October’s Featured Designer: Amadeu Aldavert (Monsters Barcelona)

October’s featured designer is Amadeu Aldavert, the amazing talent behind Monsters Barcelona. He took a couple of minutes to talk to us about what inspires his amazing monster busts, his transition into 3D printing from video game design, and where he sees his 3D work going in the future. 

Pinshape: You have some amazing busts on the site. What inspired you to focus on this type of 3D work?

Amadeu: I created Monsters Barcelona with the idea to extract from my mind all of the monsters that inhabit it. Some of those are new versions of known characters, some historical figures and some are from a next generation [of monsters]. My inspiration comes from everything that surrounds me like music, the architecture, movies, videogames…

How did 3D printing first come to your attention? Were you a fan of it immediately or did you gradually become involved in it?

It was love at first sight, years ago a coworker printed me the face of one of my characters, and I haven’t let go of this world since.

How do you choose which design you are going to create next?

Since there are a lot of characters that I want to make, I make series of monsters based on themes in order to organize [my work]. The next steps? I want to give color to all of my models, plus make a series based on a-lines, witches, zombies and ghosts. But I’m open to new ideas!

 What got you into 3D printing, and what prompted you to start making these amazing 3D print monster models?

I think in the near future, 3d printing will be the most important way to reach the public, and I want  to have been in on it from the beginning. On the other hand, I have worked on videogames for a long time and I enjoy it, but it doesn’t let me experiment physically with my creations. In my years of illustrating and concept artistry, I have never had the feeling that something is left out, but in the 3D printing industry I am able to touch my creations.

How has your background in videogame design affected how you go about creating your 3D busts and your style of design?

The information extracted from the marketing department was very valuable, and I gladly let that affect my work. The characters had to be animated and that challenge me to make the characters with anatomic coherence, which I try to maintain for my 3d print assets.

Is your hope to make a permanent move to full-time creation of 3D objects or would you like to continue to balance both?

Although I love working on videogames, my intention is to be exclusively committed to this [3D printing] sector. But, for the moment, I see some difficulties with that due to economic factors, so what I will do in the meantime is to do both things at the same time.

Do you have any advice for designers who are trying to get started in 3D work or take their work to the next level?

I think that the importance placed on the technical side of this industry sometimes doesn’t give you enough time to invest on the truly important side of this work – which is the art-centric side. The proportions of my personal [design] cocktail is 70% art and 30% technique.

What are your preferred design tools?

Mudbox . Zbrush, Autodesk Max, Photoshop.

What are your favorite blogs, tutorials, magazines, and other resources to keep you up-to-date on design and 3D design?

Zbrush central, pinterest, but mostly my friend and work buddy Marcos Nogue , who is the one who keep me posted on the cool news.

Is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to share with the Pinshape community?

Nothing, only great job on all of your hard work, and I wish you a lot of success!