Q & A with Alexandra Reeves – The second place winner of the Creature vs Humanoids challenge
3D Concept Art presents a Q &A with Alexandra Reeves about The Humanoids Vs Creatures challenge. She is a very talented artist, currently a student at Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Los Angeles. She specializes in concepts, making illustrations, characters and forming herself as a creature designer. She submitted one model to the contest and created a creature with a dynamic position, which is a challenge itself ending in a very nice illustration.
With a pleasure, 3D Concept Art presents the second place winner of The Creatures vs Humanoids Challenge, Alexandra Reeves.
| 3D Concept Art: Tell us about you and how did you become interested in the art of Character and Creature design, and 3D modeling?
| Alexandra Reeves: → I’ve been interested in this field since I was really young and I played my first ps1 game Spyro. It was a double whammy in that it inspired me to want to make games/movies and also introduced me to creature design as well. When I was younger I used to say I’d eventually by the by the title to Spyro and remake it.
| 3CA: You came in the second place in the Creature vs Humanoid challenge, how has that affected your interest of 3D modeling/sculpting and has the tools you won helped your further development in this field?
| A.R: → The challenge didn’t really affect my interest, I was extremely driven to pursue this path regardless of the outcome of the challenge, however, it did show me that I was more than capable of doing professional looking creature design and 3D modeling.
Before the challenge I had never done a full body character before, nor had I put clothes on one or even posed before and I’d never done a render and composite. It was a first for a lot of things for me including online challenges! The tools I’ve won have been extremely helpful, Keyshot, in particular, was one of my favorite software to have grabbed. I think it pushed my 3D modeling to a much more professional level plus its just really really fun.
| 3CA: When you joined the challenge, what were you first thought on how to be able to deliver an interesting concept and as well finding a uniqueness with the specification added to the challenge?
| A.R: → I love designing a creature based on a specific feature or niche and then I like to make that clear through the silhouette before anything else. So for my entry, my first thought was I wanted to do a really sleek/fast character that would just look intimidating and strong based on the description for the more animalistic creatures.
| 3CA: Tell us about your concept idea and which parts was the most challenging ones when trying to create the vision you had?
| A.R: → When I finally decided on what type of creature I wanted to do i.e. something sleek/intimidating I wanted the creature to have adapted parts of its body to the specific niche I had thought up. Right off the bat it was difficult for me to decide on an overall shape motif to stick with, at first I wanted to do something really alien and ethereal like it belonged in deep space but was forcing it too much to like it, then I decided to take inspiration from athletic prosthetics for sprinters and once I did that all the shapes fell into place. The second hardest thing was designing the sort of uniform my creature wears since I’d never done any type of clothes before or even a full body!
| 3CA: What is your advice when it comes to being part of International challenges like the Creature vs Humanoids challenge?
| A.R: → You can 100% expect me to compete in more challenges, especially ones where I haven’t done the subject matter before. I find that the pressure helps me perform better and usually the things that come out are the best work I’ve ever done! I really loved the attitude of everyone in the challenge and how even though it was competitive everyone helped and politely critiqued each others W.I.Ps.
| 3CA: What can we expect more from you in future and see more of?
| Alexandra Reeves : → In the future, you can expect a lot more 3D! I’d like to be producing work with a more professional pipeline, implementing new techniques and programs so that I can dive fully into 3D and try my hand at things I’ve always wanted to, like compositing in 3D, rigging, animating, simulating FX and things like that! I’d love to be able to finally create the scenes I see in my head in the ways I’d always imagined in my mind as a kid. I’d really love to make a short film by myself fully in 3D like I’ve seen online before. So hopefully each new thing I create brings me a bit closer to that goal and just be overall growth as an artist.
Congratulations to the second place in the Creatures vs Humanoids challenge. 3D Concept Art Community are very happy to help with all the sponsors involved in this challenge. Keep working hard and be a creator of imagination.
