Tomas Aciego
Who’s Tomas Aciego behind his 3d representations? From Madrid, he’s a young visual artist. Passionate about sci-fi, videogames or anime, Tomas share is art through 3D images and videos charged with erotism. He discusses about the importance of improvisation in his work and how society and media dictate the esthetic aesthetical canons and induces people to look for the non-existent perfection.
Tell me more about your creative process? What’s happening between “the nothing” and “the everything”?
It all starts with an idea. I try to visualize it and imagine how it will look once finished. After that, I start to work with 3D software. As I work my way through the project, some ideas might pop-up and even some problems may arise that will make me change or modify the project, but I always try to look for the best result from a technical and conceptual point of view.
Sometimes, due to mistakes or to chance, I have stumbled upon new techniques with surprising results, so improvisation definitely plays a huge role in my work because what you have in your head originally is not always what ends up in the render. Regarding the source of my inspiration or ideas, it’s a mix of stimulus: internal like thoughts, memories or dreams, and external like something I’ve read, seen or heard. When these ideas appear, I try to visualize them over and over again until I memorize them and then is when I try to materialize them.
Where, when and how did you consider that your art began?
I thinks it’s something that’s always been there, it’s just that I haven’t been able to express them until some years ago. Four years ago I went to Colombia to work there. It all converged in a moment in my life where I was reassessing my professional career. Until that moment I worked in motion graphics so I did have some self-taught knowledge about animation, composition and a little 3D. Thanks to this enriching experience of living abroad and to get to know another culture I decided to sign-up to college and study design. Thanks to this I managed to deepen my knowledge and interest in the arts.
In those days I started to see digital art pieces in Instragram that where being made with 3D software and I thought that if I practiced enough I could get to those results, so for some months I dedicated all my free time to practice thanks to online tutorials. After some time I started to acquire all the knowledge necessary to materialize what was in my head. I’ve always been a fan of anime, video games, sci-fi as well as early 90’s European comic artists like Milo Manara, Moebius or Tanino Libertatore. All of this has had much influence in everything that I do.
What is the importance of new technologies and software in your work?
Obviously it’s very important. Technology is slowly merging in our lifestyle an even in our perception of reality. It’s something that’s present in our daily reality and in my case it constitutes a source of inspiration, learning and work. I’ve always been passionate about sci-fi and videogames and it’s something that has been present in my life since I was a kid.
You seem to be inspire about women, Is the way you represent them is just a vision you have, a phantasm or is it a kind of representation of the women in our actual society? (a woman sexualized in media, with a perfect body...)
It’s my personal take on how the media induces people to look for the non-existent perfection. It’s true that the images are charged with eroticism, but that’s the way I have to represent the “estheticism” of a human body, which is undeniably tied to something sexual.
Do you hide a message behind these representations? a claim? What you want to celebrate? To denounce?
I like to represent an idealized canon of the being, where everything is perfect, idyllic, artificial…
Society and media dictate the esthetic aesthetical (even psychological) canons and this translates into an image obsession as well as to show in social media a distorted projection of reality. This is why there’s criticism regarding how society shows itself to the world through media.
Do you prefer create video or images? What is the most relevant for you?
A video is a collection of images, so we could say that video is the technical and conceptual culmination, more complete and elaborate. The problem with videos is that it takes a lot more time due to the animation, editing, sound and long render times. This is why the number of projects of this nature is limited compared to static images. It’s all a matter of time.
Do you plan to collaborate with some musician for realize clip or long videos?
I have some ongoing projects with the electronic duo Fearz and with the producer Merca Bae. I have also some fashion work with the designer María Simun and an animated short that I hope to finish in 2019.
courtesy THOMAS ACIEGO
interview LEA LARCHOUANY
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