NFTs and Music Videos with Maciej Drabik
· By Richard
Maciej is a VFX artist from Poland. He has 20 years of experience in 3D. Blender was his first 3D tool to try, then he got distracted with 3ds Max 😜. A few years ago he gave Blender another chance and never went back. We're taking a look at one of his latest projects: Endless pursuit, a music video inspired by racing games. He also jumped into the world of NFTs and he is selling some of his artwork on the blockchain now.
How did you get into 3D and VFX? What's your background?
I started learning 3D as a hobby when I was 15 or 16. Even though I was later working in advertising for about 10 years, I was always passionate about CGI and finally made it my primary career at age of 32.
How did you discover Blender, what's the greatest thing about it?
Fun fact - Blender (the first versions) was one of my first 3D softwares to try. I decided to learn 3ds Max and was using it for many years, but about 3-4 years ago I switched to Blender and never went back. I love how easy it is for creatives, less technical and I have a lot more freedom working with Blender. I also love how good the experience is using Blender with a Wacom stylus. I'm using my drawing tablet 100% of the time while working in 3D. Blender is awesome also thanks to the community around it, Add-ons, real time renderer Eevee and many more. I have almost everything I need for my 3D work in one package.
Final Render: Endless pursuit
Check out the music video Maciej recently created:
What is the inspiration behind your latest music video Endless pursuit?
It was just one of these fun projects, 100% fun. Main inspirations were older racing games like the first Need for Speed games and some movies with action racing shots. I wanted to create a nice, eye-candy dynamic race sequence, play with camera shots, environment and all that jazz. There is not much more to say, it was like having fun in the sandbox.
Your goal is to work on a lot more music videos, why music videos?
I really love that medium, it's expressive and dynamic. I'm also really passionate about creating short films but music videos are more like my thing. It gives a lot of creative freedom, can be more abstract and I love the connection with music it makes.
When did you realize you needed a render farm?
When I decided to use Cycles for rendering this animation. I was doing tests with Eevee and Unreal Engine, but finally decided that I want to do everything in Blender and have as much realism as I can provide. Cycles gave me the best visual results but my single RTX 2080 Ti wasn't enough to render all the sequences in a short timeframe. It was always meant to be a short, fun project and I didn't want to spend too much time on it. A render farm was really the only option to do it and I'm happy I made that decision.
You have been selling some artwork as NFTs. How is that going?
I honestly believe NFTs and Metaverse are the future and "the next big thing". I've been selling and collecting art since December 2020. I really want to take part in shaping this new technology.
We are used to thinking digital creations are not true art but this is changing now. Digital is just a medium and now our creations are finally appreciated by not only nft collectors but also traditional art galleries. Thanks to blockchain tech we can make our digital art and photography a unique edition and sell it just like a traditional painting. Back in the days photographers had to burn their films and record it on a video to provide proof for collectors that no more photo print will be provided. But now they can just mint it on a blockchain. This tech solves the rarity problem of digital creations.
There are a lot of 3D artists who want to jump into the NFT world. What would your advice be to them?
For artists (and collectors) that want to jump in I recommend taking a look at marketplaces like KnownOrigin, SuperRare and Foundation. That's a good start but deploying your own smart contract seems like the best way to really own and decide about your art on the blockchain. Best is to just start looking at NFT twitter, learn basics, apply to some marketplaces and be a part of the community. It is the great opportunity for digital artists to start immortalizing their art and find new, creative, inspiring minds that think alike.
Where can people find more about you online?
I'm posting all my work on Artstation here: www.artstation.com/maciejdrabik