it gets fatigued and it gets tired it will just die off right like you will you will burn out so you don't want that and I try to kind of treat my day the same way where I let's say I have a 90 minute uninterrupted session working like let's say on this leg right here like on this design right here but then I would schedule a screen has frozen other frozen scream yeah yeah yeah I'm not doing anything I was just sure like per se like this is what I'm working on for next 90 minutes and for next nine minutes I have this specific goals and after that I have 15 minute of or like 10 minute a mini break and I wouldn't even give myself a goal for that mini break I can return a phone call I can go check out my email or I can I can you know go check out interest whatever but I know for that mini break I shouldn't be working and just walk around do something else because that will give me the energy bag that would relax my willpower again so so yeah planning your mini breaks is important I feel like I used to do this when I would have no many breaks like when I would just work and this is like the one water out you like getting burned out like if you know I can do let's say two days working 16 hours of day of 16 hours a day do nothing else but work but after two days and you do like you can do a week of two weeks worth of work in this today's but after this two days you need the day off because you're just you're your brain is dead like you're really tired um so trying to balance out okay welcome to my life okay and you have family with kids dude like I can't even imagine so yeah I'm pretty sure my chicken probably give a better answer because he has a thing more you get you gave like a good structure of how things should be done I don't want to give anyone's ideas what I do because it's pretty on the healthy and wrong I'm actually happy because it's just winding down a little bit right now so I'm gonna have a little more time to have time to actually not do anything at least for a moment nice great cool yeah I think you know what what you can also add to this is like just just kind of one thing like you can always brute force your way out of right and by brute forcing I mean like working longer hours sleeping less but you can only do that much with that right and it's the only it's kind of your secret weapon you do that you do once in a while and it's good to do it once in a while just to exercise but I don't know meant to you to rely on this as the head of your primary weapon as your primary tool because it's not healthy and long-term it's just you will die young you know it doesn't it doesn't work and but it's good at the same time to do once in a while it's just like a workout imagine like you're working routine as a workout so you have your kind of a standard workout that you try to do because you need to exercise certain things and then you have like a mini exams right and it's good to do the stuff with the personal work like sometimes you schedule a weekend where you work but you on your personal work and you work twice as hard to get like twice as more things done and try things you haven't tried before and then after this you go back to your working week just like working normal hours and of course they vary it could be ten or twelve hours but yeah and it's it's gonna feel like like nothing feel it's going to feel like vacation one thing I'm going to say also that in in the past few years I know I'm trying to work no more than twelve hours a day it varies right it like sometimes it's more usually it's more it's never late but like if it's never less than twelve hours but before I would I would give myself okay did you work like fourteen and that's normal and you start to burn out and when it's just twelve it's like it's okay and and my weekend or my holiday it's just working normal eight hours and it doesn't even feel like I was working the day I feel guilty for not even getting but I only work eight hours what the and lazy yeah it's but that's not right and yeah so just to I don't want to like don't try that you don't think that you will always be able to get a brute force your wages by one working more investing working smarter right and like this is like the reason why about like more expensive computer like few years ago just to so I can save like shave of some time and I don't know if like you that's the reason why I don't drive to don't wanna commute to work so it's like you know I can sleep for one X at one hour is going to be better so yeah I think it's just trying to work smarter know that sometimes you you have to brute force with more hours and more effort but heavy the structure that can it can challenge you but also be healthy now that you know it's not it's not a sprint it's a marathon but as long as your life like I want to be able to enjoy what I do and like working for the next not just 10 years but man I can for next 40 years then excellent you know yep angry did what a perfect way to wrap it up yeah I gotta have last question I think someone asked it are you interested in teaching forever and squared and there was a lot of people sending arrows I guess yes yes yes but we need to talk more about it I'm think more about it's just uh I'm the only way I can be good at dishing if I really just dedicated my time to it yeah it can be like half-ass so if the guys you answered it with Allie's considering teaching Florence girl du Tertre do I know eventually I will I will ship I just don't know if it's gonna be is it gonna be like next month or this year next year or in five years I know eventually I would like to just kind of empty the cup and and and share with students and learn more from students I think this is kind of a good way to stay young in your head right yeah I can tell you the funniest part about teaching I got into teaching because of you actually because what you said on the on the podcast with yeah with ash the funny thing I've discovered is when you teach not only you learn from your own students but you learn from yourself you learn the mistakes and things that you're doing wrong and you're trying to find and refine things to make them better because you're you know I think you're much like me and ash you're always starving almost for that perfection to getting things done in the right way and the teaching actually does that for you when I was writing the class intro to environment painting it was basically based on everything I've learned that I've done wrong in the previous class but also it was just like sort of like a traveling back in time into foundation things that I have never having done for like longest time and realizing holy there's so many things I forgot that I need to remind myself and that that's all that's that's you know it's like removing rust from from the areas that you might be using again you know like sharpening those Edge's that might be very useful and you start to look at things in a different way and yeah it's great dude great needs dude man shame doc all right guys let's wrap it up here we went over time quite a lot normally we go for an hour but yeah it's dude would you always you always welcome back so I gonna try to get you on the stream again you should join us on that fusion 361 on 27th I will be fun need to have you there yeah before we finish I want to give a shout out to Raja and an Alex who kindly are helping us with moderating the our cafe group and thanks dressing is going on there really nicely and um what else yeah thanks for joining guys thanks for being here dude thanks for spending some time finding time finally have this conversation going maybe next time you're in the lady should let me know I wanna I did you for sure like la yeah we're meeting up that's that's a given yeah yeah first thing thanks so much everybody thanks Meacham and always a pleasure and yeah let's do it again sometime more yeah you you we will super Cheers I things I think how many thanks for joining us light and for listening to it and peace hell bye

Channel: Art Cafe

Views: 53,245

Rating: 4.8957171 out of 5

Keywords: vitaly, bulgarov, awesome, badass, art, concept art, design, industrial design

Id: A_7r7pl56U8

Length: 101min 12sec (6072 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2016