Minecraft Blogs / Interview

Gray Remnant Interviews Kevaasaurus

  • 1,519 views, 1 today
  • 39
  • 9
  • 37
GrayRemnant's Avatar GrayRemnant
Level 64 : High Grandmaster Senpai
3,259
Next up is Kevaasaurus, who specializes in organic work here on PMC.  Here's some interesting facts about him:

Fun Facts!
-Kevaasaurus joined PMC on October 13, 2013.  Since then, he's created 17 organic projects, 6 spawns, 3 terrains, 3 mega-builds and 1 PvP arena.

-Kevaasaurus is also a render aficionado, and has published two tutorials on render design here on PMC.

-Kevaasaurus has competed in two PMC-officiated contests, and was a finalist in the Life on Mars Solo Build Contest back in December.

-To date, Kevaasaurus has won 4 silver medals, 3 bronze medals, and 13 ribbons on Week in Review.

-Kevaasaurus has also obtained the Artist badge on WiR, a high honor for organic work that only 12 people have ever attained.

-Kevaasaurus finished in 17th place for the year of 2015 over on WiR.



Gray: Greetings, Kevaasaurus!  Thank you for taking some time to answer my questions today.

I’ve chosen to talk with you mainly because you have a great talent for organic figures.  You’ve given some insight into your building process before, but there are some who aren’t familiar with it.  Describe how you go about building a humanoid figure in Minecraft.  What specific steps do you tend to take?

Kevaasaurus: Humanoid figures take more precise methods and planning, at least for me anyway.  Because we are human, we tend to notice and critique a lot more because we know ourselves, we know how we’re supposed to look in terms of proportions.  For example if I were to build something imaginary or some animal, I can get away with just eyeballing it completely and do no wireframing because we are not that animal, we don’t know by heart how they are supposed to look proportionally. 

But my steps will usually look something like this.  I use world edit and voxel sniper a lot.  I create one big sphere with a brush for the waist area.  Then use the laser brush and the line brush to draw limbs (legs and arms) and use appropriate sized spheres for joints.  Continue with other limbs (calves and forearms).  This is my basic wireframe that I do.  It’s important that you set up your wireframe with the pose you want because it’s easier to erase a 1 block thin line than to erase a fully fleshed out leg for example.  As for poses, if I’m recreating something like a marvel hero, then I’ll just google what they look like and some good poses come up.  Other times I will get off my chair and re-enact the pose myself to get a good understanding of how I need to build it.  I then bulk it out with a medium sized brush and go from there.  Smoothing and perfecting the body, with voxel sniper doing most of the work and refining by hand, saving the head for the very last.  Most cases I use a good size sphere for the head and sculpt out how a head is supposed to look, other times i will just do it completely by hand if its at a hard angle to visualize.  The head is the most important part in my opinion.  I still struggle with making a good head though.  There are more steps, but this is already getting pretty long.

Gray: Most of your work these days is organic in nature.  However, you’ve been known to dabble in structures and terraforming in the past.  What are some of the reasons organic work is more your cup of tea than structures and landscapes?  What makes you passionate about it?

Kevaasaurus: It’s way more fun.  Structure I find really boring.  I used to do structure, until I learned organics.  There are no limitations in organics.  You can create whatever the **** you want.  It’s all up to your imagination and the execution of it that will produce great results.  Plus people tend to be more ‘wowd’ by organics.  However, the only downside is theres not a great need for people who do them, but if I really needed commissioned work, I’d stay mastering structure, not organics.  As for landscaping, I define it as just unrefined organics, so it’s the same thing.  I don’t take too much pride and effort in terraforming, it’s just the base for my builds.

Gray: I’ve seen some weird, obscure avatars in my day, but yours continues to elude me.  If I had to guess, I’d say it’s related to Thomas the Tank Engine.  So I’m just going to flat-out ask: What the hell is your avatar and why is it so creepy?

Gray Remnant Interviews Kevaasaurus

Kevaasaurus: Yes it’s thomas the dank engine.  Nothing else to say (-: 

Gray: I personally love the red and green dragons you made earlier this year.  I’ve always found wings to be difficult to design, not only in Minecraft but in other art forms as well.  How did you go about creating the wings in those builds?

Kevaasaurus: Those dragons were actually the very first organics I’ve ever built.  The very first was a whale that I did by hand using photoshop to follow a 2d shape of a whale.  The method I used back then makes me cringe now.  I created the ‘skeleton’ of the wing I guess you could call it and then used spheres to fill in the wingy part of the wing, melted it down to a reasonable thickness and smoothed it out all with voxel sniper.  This… is a very crude method, I was still learning back then.  The results look pretty good and is a fast way to do it, but pretty sloppy and makes the wings thicker than they should.  How I would create a wing now is using the line brush and filling in by hand.

Gray: You recently joined AthionOfficial, and subsequently signed off all your human rights and liberties.  Shortly thereafter, AthionOfficial posted this, and won a medal on Week in Review.  Have you taken your stolen medal back yet and, if so, how many people did you have bludgeon/kill to get it?

Kevaasaurus: It’s not as bad as you think it is to join a team.  Quite the opposite actually.  Through Athlon, I was and still able to refine my skills, getting support from fellow team members, and criticism and opinions outside from my own.  I’m truly thankful that I have the opportunity to be apart of this team.  As for the medal, I’m proud we got gold, it may not be under my PMC account, but that doesn’t matter.  (-:

Gray: You’ve got some skill in creating poses for your organic figures.  It’s one thing to create something with anatomical accuracy, but another thing entirely to position their joints and limbs in a believable way.  How difficult is it to get just the right kind of pose when you’re building figures like this?  Is there a lot of re-editing or trial and error?

Kevaasaurus: As I said earlier, if I’m recreating something, poses will come up.  Other times I will model it myself with my own body.  Usually I nail the pose in one try, however there are times, one time, where I had to re-edit the pose numerous times where it got frustrating.  It was for a fight scene between two star wars characters, all I can say :P  Doing the wireframe method is very helpful in making a pose.

Gray: There are a lot of users here on PMC who, like you, specialize in organics.  Of all the 3D artists out there, who do you idolize the most and why?

Kevaasaurus: First, I have to credit N3xus.  It was his work that I saw first that made me want to give organics a try.  I don’t know many other people to be honest, I guess I live under a rock.  But there are some who are greater than me, IMO.  People like craftological, I’m pretty sure he does all his organics by hand, something I could never have patience to do.  Hytherdel (owner of Mystic Absents I believe), another great organics builder.  The members in LordBlocks, I don’t know who specifically, but their MCBcon entry was easily one of my favorites.  There are probably many many other builders out there that I haven’t yet to discover.



And that about wraps it up.  Thank you very much for reading!  I hope to see you guys again next week when I interview kesteve, the master terraformer of the ages.  See you then.

-Gray Remnant
Tags

Create an account or sign in to comment.

1
02/29/2016 11:34 am
Level 9 : Apprentice Network
WhoIsThis
WhoIsThis's Avatar
I'm after Master G right, Gray? Nice interview though!
1
02/29/2016 6:28 pm
Level 64 : High Grandmaster Senpai
GrayRemnant
GrayRemnant's Avatar
Yeah, I think the order is kesteve, then Master G, then you.
1
03/01/2016 5:45 am
Level 9 : Apprentice Network
WhoIsThis
WhoIsThis's Avatar
Thanks for letting me know that :)
1
02/23/2016 8:58 am
Level 49 : Master Crafter
mick_5
mick_5's Avatar
Cool interview
1
02/23/2016 9:50 pm
Level 64 : High Grandmaster Senpai
GrayRemnant
GrayRemnant's Avatar
Thanks, dude!
1
02/21/2016 2:14 pm
Level 24 : Expert Engineer
Steven-Lukes
Steven-Lukes's Avatar
when will the week in review for this week be upload? XD
1
02/22/2016 12:17 am
Level 64 : High Grandmaster Senpai
GrayRemnant
GrayRemnant's Avatar
Tuesday.  :P
1
02/24/2016 9:38 am
Level 27 : Expert Sweetheart
Exoh
Exoh's Avatar
It's wednesday... xD
1
02/24/2016 5:46 pm
Level 64 : High Grandmaster Senpai
GrayRemnant
GrayRemnant's Avatar
Shhhhh. When you see it, it will be very obvious why it's late. :P
1
02/21/2016 12:27 pm
Level 45 : Master Architect
CrankerMan
CrankerMan's Avatar
"it’s thomas the dank engine. Nothing else to say (-: "


hahaha
Planet Minecraft

Website

© 2010 - 2024
www.planetminecraft.com

Welcome