João Victor Ferreira: character modeler interview

Brazilian character modeler João Victor Ferreira is a freelancer working on personal projects and developing his skills. Check out his work and interview...

3dtotal: Tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you, what do you do, and where are you located?
João Victor Ferreira: Hi there! My name is João Victor Ferreira, I am a Brazilian character modeler based in Rio de Janeiro. I am currently working as a freelancer for the advertising industry. Nowadays I dedicate my free time to studying modeling, and a bit of rigging, because I like to discover new ways to control characters.

I did this image for cover the 3D Artist Magazine issue 116. The goal is to show the contrast between a strong fighter and his Chihuahua dog

3dt: Tell us about your art: your style, themes, genre, and some of the favorite projects you have worked on.
JF: I like the cartoony style so much, including characters from the great studios around the world like Pixar, Disney, and so on. I try to create a funny image when I can, because in my opinion, it is the best way to communicate art. My favorite projects I have worked on is Mad Dudes for the cover of 3D Artist Magazine issue 116 and Nelson the Nerd, a little boy who loves being the first to answer his teacher.

Nelson is a little nerd boy that wants to be the first to answer the questions being the only one student at class

3dt: Can you describe your typical workflow, and the software/hardware you normally use when creating your artwork?
JF: For hardware, I use a desktop i7 6700 with 32GB of RAM. I like to use two monitors to have a lot of space to work on. My character's pipeline is based on ZBrush for sculpting, Maya for retopology, Photoshop for the maps and post-production, Ornatrix for hair and fur, and V-Ray for rendering.

So I sculpt in ZBrush, then I do the retopology in Maya, with the UV coordinates also in Maya, and then I bring the mesh to ZBrush again to make the details and export all maps like normal, displace, and polypaint for diffuse.

I did this image for my wife, it transmits her serenity. There is an Easter egg with her name Ana

3dt: What inspires you?
JF: The other artist's works inspire me. I am always looking for new concepts, new works, and new movies, so I am frequently saving references from other artists that I find on blogs, sites, and social media. When I watch a great animation movie, I just want to create something, so I do some quick sketches just for fun.

The Skipper gave me a lot of fun when I was working on him. He is a skipper but does not like water, so he has a duck float for any emergency

3dt: How do you keep your portfolio up-to-date? Any tips?
JF: I usually work on a new personal project when I have no freelance work to do. So when I create a new work, I post on my website joaovictor3d.com and I publish it on the social media. I try to leave my portfolio as up-to-date as possible because there are frequent new visitors.

I did this image to study car modeling. I chose the Mini because I like this car so much. I also used this image to study an unbiased renderer

3dt: Who are your favorite artists, traditional or digital, and can you explain why?
JF: In the traditional arena, I like Aaron Blaises work so much; he really has a great background on characters and animations. For digital, I like the work of Alena Tottle a lot, because she has an awesome sense of modeling and sculpting. I also follow the work of Pedro Conti and Victor Hugo Queiroz; they are both Brazilian artists and they have a strong knowledge of character development. I also follow the art of Rafa Zabala, a great traditional and digital sculptor, Sergi Caballer, Juan Solis, Fausto de Martini for the hard surface style, Iker de los Mozos and Victor Vinyals for rigging, and many other artists.

3dt: What can we expect to see from you next?
JF: These days I am studying modeling and rigging, probably in the next few weeks I will make some more personal works. I still do not know the theme of my next artwork, but I want to make something funny. Maybe a character in a funny situation.

Related links

Joao Ferreira on Facebook
Joao on Linkedin
Joao on Instagram
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