“Since it was a high-end studio, and I was coming from a studio with just three or four people in Europe, this was a big jump for me. “I was first hired by Blur as a scene assembler,” he says. We caught up with Toni in Los Angeles back then and asked him about his new life in 2012. He emigrated from his home country, across the Atlantic Ocean, to take up an offered position at Blur in sunny Santa Monica in California. ![]() “We could say that we are all more professional these days, more industrial, but there was something special back then, we all had a feeling that we are participating in a development of the industry that was still in its infancy, and helping it grow with our hard work and contributions.”Īfter a lengthy, concerted effort, Toni Bratincevic finally made the move to the States. The world has changed and with it, our industry,” he adds. “There are still a lot of art competitions online these days, but it is not the same vibe. I was one of those artists who, by participating in those competitions, gathered so many tips and tricks on how to become better and finally with that knowledge, land a job in the industry.” People were very open to critique they knew that that was one of the best ways to improve their work. That is one of the biggest differences I remember. “I remember posting stuff for online competitions and getting back so many comments and critiques. “Community back then used to be very different,” says Toni. Toni remembers working on a machine that was very slow by today's standards, rendering The World Above in a couple of layers so it could fit on his machine's memory. While this is pretty much taken for granted now, it was an exciting time for a creative back then. In the earlier days of the web, many communities emerged online for an almost seamless collaboration for digital artists literally from everywhere on the planet. After these important structures are locked and ready to go, he then polishes the many elements, creating new details, and develops additional ideas around it. He creates basic shapes and sets up a camera angle to establish a good and strong composition. When Toni starts creating his scenes, he would usually begin with a simple blockout. “A lot of images that I’ve created are reflections of my life, stuff that has happened to me, sometimes to others, and It Was You is one of those images that goes back to the moment when I met my wife and derives some concept from that experience.” “I was always inspired by environments that have a history, more than something shiny and polished,” he continues. “The environment design inspiration came from one place where that person used to play as a child, an old dirty house, almost abandoned, but with a great character,” Toni says. One can literally feel the dusty plaster of the walls. “The scene hints at a blinding flash coming out of the stairwell with the tricycle sitting alone at the base of the steps. It is a fictional story about a boy who experienced a vision when he was very young, which later turned out to be a moment of birth of a special person in his life.” ![]() “At some point, I decided to wrap a small story around the scene,” he says. It Was You began as a personal project, primarily used by Toni for learning Maxwell, a new render engine he’d installed. ![]() Look deeply into any of his stand-out creations and you’ll find detail way beyond what you first expected. There are so many images in Toni’s arsenal, it’s hard to push one ahead of another. “This is a fast-evolving industry so one needs to always be on top of their game,” he adds. “With every new image I created, I tried to challenge myself in a different way, to evolve my skills and create something new every time.” This discipline set Toni on the path of constantly learning new stuff, which he still does almost each day, even after twenty-plus years. “I attained a degree in IT, but I am a self-taught artist.” Toni had (and still has) a laser focus to improve his skills, working on many personal projects, usually static 3D images. “Creating scenes and characters in 3D was mostly my hobby in the beginning, but at one point I decided to learn professional software like Alias Maya and begin pursuing my career,” says Bratincevic. Once he’d saved up for his own PC, one of the first programs he used was 3D Studio 2.0 for DOS. He was spurred along by some creations he saw in computer magazines he read at the time. He was playing with his friend’s Amiga 500, creating scenes with applications like Fantavision and Read3D. Back in the early 90s, Toni Bratincevic was an impressionable teenager living in Kastel Sucurac, in southern Croatia.
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