Well, time to pack up and go to rendering school in Moscow.

[heni30]

Emotion School in Moscow - interesting student portfolio:

 

http://emotionschool.ru/students-portfolio/

Edited July 16, 2017 by heni30

[Chris MacDonald]

So many stock models.

[SkylineArch]

So many stock models.

 

It's almost like they use paying students to use Evermotion models to showcase their products for free.

 

I wonder if as a student, models you create become property of Evermotion but get sold to you as "your model is part of our products and is a portfolio piece".

[Greg Francis]

It's almost like they use paying students to use Evermotion models to showcase their products for free.

 

I wonder if as a student, models you create become property of Evermotion but get sold to you as "your model is part of our products and is a portfolio piece".

 

I agree! Nice composition though, no?

[heni30]

Most of them have "с Нуля" next to the project title which translates to "from scratch" but who knows.

My Ukranian buddy says the courses are like 2-1/2 weeks long and run about $400. Here's a link to another school in the Ukraine:

 

http://result.incubator.academy/

 

This industrial look is very much in vogue at the moment - in architectural photography as well if you look at Dwell or Archdaily. (Search for industrial furniture on Pintrest.)

 

It's interesting because it's the complete opposite of the wispy, bleached feminine Scandinavian genre; these are bold, mucho macho, high light/dark tonality contrast with saturated materials. The look is really quite seductive in general but after a while it's like od'ing on too much ice cream.

Edited July 17, 2017 by heni30

[Justin Hunt]

They may be stacked with stock models (hands up who modes everything from scratch these days) but they do have a strong focus on lighting and composition which suggests that its a bit more in depth than "push this button then that button" type of course.

 

they are lot better than most student work we see these days.

[Chris MacDonald]

Hey I'm not knocking stock models, I use them all the time. I'd love to have 2-1/2 weeks to do an interior shot though.

 

I'm just jealous.

[notamondayfan]

It does look like even the lighting is done to a formula, and where students have tried their own thing, their images don't look as impressive.

 

I think the nicest part of the images are the composition and colours. There could be a lot of emphasis on post work.

 

And of course there's going to be a lot of stock models used. I'm a big believer that a CGI artist should be able to model most items, otherwise you become too reliant on stock models.

[Corey Beaulieu]

I think a lot of you guys are right about it being important to model on your own, but that the reality is we all buy models. Timelines are tough and these sites are boasting enough time to really do a great job. When I boil things down and consider what is the real fruit of our labor, we aren't talking models....

 

Lighting and composition make for a great artist. Content and Color palette make an image convincing and the general "fill" are what draw me in and convince me that an image is good because curating these things is still a challenge even when the world is full of models to be downloaded.

 

What I truly believe is the crux of our business is the person who can do any and all of these things mentioned while being able to sell it to the client. To be so expert that you can prevent a client from ruining your composition. To be so talented that your lighting plan is unique to the space and the image. To be capable of filling in the gaps of design while maintaining a design intent....

 

We are marketers at the highest level of output and to be this takes a whole host of abilities that aren't rendering. This is the person that I want to work with and that I want to be. The work here is good, solid stuff, but the second it is challenged by a multi-million dollar building-project budget, the moment developers wage war against art to best sell their product is the moment that make the person who can create images like these valuable. Until then we are all just capable of using the tools at hand.

 

To caveat this... I am fully aware that not all of us do work for marketing purposes. But those of us that do not, should know that their work has equal validity in the world as to try for this quality on a design iteration is a waste of time. Each image and project has a set of needs/goals and meeting these criteria is all that makes an image great. At least I believe this and I hope you all do as well.

[Justin Hunt]

precisely why courses like SOA and Creative Lighting https://www.creativelighting.co/ are doing so well. They cover what needs to be done to create images that sell and not about how to model a couch.

 

I wish there was more focus on production and getting students production ready. A lot like Feng Zhu's "FZD School of Design", http://fengzhudesign.com/school.htm the students already know how to draw, but they are taught the fundamentals of perspective, composition,storytelling and how to perform in a production environment. Watch some of the video tutorials, more to listen to what he is saying rather than what he is drawing although they are pretty cool to watch how they are done. There is a wealth of information in there.

Edited July 19, 2017 by Justin Hunt