Editorial
Welcome to Issue 46 – just 2 issues away from our forth birthday, can you believe? This issue has a running theme of hybrid creatures born of the cross between man and beast. You’ll find these beasties scattered through the magazine in all shapes, forms and sizes. We have a Bird-Man (this month’s cover feature) tutorial created by the very talented artist, Bruno Melo (p.65); we see two artists speed sculpt their way to creating Minotaur characters in the Speed Sculpting section of the magazine (p.53); we find a fantastic making of article on the production of the charismatic Poker Master by David Moratilla Amago (p.77), and as if that’s not enough mutant goodness for you then you’ll find more animal behaviour in The Gallery, where Jonathan Simard brings us his latest character, Jennifer, and Jose Alves da Silva brings us a bunny with attitude in his image, Le Rabbit (p.39). So lots of monstrous activity this month, so much so in fact that you’ll be inspired to create your own beastly beauty in no time. So let’s get stuck in!

Our interviews this month kick off with Till Nowak – digital artist, designer and filmmaker all in one handsome package! This artist is a one man army, running his own studio, producing creative work for clients – all this on top of his own independent projects. Enough to make any man or woman feel dizzy at the thought! So we catch up with Till this month to find out about his life as an artist in Germany, what he’s up to and what his plans for the future are (p.7). Then head on over to our second artist interview for June with the man behind the stunning architectural renders that frequent the CG community: Viktor Fretyan (p.17). Viktor’s portfolio is quite simply stunning, and this interview shows just a tiny slice of what he has under his belt. Whether indoor or outdoor, come spring, summer, autumn or winter, Viktor has nailed the scene and captured it with the clarity and precision that most can only dream of. So check out this interview for a peek into the world of a visualisation artist.

We wave goodbye this month to the Gothic Church tutorial project as we finish up things by working our render passes in Photoshop (p.97). Our post-production artist, Zoltan Korcsok, has had his work cut out for him this month: he has composited not one, but 5 Gothic Church scenes for you all, so that you can follow the series on from where you left off last month in 3ds Max, Maya, LightWave, Cinema 4D and modo. And if that wets your appetite for post-production then you’ll be coming back for more next month as we kick off a brand new series on Photoshop for 3D, featuring Zoltan Korcsok in part one of six. Talking of new tutorials, we welcome a new series to 3DCreative this month in the form of ‘Manimal’ sculpting and texturing in ZBrush (this series will also utilise 3ds Max in places). We’ve invited Bruno Melo to kick start this tutorial series for us, and he’ll be back later on in the series as well with another interpretation of one of our freakish subjects. Next month Jesse Sandifer will be tackling a Mammal-Man, and other artists for this series include Rafael Grassetti, Federico Scarbini, and Tomasz Kwiecinski. Tomasz is in fact also a featured artist in this month’s issue in the Speed Sculpting section, alongside 3DCreative regular artist Sean Langford (p.53), so be sure to check that out. For more from Sean, hop on over to his making of article based on his 3D image tribute to Cam de Leon’s ‘Fishboys’ concept (p.85).

Well, as always, I could talk the hind legs of a donkey – crossed with a man of course – when it comes to summing up the content in any one issue of 3DCreative, so I’ll stop wittering on and let you get inspired and creative. Enjoy this month’s issue! Ed.