Q & A with Arda Koyuncu
3D Concept Art presents an Q & A with a very talented artist, focusing in character and creature creation, Arda Koyuncu. He has been around for about seven (7) years working in production of feature films, cinematics and games. For companies like Ghost Jack Entertainment, Elastic Creative & Digitrove Inc and Blur Studio. His work have been seen in Thor: Dark World, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Tom Clancy’s the Division and many more..
He uses frequently his talent to make concepts, both realistic human and creatures and also teaches valuable know how. His work has been published in different international publications like 3d world, Exposé 10, 3d artist and 3dcreative.
| 3D Concept Art: Tell us about you and how did you become interested in 3d modeling and to work in the games industry?
| Arda Koyuncu : → I am Arda Koyuncu, I am a senior character artist currently working in Blur Studio as a Lead Character Artist. I was always interested into cartoons, movies and video games. Years ago I thought the best way to get into the industry was through studying engineering so I studied computer engineering in college. Before I decided to pursue a career in art and come to USA I was working in a video game studio in Turkey.
I was responsible of programming sounds and scripts. I was constantly amazed by the things 3D artists were working on but I never thought it was the right path for me until I left the studio and started working somewhere else where eventually I was going to end up using AutoCAD. It was the first step into my career in art..
| 3CA: You have been involved in several very interesting projects. One of those, Kevin Margo’s Construct. Where you used kitbash technique, you stated that you used parts from the Military Robot, Bill to make the “Wife”. What you feel are the most problematic parts when working with Kitbash and what do you think we should be aware of when using this technique?
| A.K: → To be honest, this was my first time doing something like this. I generally like to create everything from scratch myself so I know the character technically and artistically to the smallest detail.
Like anything else, if you want to deliver a clean asset, it takes a lot of attention so it was not as simple as taking a few pieces and placing them on your model. I think if you can pinpoint the parts you would kitbash earlier it would be helpful to plan the whole process.
| 3CA: Where do you get inspiration from and who are your role models?
| A.K: → There is so many people I find inspiring that would be a very long list if I start listing names. In my spare time I read and research, browse artwork and enjoy nature, these are probably the biggest inspirations for me.
| 3CA: Working with a headscans is becoming more interesting for the industry as the technique is evolving. Of your experience, do you think it will become a tool that will take some of the job from character artists, some of the workload when trying to achieve realistic models? Also change the main task for character artists?
| A.K: → You get more artistic satisfaction from creating a full character in my personal opinion but I think head scans are only going to get better and more accessible.
Having a headscan does not mean it is done, it has different type of challenges of its own depending on what your end goal is.
| 3CA: Any good advices for artists and students who want to get into the business as a 3D Artist in fields like character and creature design and modeling, and going for a career in the game industry?
| A.K: → Since the tools are making the character creation process easier everyday people are investing less into improving themselves as artists. I think it is much more important to improve yourself as an artist than learning a new tool.
Sure, having the technical knowledge is important but when you have the eye that tells you you are doing something wrong, you can channel that technical knowledge more properly and end up creating better looking characters.
