Today we’d like to introduce you to Angela Smaldone.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was born in Bari, southern Italy, in the early ’80s. My strong passion for animation and modeling led me to attend the “Centro Sperimentale di Cinema” in Turin, where I completed my university degree in 3D animation. I then moved to Paris, where I furthered and completed my formal education at Gobelins, Ecole de l’image.
After a few years working for Illumination and Method in France, I spent three years in Northern America and then returned to Paris, where I currently live and work, developing my career as a visual development sculptor for animation cinema.
Please tell us about your art.
Working on large, international productions over the years has helped me develop my expertise in character sculpting and modeling, which is my specialty area.
Production usually provides me with a design of a character, and I do my best to give my interpretation of it, building the shapes in 3 dimensions.
I come from a traditional sculpting background, working in clay, but Z-Brush is now my preferred tool for character concept development.
It’s fun like this job chose me, not the other way around. I realized quite young that I could model pieces of clay, transforming them into full dimensional creations.
Since then, this skill, combined with a strong passion for cinema, has propelled me across the world, letting me become the professional that I am today.
What I love most about what I do is the challenge of investigating shapes with strong attention to details in order to translate a 2D drawn character into a three-dimensional creation, full of life, appeal, and elegance. You have to develop a sense of intuition for simplicity and a sharp eye for strong, significant shapes, aiming to general beauty.
Once, a pediatrician friend of mine, working for the Red Cross told me about her day, and it was full of excitement and action, helping children to feel better.
I felt as if my day, sitting in front of a PC, moving virtual geometry around was less meaningful compared to hers: she was literally saving human lives!!!
It was, until she told me, “Well you know, I help them survive, but you help them dream.”
I hope that my work and by my work I also mean the combined effort of all the other super talented people I work with, help people feel less lonely and bring more color to their lives. I wish that my cartoon characters send them positive vibes, populate their fantasies, motivate and encourage them through their days.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
The biggest challenge for nowadays, artists is to stay humble and reinvent themselves. Keep it fresh, original, with an honest eye to reality, and in connection with your own feelings, believe me, it is very hard. Everything has already been said and said again, and people have less and less time, submerged by any kind of distractions.
Artists should stay faithful to their truth, always aiming to their personal growth and self-knowledge but at the same time be able to reinvent their vision through their own unique perception of things.
They should look for new inputs in the external world, filtering them through their own experience.
Only this original take on things will keep them interesting and make it worth it.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Dear readers, across the web, GO TO THE MOVIES!
I mainly develop characters for movies and TV shows, which is the easiest way to see my work. In order to support the industry (and support artists), please, go to the cinema! The box office results are still very important to help define the success (or failure) of a movie, and it plays a vital role in whether or not producers wish to invest more money in new projects.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.angypop.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sma_ngy/?hl=it
- Other: https://www.artstation.com/angypop
Image Credit:
Photo credit: Annalisa Falcone
Nephtali – design by Glen Keane
Momo – design by Ryan Lang
Mune and Glim – from the movie `Mune` – On Entertainment
Azrael – from the movie `Smurfs and the lost village` – Sony Imageworks
Gamu – from the movie `Missing Link` – Laika
Fox and Mother – from the movie `The little prince` – On Entertainment
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition, please let us know here.
