Andrew Hickinbottom

My name is Andrew Hickinbottom, and i am a freelance character modeler for illustration and animation.

As a kid i loved cartoons. Garfield, Tom and Jerry, Transformers, Looney Tunes, Disney. I doodled a lot and was pretty good at drawing for my age. I always wanted to become a cartoonist, but i figured that was one of those unrealistic young ambitions (like the classic ‘i want to be an astronaut’!), so i went to college to do art, and then went to university to do graphic design. Unfortunately, my early drawing skills were pretty much buried now i was using computers and doing typography all the time. Since i got my first proper computer, i was always intrigued by 3d graphics due to Tron, videogames, and later on, the TV series Reboot and Babylon 5. It was well known that Babylon 5’s effects were done on an Amiga computer which seemed amazingly achievable to me. I had an Amiga, so i used some free software on the cover of a magazine (imagine 3D) to begin experimenting with this new artform. While i was at college and university, my self-taught intrest in 3d graphics grew and grew, and with video games like Virtua Fighter and films like Toy Story being released, i realised how much potential 3D animation held. As soon as i finished my 3 year graphic design course at university, i put it behind me and decided to do 3D as a career instead.

I mostly work from home, so its pretty relaxed. Get up early, have an hour down the gym, start work at about 9:30. Depending on the amount of distractions (the internet can be a pain sometimes!) i tend to finish work around 6:30 / 7:00, though the flexibility of working from home means you can work whatever hours you want, as long as you get a day’s work done. Its important to have a regimen though, or you’ll find yourself stuck at a desk all day AND all night.

I like the initial modeling part the most. Fast, assertive blocking out and shaping can be fun and you get to see the character take shape before your eyes in a short space of time.

Relentless fine tuning and tweaking. Some clients can (rightfully) be quite picky, and although it can take me a day or 2 to model the rough form of a character almost to completion, it can often take longer to fine tune it to the clients’ preference. Also, im not a fan of techy stuff, so if there are bugs, geometry errors or render problems, it can be a pain to sort out and gets in the way of the creative process.

Some jobs i get can be quite samey and un-inspiring. Not many clients are willing to pay to take stylistic risks and tend to go for ‘safe’ styles already established in Pixar / Dreamworks / Disney type films. I love pushing what can be achieved with 3D, and creating unique, intresting styles, so its a bit dissapointing when some really nicely stylised initial 2D concept sketches gradually get made more realistic and standardised as the project goes on. One other thing is that being a freelancer means that you are bombarded with job offers one month (and are too busy to take them on), and another month you could have no work at all. Fortunately, the lack of work bit doesnt happen that much to me these days, so when i do get downtime, i tend to enjoy myself and do some personal work.

Ive not done any major personal work for a while now, but i have some downtime here and there, so i intend to start something soon. I have many ideas for personal pieces, so whatever is inspiring me at the time, i turn into a personal piece. I dont want to spill the beans though – i like my stuff to be a surprise, as part of the drive for me when doing personal work is ‘the big reveal’ when i finish it!

Not really. 3D is my job, as well as my hobby. I occasionally go to Dr Sketchy (burlesque life drawing sessions) to draw, but my skills dont improve. Its more of a piss-about than a serious life drawing class with tuition and everything. I play on my Xbox360 and spend too much time on the internet. Ive started exhibiting my work at London comic conventions too. I like to travel the world, but only if i have the money, and someone to go with.

The best advice i could probably say is to keep practicing. I learned the basics of 3D modeling myself through trial and error back when it was a relatively new artform. Around this time, there were no courses, training DVDs, magazines or web tutorials to help me out, so the means to learn the technical aspects of 3D modeling are more numerous than ever these days. As far as the aestetics go, its important to be original. 3D modeling and animation has become a very saturated market in recent years, so its getting harder and harder to stand out from the crowd. Either be exceptional at what you do, or do something different that no-one else has done.