Roman Huzar

1. Tell about yourself. Why did you choose 3D graphics

Hello everyone! My name is Roman, I am 27 years old and I live in the city of Lviv (Ukraine). Since childhood, I was fond of everything related to architecture and art, since I grew up in a creative family. My father was an artist, and my grandfather was an architect, to some extent thanks to them I am who I am now. At an early age, I did not think about what I would do in the field of CGI, I just loved to draw and think of something. Even in the lessons at school, if it was already very boring, I drew concepts of cars and all that :)

2. How was the training schedule?

My very first acquaintance with 3D graphics was the pro100 program (maybe someone knows, write in the comments), it was mainly for working with fittings, but I did the first visualization in it. I liked the 3D graphics and I went further, I started working in sketch up, I really liked him. A simple and understandable program for beginners (for those who are afraid to open 3D max for the first time) all the training took place on their own, according to various video lessons on Youtube, forums, communication with other people. Then I realized that I needed to switch to something serious, that result ceased to suit me. I saw a lot of other cool work and I wanted the same. And thanks to Corona Renderer, it just came out then, I instantly moved to 3ds max, it turned out not to be as scary as I imagined.

One of my children's sketches

In the beginning, training also took place independently. I watched video tutorials mainly from Artem Kupriyanenko. And then one fine day I saw that a contest was being held from cg incubator where the winner would be able to take free training at their school. I thought, why not. It was 2 sleepless nights, first you had to come up with an idea, write a text and mount it all. There was no time for this in the afternoon, since at that time I already had orders from freelance. I sent a video to the contest and was waiting for the result, it was difficult but the expectations were met. I won this contest, there was a lot of joy, but I had to get as high as possible and squeeze the maximum out of the course, which I did.

Thanks a lot to Artyom Kupriyanenko and the CG INCUBATOR school, for me it was a very important stage in my growth as a CG artist and they helped me a lot in this.

3. Why did you choose freelance work in the studio?

I have experience at Suburbia Studio. This was the first such serious step for me to work in the office with the team. It is a pity that he did not succeed in anything good and had to leave there. But for that I got a good experience.

And freelance is a kind of freedom. You create a schedule for yourself, communicate with the client yourself, look for an approach and control the whole process. It’s difficult to do everything qualitatively alone, it takes a lot of time, but that’s where it all starts :)

This is, if I may say so, the buffer zone for the artist. I like this rhythm of life, but I need to move on.

4. Tell me how you are looking for clients? What are you focusing on?

I used to take all the projects. But one day I realized that I didn’t want it that way, I want cool projects, cool customers and I started writing them myself. I went to archdaily to select architects, the studios made a table in which I entered their data (website, mail, etc.) I composed a letter with a proposal and modified it a little for each. At that time I bought a domain and I had my own website with a portfolio that I made myself with templates. It was called anotherender.pro, now it is probably not alive anymore)

And so I sent a few letters a day. Of the 200 letters, only 3 responded, it is small but it is still the result, I was very happy) I started working with an architect from Brazil, he constantly supplied me with work and we had a good attitude. And in general, everything turned out very interesting for us. He answered me in the mail that he looked at my portfolio and would like to do with me one project, so to speak, a test, for verification. I agreed, but we did not agree a bit on the price. He did not want to pay me as much as I requested and I made him a counter offer that looked like this:

“I do one 3D visualization for you, if you don’t like it, you don’t pay anything for it for me, and if you like it, you pay as agreed.” And he agreed! it was a risk for me, then I did not sleep all night, I wanted to do everything as much as I could. And what do you think? He paid me and even at the end of the project he threw it from above for my attitude and such a non-standard offer for him)

And all this I mean, we are artists, and in the foreground we should have an approach and a desire to do everything qualitatively and beautifully without chasing a monetary reward. If the customer is good, he will see it and will appreciate it. For them it is important.

5. Do you know foreign languages? Do freelancers need them today?

I always use a translator (and as we know, translators sometimes work very crookedly). I know English well by ear, reading and understanding are also no problem. But when it comes to saying something, building a dialogue or writing, everything is very bad here. But I'm working on it. Foreign languages ​​are certainly very important, English alone is more than enough, especially if you work with foreign customers it’s just “must know”

Therefore, do not regret investing money in development and training, this is very important. And if they are not, then you can learn yourself on the Internet a lot of free lessons and teachers, online schools, etc. The main thing is desire.

6. What projects do you like to do the most?

At first it was interiors, I was afraid to make exteriors, I thought that it was difficult and I didn’t yet know what Corona Scatter and Forest Pack were. But now I can say that if you choose between the exterior and interior, I will choose the exterior. But it also depends on desire and mood, if you work yourself, you have the right to choose. Sometimes you want to do interiors, sometimes vice versa, you need to keep a balance. It’s good when there is one and the other in one project, it looks larger and more elaborate.

7. Where are you looking for inspiration for your work?

Everything is probably standard as with all artists:

Behance

Art station

Instagram

Arch-daily

Ronen Bekerman

3ddd

Dezeen

Leibal

CG Award ua

There are also many different photographers (Kim holtermand, Annabell Kutucu, etc.) I spend a lot of time on stocks with photos, there are a lot of interesting things.

8. Do you continue to improve your skills? Level up? How? Lessons, conferences.

Oh sure. I am in constant development, this is an area where you can’t stop) you need to constantly improve and grow. On the contrary, if you stop for too long, the guys will come cooler than you in your place and you will have to catch up with them. Every day, someone is doing better and better.

There are actually many ways, everyone chooses for himself convenient. Someone likes self-development, someone only in courses with teachers. There are many options, the main thing is to have a desire. Now more and more various events are held on the topic of CG and on each one you can learn something new for yourself, chat with interesting people, share experience and just have a good time. I hope this trend continues.

9. What is a freelancer in Ukraine? Advantages and disadvantages.

I can not answer this question now. To be honest, I have not been in the Ukrainian freelance market for a long time and now I do not work on it. It was at the very beginning and for me it seemed normal. But when I worked with foreign customers, I realized that the difference is big, firstly in relation and secondly in price. Now I don’t know what the situation is on the Ukrainian market, but I want to believe that it is changing in a good direction, including thanks to such sites as cgaward.com.ua

10. Have you had any suggestions to leave to work abroad? If so, why stayed.

Yes, they come from time to time, recently often, there are interesting offers but with their own catch. I have priority studios in which I would agree to work, but I still need to work on my portfolio to get there. Therefore, I try not to focus particularly on each proposal and carefully relate to this issue.

11. How do you prefer to spend free time from work? Sport, travel.

Recently, very little free time, constantly doing something. In fact, even when I just paint for myself - I rest, for me it is a good pastime. But besides this, I try to lead an active lifestyle: Sports hall, walks, outdoor recreation and communication with other people are not from the field of architectural visualization. From time to time you need to be distracted, it is useful not to burn out. And development should be diversified, a lot more interesting things can be found for yourself and use it in our field. I love experimenting and trying something new.

12. What do you strive for in your work. What peaks, results?

There is always a desire to be better, to be better now, every day. To do this, you need to work on yourself and study. I always set myself a high bar and try to come to it, sometimes I have to sacrifice something, give up a lot, but I understand why all this is for. As such, there is no Top, I am not going to dwell on something, there is a desire to be better every day, and then we'll see.

13. Wishes, advices and parting words to the audience.

Thanks to everyone who read it to the end)

I hope you were interested and you learned something from this interview. I would like to wish everyone cool renderings and not to forget that we are actually artists and it is worth investing something creative and artistic in each project. It looks very cool and vibrant. And do not be afraid to experiment and try something new, this is also very important.

Good to all!

And thanks to the cgaward.com.ua team for the opportunity

Link to Roman's portfolio: https://www.behance.net/huzaroman