Today we’d like to introduce you to Kurt Bernardin.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I never actually saw myself being an artist until I took my first 3D class in community college. Something about working in 3D space on the computer blew me away. From then on, I was taking art classes back to back. I eventually graduated as a 3D artist with a focus towards modeling, texturing, and lighting.
Shortly after graduation, I managed to land a full-time job working in the visual effects industry where I stayed for a few years. During that time, I ended up working on a few dozen TV shows and commercials. Aside from 3D, I also gained a lot of knowledge about filming and photography from the post-production perspective. I eventually began going on-set with the visual effects team to help with tasks such as photography and lidar scanning.
Currently, I’m part of a small CG team in Los Angeles as a lead artist and supervisor. We have a big focus towards stylized character animation and brand content.
Please tell us about your art.
As a 3D artist, I focus mainly towards look development, texturing, lighting, and final compositing. I use a variety of software such as Nuke, Maya, and Redshift for my work. In the visual effects industry, I worked mostly with live-action environments and props. There’s a strange beauty to some VFX where the best work looks so real that most people don’t know it was done on the computer. Lately, I’ve moved onto working mostly with all 3D work that ranges between highly stylized character animation to hyper-real character animation,
I love being able to create and tell stories. I’ve never believed that I’m great with words, but when it comes to an image, I shine. In the 3D process, everything has to be created from nothing. So generally, every pixel you see was created in some way to help evolve the composition of the piece. My goal is to have people feel engaged and excited about my work.
I also do photography on the side. Since I work in 3D and have full control of every aspect of the piece, when it comes to photography I prefer to capture candid moments. I want to capture moments as they are versus prefabricating them. In a way, it’s sort of a complete opposite of what I do in the 3D realm.
What do you think about the conditions for artists today? Has life become easier or harder for artists in recent years? What can cities like ours do to encourage and help art and artists thrive?
Artists today have access to so many different and new mediums that it can be overwhelming and amazing at the same time. Speaking purely from the digital perspective, there are hundreds of different software artists can learn and an unlimited amount of knowledge and tutorials online.
Cities like Los Angeles can help encourage the art community by promoting more artistic events such as art fairs and art walks. They can create more safe spaces for artists to work together to help get their artistry out in the open. The city can also help inspire people to take art classes at local colleges whether or not they consider themselves an artist.
With that said, artists just need to believe in themselves and put their work out there. For all of its positives and negatives, social media is one of the greatest tools to show off art and to promote yourself. It gives anyone the ability to reach the entire world in an instant.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
People can find a lot of my work on my website: http://www.kurtbernardin.com
I also post some of my photography through Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kurtbernardin/
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.kurtbernardin.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kurtbernardin/
Image Credit:
Asgard’s Wrath – Sanzaru Games, Hero’s Arena – uCool, Stormland – Insomniac Games, The Unspoken – Insomniac Games
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