Tharik Mohammed Ehaya: arch-viz artist interview

Hi! My name is Tharik, and I’m a senior 3D visualizer artist from Singapore. I’ve been working as a 3D visualizer artist in the architectural visualization industry since 2010. I found my talent in drawing during my childhood days. As a 3D visualization artist, I aim to make amazing pieces of 3D digital art that is accomplished during the progression of my career, seen in my work and personal projects. For the past couple of years, I’ve worked hard at developing my knowledge depth in terms of improving my techniques, software, and 3D visualization rendering, which helped to develop a better portfolio.

For the Desert Exterior & Riverside Concrete House, this project was inspired by studio OFIS Arhitekti. The render was accomplished with Corona and Megascans materials. Various 3D assets were used from Sketchfab. Overall, the project lighting was executed with a HDRI in the background, using the same HDRI map; however I adjusted the light exposure and colors. The ground flooring and vegetation was from the Megascans library.

For the Riverside Concrete House, this project was done referencing an existing building design by ARCHSTUDIO. The surrounding environment is home to the natural scenery of trees and river. The walls and the roof of the house was created with concrete material strips, with the interior flooring using stone surfaces. The software used to create the scene was 3ds Max, Corona Render, Quixel Mixer, and Photoshop. The lighting was accomplished with HDRI, using Corona Skylight with materials created by Megascans & Quixel Mixer. The vegetation was created by Corona Scatter.

I would always face challenges with any new project or even a different concept. Some examples would be lighting, designing, and especially creating the environment. Corona Scatter makes it easier for me to create vegetation (trees and plants) for the environment. By reducing the polycount level, it helped to minimize the rendering hours. Since 2018, Megascans and Quixel Mixer have opened up my eyes to the many possibilities of learning and creating amazing pieces of 3D digital art.

Most of the time, I use Corona Render, Megascans, and Quixel Mixer for textures. I love to use Corona Render as it is a user-friendly rendering software which makes it easy to understand the functionalities and the tools. Corona brings my work to life. I started to use Megascans materials and the output quality of the render improved, while I used Quixel Mixer for creating various tileable textures. The final post-production was done in Photoshop with Nik Collection plug-ins.

My ambition as a 3D artist is to create different kinds of 3D visualization and environment designs. I aim to always learn and develop my skills by upgrading my 3D tools and studies from the natural lighting. In the near future, I may change my career to VFX or the game industry.

My favorite artists are Alex Roman, Peter Guthrie, and Tamas Medve (MIR artist from Budapest, Hungary) because they have amazing skills in lighting and rendering, especially in composing image styles. I am impressed by Tamas Medve’s Photoshop post-production as his works are incredible.

My favorite visualization studios are MIR Studio, The Boundary, and BBB3viz. They inspire me in my 3D visualization.

Currently I'm working on two 3D view projects; one is an architect exterior, and another one is a beach house concept. In my ongoing projects, I am mainly focusing on photorealistic environment background, PBR materials, and interior designing details. I try to make them different from the previous projects.