Interview with Samar Vijay - CGTantra Feature Artist

Samar Vijay, a Freelance Character Artist lets his work do the talking for him. He specializes in game models. Some one who just one fine day decided venture into the 3D industry and never looked back, with an eye for detail he worked 18 hours a day to polish his skill as a modeler and now amazes us with his work.

He believes that you cannot survive without knowledge of Anatomy and form. CGTantra caught up with Samar to tell us more about his works and what gives so much substance to his characters

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CGTEXPO 09 Mumbai - A Review

CGTEXPO 09 Mumbai, the largest Expo on Animation, Visual Effects and Gaming started with a bang with the registration desk bombarded with attendees at 09:30am on the first day of the event. Once you are in there was loads in store. With a line up of interesting sessions at the Main Stage, there was the Artist zone, Meet the artist, Master Classes, Education fair, Technology fair, the Art gallery, Job fair etc.

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CGTantra Community Awards Winners

Interview with Adam Thomas - VFX - The Hunt for Gollum

CGTEXPO 09 MUMBAI Slide Show DAY 01

CGTEXPO 09 MUMBAI Slide Show DAY 02

CGTEXPO 09 Mumbai Master Classes DAY 01

CGTEXPO 09 Mumbai Master Classes Day 02

CGTEXPO 09 DELHI Slide Show DAY 01

CGTEXPO 09 DELHI Slide Show DAY 02

Tell us about your experience at CGTEXPO 09 MUMBAI

The Golden Cursor Animation Awards

Golden Cursor awards saw a turnout of over 300 students and professionals. The day saw many big names of the Animation Industry under one roof. The special guests for the evening were Ian Livingstone, Co-founder of Games Workshop and Anthony Christov, Art Director. Golden Cursor Awards 2009 was presented by Cell18 and Arena Animation in association with Aptech and CNBC-TV 18 and powered by AnimationXpress.com

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SRIJAN 2009, the country’s only multi-city animation fair, kicked off its Mumbai edition with an inspiring display of 3D Animation and Visual Effects by animation students and major studios. The two-day event, being held at Nehru Center, Worli, was inaugurated by veteran film maker Ketan Mehta. SRIJAN was attended by reputed professionals and prominent personalities from the world of animation, media and Bollywood.

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Treassureboxx’09 got an overwhelming response with a huge audience, majority of them being VFX aspirants. The event started with Mr. Prabhanjan Chappar from Frameboxx giving an insight into the animation industry & how frameboxx forms a part of it. He also spoke about the Incubation Centre started by Frameboxx to give their students an industry experience before they enter the mainstream.

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CGTantrik Interview - Harshvardhan Kadam

A Master of Design in Visual Communication,from IDC, IIT Mumbai Harshvardhan Kadam is a free lance concept artist and illustrator. A true artist Harsh has has many acredited works winning at many Art and illustration competitions, With many of his works being displayed at Kala Ghoda Film festival he is also the CGTantra showcase award winner. An Artist with an attitude, he believes esthetics hold him strong. We caught up with him for an Interview.

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Interview with Adam Thomas - VFX - The Hunt for Gollum

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Sagar Cement Commercial - Vaibhav Studios

Sagar Cement! Solid cement ante solid veelu! (Solid cement means solid home) sang Vaibhav Kumaresh from Vaibhav studios when CGTantra caught up with him to tell us more about his work in the 3D animated commercial done for Sagar Cement. A telgu song was provided which was sculpted into an item number with workers dancing on telgu tunes.

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8x10 Tasveer - VFX by Future Works

8 X 10 Tasveer is a Bollywood film thriller released April 3, 2009, and starring Akshay Kumar and Ayesha Takia. It is directed by Nagesh Kukunour, and produced by Percept Picture Company. The story of the film 8 by 10 Tasvir revolves around a man who has super natural mental power and he can predict the past and future of any person just by gazing at his photograph played by Akshay Kumar.
Part VFX of the film was carried out by Future Works. Heart beat stopping climax of the film is shot under water with Akshay all tied up with chains, though the scene was shot in an artificial facility it had to look like it is the sea. This involved a lot of colour correction and integration of 3D objects like sea weed and other aquatic plants.

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E Suresh talks about the Commercial for Sulekha.com

E Suresh (Suresh Kumar Eriyat) has a portfolio that covers genres ranging from TV commercials, short films, music videos. and most recently long format films. E Suresh , a trained Carnatic musician, adventurer founded India's premier Animation Studio, Famous House of Animation - a division of Famous Studios. His award winning works include The Freedon Song (short film), MTV Poga (MTV Channel Promo), Sulekha.com commercial, Aala re Aala and many more.

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Stings and Smiles - First Hat-Trick workshop for 2009 by TASK

The first HAT-Trick workshop for 2009 was organised by us at International Club on Saturday, 11th April 2009 and the conductor was none other than the celebrated illustrator, cartoonist, scriptwriter, film maker and painter Mr. Sarbajit Sen who can best be described by his own soliloquy:

“A gnawing fear of mathematics haunted me throughout my shy and mostly silent childhood. I found relief in the blank walls and floors in our small suburban house --- a chalk or charcoal in hand – doodling and drawing weird rodents and human beings on them.”

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Animation Production Management by Ranjit Singh (Tony)

Tony Singh (Hon. Secretary-TASI) started the session on Production Management with a background on himself, giving a gist of the kind of projects that he has worked on before, he refused to be addressed as the King of Production Management, rather someone who been through various systems over many projects to know what might work and what might not.

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Making of 'The Alien Civilization' - by Eric J. Dima-ala (Winner of DMP Challenge)

Hi guys! First up, thanks for taking time to read this short tutorial on how I created my image: Children of Fire. The process I create may not be perfect but somehow, since I approach the art form systematically I can create my images faster and with less trial and error. I do hope that when you’re done reading this, you will have a basic idea on how I do things. Okay let’s begin then!

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The 1st Annual Frameflixx Awards

History was in the making at Bhaidas hall, Vile Parle, on the 3rd April as the first Frameflixx awards kick started with an audience of more than 900 students coming from all over the country. Mohan Kapoor was the host of the show, filled with enthusiasm for being a part of this day. Frameflixx promised to get out the Gen next of techno artists.

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Making of the Alien Civilization by Tyler Durden

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Rajshekha Bhatt talks about AMD ATI

Rajshekhar Bhatt is the sales manager for AMD’s ATI product line.

Based in Mumbai, Rajshekhar, 37, heads the sales team and is responsible for maintaining ATI’s leadership position in the PC graphics segment by nurturing strong relationships with ATI’s board partners and their channel partners.

We caught up with Rajshekhar to give us insights about AMD ATI and the role that it plays in the industry.

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India has a Gaming mindset which is waiting to explode. With the fact that 54% of the Indian population is below the age group of 25yrs and having the world’s largest youth population - India’s only getting younger. Entertainment features as one of the predominant spending area amongst the Indian consumers

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The Art of Claymation - Workshop by TASI

TASI was having a hard time restricting the Clay modeling workshop to a 100 attendees only owing to the overwhelming response. But that had to be expected when every ones favorite Simpu Singh or Vaibhav Kumaresh is taking a session.

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VFX by Red Chillies - A story in Pictures

Billu is a story of a simple ordinary barber from a village whose childhood friend becomes a superstar. A simple story of friendship told in a rather interesting manner and trimmed to perfection through VFX by Red Chilies. From Choma shots to crowd multipication, a variety of work was required for the movie. Most of the film has been shot in the village and hence to show massive crowds crowd multiplication was used. Sharukh Khan is a superstar hence he is supposed to have acted in various Sci-Fi films for which Red Chillies had to create BGs, 3d objects to make it believeable. We spoke to Arjun Mitra, Creative Head, redchillies.VFX, here is was he had to share with CGTantra about the work in Billu.

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TASK hosts Kol.Katha ’09 - a Grand Success

The First Ever Animation Film Competition in Eastern India

Kolkata 26th February 09: The Animation Society of Kolkata (TASK) showcased the first ever animation short film festival in Kolkata, aptly named “Kol.Katha” which could be interpreted as a competition about story telling or about the tales from grandma’s lap, as the audience wishes to perceive it. This gift from TASK to the City of Joy, Art, Culture and Creativity was long overdue and was warmly received in the true Kolkata spirit by the audience. The early morning fog delayed our guests from Mumbai but that did not lessen the excitement and the enthusiasm in the 800 strong crowd that gathered at Kala Mandir to witness history being created.

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