My first post here

[Siquier]

Hello guys.
Good stuff here!!! great forum, I´m Juan Siquier I´m spanish but now I´m working at Milano (Italy)
Here is some of my scenes:





I would like to know what do you think about

[TheAllusionist]

I am Speechless! One of my favorite CG artist of all time has honored us with some great images. Welcome aboard!

Where to start on your work? There is certain quality about it that makes it unique, identifiable and very aesthetically pleasing to the eye. It is always so realistic, yes, but more than that is warm and inviting.

Scenes/Subject matter: Picturesque I think describes them, I feel like I am being exposed to the vernacular Europe with perhaps a Mediterranean or Spainish/Italan flavor (I am a naive American, so forgive me if some of my conceptions are incorrect). The viewer feels as if they are backpacking through small towns and villages off the beaten path. In a time when a lot of artist are doing techy metal and glass structures you are working with a pallet with strong historic influences, warm and refreshing even if the scenes seem worn and lived in. There are some great artists out there that do a scene or two with this much tender loving care, all of your work shows this kind of effort and mastery of your craft. Your work is very distinguishable from the rest of the pack!

One of our members 'ecleposs' has been making great strides in his craft and is starting to capture some of the traits that breath life into your work. His latest piece 'Arabian Market' spotlighted in our galleries has a flavor similar to yours. Slightly different due to the geological location and architecture of his work, and yet similar, perhaps because of the historic flavor of his work. It is a pleasure to see him grow as an artist and I see some of what makes your work so unique and creative in his latest work.

Color: You have a distinct color pallet, perhaps it is from living in Europe with such a strong history to draw from or an innate talent. Your scenes are very warm and inviting and the colors are very complimentary. I have a hard time with color, each computer and monitor seems to portray a slightly different spectrum, and your work looks great on any computer I view it on.

Lighting: Great work here, one of the things that makes your work so strong, it is a true art, lighting a scene correctly. You have seemed to figure out how to add enough light without washing out a scene, this makes it seem real, and I can imagine I am really there. This is one of the little touches that really make your scenes work!

Attention to detail: I was saving this for last, hard to encompass all that you are doing in your work. Clay tile roofing is in a lot of your work, instead of a texture you seem (correct me if I am wrong) to model each tile and adjust it as if you are father time and then texture wear and tear and aging to each individual piece. Wall surfaces, the meshes look as if they bow and succumb to the weight of the building and time itself. This makes shadow lines with warped boundaries and really makes the structure look like it has lived a full and adventurous life. Material texture, not only do you texture a rough worn and aged stucco, but the consequent patching and repairing of the material that takes place in the real world, this really blows me away! Even the window blinds look like the winds of time have beaten them into submission.

Streets and sidewalks you believe have actually been walked on. Lets face it, at the end of a project, a lot of us just want to get the thing done, so we throw on a texture with a little noise and call it good. You seem to spend as much time working on the infrastructure of your scene as the focal point/structures themselves. Just your foregrounds are a lesson in texturing. Some of this may just be composite work, but even so, I haven't seen you settle for something that doesn't look 100% believable in your scene settings and backdrops.

The right balance of infrastructure really adds to your scenes. You seem to add just the right amount of items such as gutters, conduit, awnings, and graffiti, to make a scene come to life. Again these are items a lot of us never add to a scene due to time constraints or enough energy to actually do them. Not only do you take the time to add them to your scene, you make them old, worn out and even show how they where attached to the structure via brackets and such.

Conclusion: It may seem that I am ranting on with praise and flattery, but your work always seems to speak to me and make me question whether it is really CG in some small part in the back of my mind. If I was to put your collection of work together it would seem like a coffee table picture book titled something like "The Back Roads of Europe". It can be a heated debate on what is art or more importantly what is 'Fine Art', I categorize your work as Fine Art and think you are a pioneer in our digital medium. Not trying to stroke your ego, this site is about alluding to possible realties and I don't know of anyone who does it better than you. I am jealous in a flattering kind of way; you actually accomplish what I would like to with an un-definable talent and focus of energy. Thanks for sharing some of your great work with us.

[Kaesar]

Bienvenido al foro Juan, que decir a estas alturas de tu obra que tu ya no sepas. Decirte que desde que me dedico a esto del 3D, espero que dentro de poco de modo profesional, has sido un referente para mi. Tengo aqui algunas imagenes posteadas de mi ultimo trabajo "la Plaza".
En fin solo queria saludarte y espero ver cosillas nuevas tuyas muy pronto, ah otra cosa hasta cuando te quedas en Milan y que estas realizando alli exactamente si no es indiscrepción??

[TheAllusionist]

Hopefully that was a warm welcome! LOL I think it is great that we have an international community here!

[Siquier]

yeah!! It´s a very warm wellcome.
Firs of all thanks for both wellcomes, TheAllusionist with very long text plenty of interesting observations, I apologize about my english but I think I´ve caught all the main meaning of the text, so I feel excited and grateful.
kaesar, you ask me about my actual project, ok, I´m working in a GC movie not for children, the NDA prevents me to speak in this respect but i think It will be a good movie, here is a really great team (very famous guys).
I will be here for 6 month and my job is to make buildings, streets, trees, rooms, props an things like this. The movie will come in 2006
Thanks again

[Designer]

Siquier, Wonderful!

TheAllusionist, long evaluation of some wonderful work, my fingers got tired just reading it! But, I think you are right, I have seen his work around and it is always very impressive.

Thanks for setting the standard so high, for the rest of us LOL Great work, looking forward to seeing your next masterpiece.

[TNT]

Very good work Siquier, already you know that I like much your images and your work.

¿Que tal por Italia compa?.

Un saludo

[CAHDsman]

Holy cow! This guy is good! I saw the spotlight on the main sites front page and clicked the link to his site, wow some really great work there. I think TheAllusionist covered just about everything I could think of praising, some great 'Old World' charm and a great body of work. Welcome to the team!