I was afraid of tackling a project with too big a scope and having it die in production hell, so I settled for the smallest type of game I could think of, which was a card game. I was looking for a way to motivate myself to do something productive in between projects and rainy weekends, and doing a small game felt like a good opportunity to do just that. Leo: I originally came up with the idea for Essence of Eternity a couple of years ago. While I do know my way around ZBrush quite well by now and have passed on my knowledge to others, I still feel like there are new keyboard shortcuts, hidden functions, and new features to discover. He taught me a ton of useful skills and workflows which became the foundation for the work I produce today. This enthusiasm was shared by a former teacher of mine, Hector Moran, who offered me the chance to work on a board game named “ Darksiders: The Forbidden Land,” which was featured in your publication a couple of years ago. The day my first digital models turned into real-life physical prints that I could hold in my hands, I definitely knew that this was something I could see myself doing for years to come. Leo: When I first started messing around in ZBrush and Blender, I quickly noticed the former is closest to traditional drawing, and so it became my primary software to create art. The journey of learning is ongoing, and I believe that will always be the case. There's always a new, more efficient approach or technique to discover. Despite my proficiency in ZBrush, I remain committed to continuous learning. He worked longer in the industry than I did, so we exchanged tutoring for art contributions, which eventually resulted in a friendship and genuine interest in the project. Soon after, I became the third member of the Essence of Eternity team. He had been an SAE student during my time there, and he reached out to me and asked for help with a personal project of his. Years after graduating and having worked on quite a few projects with my Nonex Games colleagues, my path crossed again with Leo. I vividly remember the first time I saw one of my ZBrush sculpts awkwardly shuffling through the forest of a horror game prototype we built as an exercise in game development as amateurish as the end result may have been, I knew instantly that this was my lifelong passion. Iurie: I first went down the ZBrush rabbit hole during my studies at SAE Institute. "Essence of Eternity," the project this interview is centered around, certainly counts as one of my most memorable projects as well. Studying game art seemed like a logical evolution in my creative journey, and when I graduated from the SAE Institute Vienna, I immediately founded my own gaming company with a handful of friends, which still operates under the name "NONEX Games GmbH." To this day, it is one of my proudest achievements, along with the commission of my first-ever miniatures by Geektopia Games and most recently, multiple board game projects related to Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive novels. Even when I enrolled in the Vienna School of Art, which focused heavily on painting, I would still spend much of my time working with clay. I then realized that modeling rather than painting was my preferred method of artistic expression. Ever since I was a young boy, I enjoyed working with clay, creating masks and figurines in an afterschool art class. Iurie: Hi, I'm Iurie Barbaneagra, a freelance 3D character artist based in Austria. My first sculpt was the result of never really being satisfied with my ability to correctly shade and light scenes in traditional media and so I felt like letting 3D do its work for me felt like a reasonable solution to this problem. It's a DynaMesh blob vaguely resembling a human face but I'm quite fond of it since it was my first experience with 3D software. Looking through old hard drives, my first ZBrush sculpt dates back to 2016. Most recently I have also started to pick up freelance work for game studios though I am not yet ready to share that work. Other noteworthy projects include “Darksiders: The Forbidden Land”, “The Dragon Prince: Battlecharged” as well as work for various miniatures studios such as Ronin Arts Workshop and Archvillain. I have most recently worked on a couple of board games based on Brandon Sanderson's “The Stormlight Archive” book series which were produced by the wonderful Johnny and Chris O'Neal from Brotherwise Games. I work as a freelance miniature sculptor. Leo: Hi, my name is Leander Pokorny but my friends call me Leo.
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