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Interview

Daniel Bystedt p1

READERSVOICE.COM aims to collect a few interesting reading tips. Daniel Bystedt is a skilled artist from Stockholm who creates computer generated imagery. Some of his works include a portrait of Carol Peletier from The Walking Dead; a H.P. Lovecraft style scary monster; a mech in robes; a small walker robot; space vehicles and other sci fi and fantasy creatures. He is a big fan of ZBrush which is one of the leading programs used for 3d character creation. Some of his pictures are like photographs. In this interview Mr Bystedt gives a lot of good advice for people interested in creating computer art, and he gives some good book tips, too. See dbystedt.wordpress.com for some of his creations.

READERSVOICE.COM: Where in Stockholm do you live and where did you grow up?

DANIEL BYSTEDT: I live on the south side of Stockholm, but I grew up in a small town on the west coast of Sweden. After l moved to Stockholm I studied CG graphics and have been working within that field ever since.

RV: Do you go work in Stockholm every day and how do you get there?

DB: Yes. I’m a full time employee at Bläck Studios where I work as a character artist. I take the metro every day which works nice. It’s great to live in a town with well-functioning public transportation.

RV: What percentage of your time would you spend on commercials or other work projects compared with personal projects?

DB: Personal projects tend to go way faster. If the end goal of a personal project is one or more images, I’m able to take a lot of shortcuts. For instance, I would not have to prepare a character for animation if I was doing a personal project. This saves a lot of time.

RV: You did some character concepts for the Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands tv series. And robots like the Small Walker robot and other creatures feature in your work. Do you like stories in these genres, like epics of fantasy, myth and science fiction?

DB: Absolutely! I love both sci-fi and fantasy. It’s always fascinating to imagine creatures or mechanical designs that no one has ever seen in real life. However, it’s always important for me to look at references from real life, such as insects or other species.

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-copyright Simon Sandall.