Nomeradona SketchUp VR: SVA Featured Artist: Gerbe GAD Dumahil

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Monday 17 October 2011

SVA Featured Artist: Gerbe GAD Dumahil

Gerbe Dumahil or sometimes we call him GAD is another upcoming visual artist from the Philippines. Recently he won the SkethchUp Ur Space international competition where he secured a free license fromVray SketchUp of Chaos Group. GAD is also one of our regular contributor of excellent tutorials here at SVR. Please check his tutorial links at the end of this interview. Once again, we would like to thank Gerbe with his tutorial and allowing us to feature him on this site. All images attached here are courtesy of Gerbe Dumahil.

SVR. Please tell us more about yourself.

GAD: Hi! I'm Gerbe Dumahil, a Designer, an Arch Viz, and a Graphic Artist. I'm currently working as an Architectural Assistant and an Apprentice in a local office in Cagayan de Oro, PH. I love to draw Manga; I love to draw things that do not exist; monsters, aliens, and other creatures. This way I got my imagination working. I’m a gamer too, I love playing games specially RPGs where my mind works in solving puzzles. I always try something new especially in visualization.

SVR. Can you share to us how did you start with visualization?

GAD: "Great things start from small beginnings". I started my "visualization career" from the very first time I held a pencil and a paper. Back then, sketching and doodling were my favorite past times. Even though my drawings were not really that good, (I just drew stick figures fighting each other, or a Head Quarters of stick figures), it helped me improve my visualization capabilities, I believed that the key factor to visualization is your imagination. As time goes by, my sketching had been improved a lot, from stick figures into full drawn characters. With such improvements (I believed I improved that time.), I've made my first Comics.

As I moved forward, the path of art leads me to the discovery of a new dimension, the world of 3D visualization. On 2006, SketchUp was introduced to me by a friend and I was amazed by its capabilities to create simple to complex geometries. I got even more amazed when I saw their "cooked" images. They said it was done using a plug-in called V-Ray. At that time, they were my masters. I was eager to try the softwares right away but then I faced a huge dilemma, I don't have a computer. Luckily, after a few weeks or so, my sister bought a "new" one, it's not actually new, and it’s a second hand surplus Pentium III computer. A not-so-fast-pc but helped me took my major leap in visualization. With its helped, I managed to learn different softwares, like Photoshop, Image Ready, Flash, Swift 3D and others. I made my first stick fight flash animation out with it. But whenever I try to create very complex scenes in SketchUp, I always encountered the most feared Popup ever in the history of Google SketchUp, the Bug splat. It frustrates me, yet I still have the guts to continue on practicing.

For my great determination to learn, I'll have to widen up my sources. Whenever I went outside to rent a unit in an internet cafe, I always searched for tutorials about SketchUp and VRay, Photoshop, and Flash. I learned mostly from my current mentors, Nomer Adona, Zernan Suarez, Onel Pabico and many others.

SVR. Who are your inspirations? How did they inspire you?

GAD: I'm a big fan of Japanese Manga Artists such as Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball); Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy); Keiji Inafune (Mega Man), and many others who influenced my style in manual drawings.

Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson and Santiago Calatrava. These are my Mentors in Architecture.

For Architectural Visualizations; Ronen Bekermen, Peter Guthrie, Bertrand Benoit and Alex Roman. Influenced much on my post processing styles and scene compositions.

SVR. We have seen your work in evermotion.org, sketchupartists.org and now you recently won the SKetchup Ur Space competition. How does it feel to be recognized as one of the upcoming visualizers using SKetchup and VraySU? Any secret?

GAD: I am really thankful and grateful for the things that are happening now. I am also happy that I won the SketchUp Ur Space Competition, where I didn't even have the slightest expectation of winning as I am competing with some great international artists. My secret won't be a secret anymore after I expose it; it’s my love for 3D arts.

SVR. What is the most important aspect of visualization you focus more? Why?

GAD.Design. In the field of Architectural Visualization, I always believed that a good render starts with a good design. Let's not forget that the sole purpose of 3D architectural visualization is to showcase ones Design. The rendering comes secondary.

SVR. You produced a lot of the excellent tutorial at SKetchupVrayresources, what is your motivation in doing these new tutorials?

GAD. For the past few years, I have been also a tutorial reader. I learned new things, tips, and tricks from these masters. Maybe it's about time to share my discoveries too. :)

SVR. Please tell us about your workflow or pipeline in Visualisation.

GAD. Conceptualization is my first step to any project. I sketch on papers about my ideas. Sometimes I go straight into AutoCAD and start drafting them. My workflow depends on the type of project I am handling. For simple scenes with less polygon counts, I do everything in SketchUp, from modeling to rendering. However, if the project needs vast vegetation, base modeling will be done in SketchUp then imported in 3Ds Max to render. My post-processing is done either in Photoshop or in After Effects.

SVR. Final words to our readers please, especially those who are new.

GAD. One should have constant practice and a heart full of determination to learn. Take it slow, learning is not a race, take it step by step. Learn to criticize your work and learn to accept criticism constructively. Take courage to practice even on a slow computer, you’ll get used to it.

And lastly, a quote from General Iroh of Avatar: The Last Airbender; “Follow your passion, and life will reward you.”