3dzen is one of the newer faces of 3DX, exploding onto the scene with works showcasing a fantasy/horror approach to the genre. With his major release The Chronicle Of Dun’Ragon dropping this Wednesday at the Affect3D Store, we thought we’d take the time to learn about the artist and what you can expect to see in this exciting title.
You’ve been creating 3DX works for a little while but we haven’t really had to chance to feature much of your work. That’s about to change with your excellent title called ‘The Chronicles Of Dun’Ragon’. But before we get into that, tell us about yourself. Where are you from and how did you get into 3DX?
First off, I really appreciate the opportunity. One of my goals early on was to have some visibility on your site beyond banner exchange.
I live in the United States, up in the northeast region, New England to be exact. My motivation for getting into 3DX comes from being a fan (yea I like looking at this stuff) of all the great work that’s out there and curiosity. Supporting the work that artist like you and many of your featured artists here over the years had me wondering how these images were created, what tools, what skills and how hard was it to do. I am finding out that it takes lots of time, continued effort and it’s not easy.
The other reason, I guess the perverted side, was to take stories I had in my head and put them into image format like Carina and her re-occurring nightmares that I’ve done a few sets early on with.
What do you find most interesting about 3DX? Do you have the same passion for other forms of art or does 3DX have an edge for you?
Most interesting, the opportunity to take any scenario, no matter how far-fetched or removed from reality or story and get it into a somewhat realistic image set with context. That is always the goal.
I’m not an artist by trade, if I drew a cat free had you may think it was some sort of mutant alien animal. I personally like the 3DX but 2DX I am also a fan of too, the 2DX works you have on the Affect3D site store are outstanding! Some of the 2DX Animie titles are better than real porn movies IMO but I digress back to the interview.
You’ve actually been creating sets for some time and there’s been good progression to your work both in terms of presentation and quality? What’s inspired you to keep improving and expanding your horizons? And who or what may have inspired you the most?
Thank you for the comment on the progression; it is a motivating factor for me right there J . My first render was December 15th 2012 and my coments then were that I would try to make every post a little better than the last. Not so sure that’s held true always however 😉
The biggest motivating factor is getting noticed, feedback good or critical, a comment on my blog or even simple things like the voting of posts on my blog will motivate me to create more content. I rendered a set based off back and forth comments on my blog, that was pretty fun actually.
Early on it was the 2D Anime XXX productions that got my interest. As 3D got better there were several 3DX artists that I followed/supported and now communicate with a lot.
Long term goal is to get good enough with the 3DX tools to produce 3DX on par with the best; it’s the end game for me to be honest. Artist like you, Mongo, Epoch Art, Gazukull, Black Adder etc… are the measuring stick for quality in my opinion. Going back a few years I would say the Vizivus animations were influential on in wanting to get into this, although I’ve never done an animation yet, walk before you run, right? I’m hoping next year I can have a few animations with the sets I make.
So lets talk about ‘The Chronicles Of Dun’Ragon’. Where did the name come from? What was the idea behind it and what’s been your experience developing this title? Any challenges/ revelations along the way?
I have always been a fan of sexy Elfs and as a WOW gamer the Orc / Elf thing was on my mind going back to last year when I did some sets with Sanda my original Elf.
‘The Chronicles Of Dun’Ragon’ came about over a few months talking with Iberios about a commission with Elfs and Orcs, he is the master mind behind the story I am simply the illustrator of it. Working with Iberios was a positive experience and I can see us doing more work together, the challenges when doing this with someone else is staying on the same page and revisions over e-mail, our thoughts and comments often over lapped or got lost causing re work on occasion.
Tell us about the writer and how did the collaboration come about? What was it like having a story to work with?
Iberios was introduced to me by a mutual friend from the DA site, at first it was commission inquires that were going back and forth. I remember I had reached out to you about my blog URL banner change and you had commented about the Elf / Orc image I had posted and perhaps a set on your site would be a good idea. I reached out to Iberios and rather than a commission suggested we take his story and create the set.
I have always liked a story to drive the images, I can generally come up with a high level idea but the details of a story not so much J. It’s part of the reason I like doing commissions too, the scenarios people ask to have in image format help with flow and context a great deal.
Tell us about Fae’arai the gorgeous blonde elf? What were you going for in terms of her character, back story and sexy looks?
My thoughts were the Elf needed to be one who can take care of herself, athletic and strong minded. Turns out she can take care of herself but is by no means invincible and in the story she finds this out rather quickly. Beyond her skills as an archer and sward wielder she also is sexually cunning when needed (especially with pure blood male elfs) but certainly has a softer side and shows that in the story with her unlikely hero however this trait could ultimately be her demise.
In this story Iberios get across that she is a strong character, her strength comes from the adversity she has had to live through and how it honed her mind and honed her body. Her background is simple; she is a mongrel half breed and has been merely tolerated amongst the elite arrogant elves due to some of her blood being from the faeries. It’s really her future adventures, such as bondage and slavery and battle that is to shape her into a badass! Her ‘clear clean’ looks comes from her faerie blood, and her well rounded body comes mostly from her human blood with a musculature that comes from the lean elf blood in her. I wanted a character that looked like she could kick your ass, but you still wanted to fuck the hell out of her anyway!
Also give us a background on the story in general and other main characters.
The story is very mercurial; it’s named “chronicles” so we could explore any other character we wanted to, whenever we wanted to, and still have it be part of the story of the world created in the first place, without having all these random seeming sets with nothing to tie them together. That way if fans gave us good suggestions that didn’t fit one story, it might be placed in others. It is a very ‘finished’ world, meaning it is not a work in progress, but Iberios like to keep his options open. 🙂
How was it working with a fantasy theme? How did it compared to other themes you may have worked with previously?
I enjoy this genre a lot; I have done a set in the past with a few Elfs and and a Goblin who were much more passive and not a lot of context around the story. I like variety for sure but I can see this theme continuing.
Tell us a bit about your work flow and tools of the trade.
It’s been a busy year in this area. I got Poser 9 last December and it was my intro into 3Dx. In my quest to close the gap between my renders and the likes of the artists mentioned earlier I asked a lot of questions about what I needed to do certain things and get certain results. I must say every artist I have interacted with has been fantastic about sharing ideas or what’s needed to get from point A to point B in this field.
So along came Poser Pro, Octane, ZBrush, 3DS Max, Blender and other tools for post working and I am still trying to wrap my head around lots of the capabilities in these tools. I have also learned more about GPU video cards than I ever thought due to Octane.
My work flow: Pose the scene in Poser Pro 2014, Export on occasion props/clothing and import into 3DS Max to retexture or detach. Export characters to fix bends and bulges into ZBrush (you can really see my old stuff had no Zbrush help) Render in Octane via Poser plug in. Post work is Photoshop and Lightroom . I feel I have just scratched the surface with most of these tools and plan to keep learning.
What do you have coming up in the near future?
I have a bunch of commission request that I would like to try and get to but I am still a bit slow on turnaround on sets but here is the list of things I plan to get to over 3-6 months:
- Carina Nightmare X Mass edition
- Futa Set based of commission request
- SWOTOR (Star Wars) inspired set
- Fae’arai – what happens next
Where can we find you online at?
Any last words for our dear Affect3D readers?
Thanks for the support and I would love to get feedback form you so don’t be shy e-mail me with good bad or ugly feedback it’s how I can improve the images for you next time. Also, I would like to say that the 3DX community has been great to get to know, both artists and fans, everyone is very helpful and responsive to questions etc…
Vernacular
July 9, 2016I’m a huge fan of 3DZen’s works. Been a Patreon supporter of his for almost two years now. He’s very passionate about 3DX and has been working extremely hard at improving the quality of his content. Currently he’s been making a big push with animation and every few months offers his Patreons ‘work in progress’ clips of his technical experiments. Very interactive with fans and open to feedback. He’s even been kind enough to render some top notch commission images for me as well. I highly recommend supporting him on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/3dzen
Crash6066
January 21, 2014Epicly detailed and very erotic
Chimera46
November 19, 2013Not bad at all. You’ve come a long way in a relatively short period of time, and I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future.