Cycles Material Vault Bonus:

Exclusive Artist Interview

with Gleb Alexandrov AOEUAOEUAOEU 1
 Cycles Material Vault Bonus:
Exclusive Interview with

GLEB ALEXANDROV

Created by Reynante Martinez for the Cycles Material Vault.

© 2016
All images and artworks showcased here are used with permission from the artist.

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 2

 Foreword by Reynante Martinez

Gleb is a prolific Blender artist who needs little introduction due to his wide
recognition in the CG community. But for those of you who’s not quite
familiar with him, he is a funny guy who creates super cool artworks and
tutorials. In the Blender community, he goes by the name of Spelle.

He was a former 3dsmax user who switched to Blender for good and hasn’t
regretted it since. Most of the time during his creative peaks, he’s under
heavy influence of coffee. And when not dabbling with his digital tools, he’s
most likely petting his cat, spending quality time with his wife, or rocking with
his guitar.

His format with his tutorials is nothing that I’ve seen—short, hilarious, and
straight to the point—which is one of the primary reasons he’s had a huge
following on his YouTube channel.

You can check out more about him through his social links: blog, Facebook,
and Twitter.

With all these said, let’s hear more from him from this interview.

Have fun!

Regards,
Reyn

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 3

Q: Could you tell us a bit about your background and how you got involved with the
Blender community?

Some years ago, three things happened at once.

Absolute game changers.

The thing number one is that I met my wife. We were

colleagues at the game studio, she was a concept
artist and I was 3d modeler. We were fired together.

Here is the second thing: I switched from 3ds max to

Blender. When I’m asked why, I usually answer that I
don’t have a rational explanation. I just felt the wind
of change.

When I looked at Blender I saw a living a breathing

community. I saw a free exchange of knowledge. And
I saw interesting people, paving the way for open-
source content creation.

I just couldn’t help jumping in that boat.

That’s why I started the Creative Shrimp blog.

I love sharing knowledge online. I love directly

speaking to my audience. It was the third thing.

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 4

Q: What aspect of Blender do you love most and why?

I think that Blender managed to

aggregate the smartest crowd. Artists,
game developers, science enthusiasts,
filmmakers and other creative people,
they make Blender great. I’ve never seen
anything like this in my life.

You know, for my bachelor’s thesis I

analyzed Web 2.0 trends like open-
source, digital distribution, social media
and the end of borders between
production and consumption. After a
few years I realized that Blender is
exactly this.

Blender is democratizing a computer

graphics industry.

Personally, I'm into this process too with

the Creative Shrimp. Into building the
future.

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 5

 “Blender is democratizing a computer
graphics industry.”

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 6

Q: If you were given the ultimate power of programming, what feature would you add to
Blender?

Here is my wishlist for Blender:

1. The Direct Light, as in Vray. The spotlight does not fill that niche, because in spot light the rays diverge. And if
we want to keep the rays parallel, we are limited to using the sun lamp. That said, the sun lamp has a big
drawback: the position of the sun lamp and the area of the influence can’t be tweaked. That sucks.

2. A simple hotkey for displaying wireframe over solid drawing. I know that we can set it manually. But having it
as a default option will make it much easier for newcomers.

3. Drag and drop support for .obj import. As simple as it sounds.

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 7

Q: Of all the artworks you’ve produced, which one is your favorite? Could you tell us why
you chose this over the others?

Usually, I vomit after I see my works. But if you really want to know my opinion about the least horrible image… For
some reason, I quite like the Night Highway. And I like it not because it is cool.

The Night Highway marks the turning point for me. When I started writing the Lighting Book, I didn’t have a vision of
what I want to achieve. But gradually I started to understand the message and the purpose of my book.

The main point is to go back from computer graphics to aesthetic experiences of your life. Night Highway was
something that I saw a thousand times during my life, but I REALLY saw it just at the moment of creating it in Blender.

Headlights of the cars passing by at 100 mph. They look like fireflies. Rhythm, created by lamps, cars and billboards.
And dim lights of a distant city, refracted by the tiny raindrops on the car windshield.

I just brought these aesthetic experiences to computer graphics.

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 8

Q: We’ve seen your stellar work on the Open Lighting Book project, could you tell us more
about that?

With the Lighting Book I wanted to give myself permission to start expressing my personal feelings with lighting.
Rather than tweaking the shader settings and praying on anti-aliasing algorithms and other crap.

I wanted to give myself permission to bring the aesthetic experiences from my life to computer graphics that I create.

To play with rhythm, to explore an abstraction. To experiment with thickness of the atmosphere. To experiment with
burned-out images (like photos with bad exposure).

Embracing your intuition leads to a more creative approach to lighting and, perhaps even more importantly, it leads to
a happier life.

I’m super excited about the book and thank you everybody for supporting it on Creative Shrimp! Thank you for
spreading the word.

It’s like a viral promotion and we can do it together.

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 9

 “Embracing your intuition leads to a more
creative approach to lighting and, perhaps even
more importantly, it leads to a happier life.”

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 10

Q: This is something you get asked a lot: what inspires you in your art-creation process?

Coffee. Lots of coffee.

Emails from people who find Creative Shrimp tutorials useful. If it makes them smile, that’s not bad too.

Feel free to drop me a line at contact@creativeshrimp.com. I appreciate it.

When I see that every artwork I create and every tutorial I record bring me closer to my goal, that inspires me for sure.
And my goal is to make a living, creating weird things and sharing them with the world.

And what about you, Reynante? You inspire me!

Aidy Burrows from CgMasters, Niranjan Raghu, James Candy, Andrew Price, Ton Roosendaal, Mieke Roth and other
Blenderheads, they inspire me too!

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 11

Q: What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?

Create a blog and start getting your

voice heard. Without publicity, it's a
dust in the wind. As Gary Vaynerchuk
said, everybody in the world is a media
company. Indeed, I would give that
advice to my 18-year-old self.

Create the blog and start sharing what

you do with other people.

Don’t be afraid to look like an absolute

idiot.

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 12

Q: If you could give the definitive advice to artists just starting out on their journey, what
would it be?

Stay true to yourself and don’t give a damn about what others say about your life and career.

If you feel that computer graphics and art is your kind of thing… Well, just keep drawing, sculpting and creating weird
stuff in 3D.

Be yourself.

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 13

 Created by Reynante Martinez.
© 2016 Cycles Material Vault
All images and artworks showcased here are used with permission from the artist.

Interview with Gleb Alexandrov 14