We recently spoke with David Anastacio Ferreira (a.k.a CGMonkey King) to get the scoop on all things CG & monkey related. David comes to us with over ten years of experience in Digital Sculpting, Tracking, Rigging, and Compositing, basically all things CG. If you love all things Monkey, you will love David Ferreira. David is going to talk with us about his achievements, the path he took to get there and what his future will hold.
Q: Hi David! You have some really cool work on your website! Personally I LOVE the use of your colors and your Character’s Styles. But you’ve done some really cool stuff in a lot of different areas from Compositing, to Character Modeling, to some interesting Houdini based VFX and geometric abstractions.
How cool is that? Would you mind telling us a little bit how you started in CG and what path you took to get where you are today? And also, where there any interesting stories along the way that you can share with us?
DAVID: Hi 🙂 Thank you so much for your kind words. I started as most people, completely lost and with no idea of what I wanted to do. So I took a degree in Biology and after 5 years at the university I thought maybe something more artsy would be a better fit and decided to go for Architecture. It was during my third year that I started working on 3D. A friend of mine was doing good, making money creating a low poly version of Macau based on photos. It was real basic 3D and a lot of photo manipulation. I gave it a try and found myself very motivated which is another way to say I really needed the money.
Turns out I 
was good at it and I had no problem with spending hours and hours on the computer. I had found my calling. I put my efforts into creating an archviz portfolio and sent it to a few studios. Then I was lucky enough to get a position at Arqui300 in Lisbon where I fully matured to a 3D artist over the course of the 2 years I worked there. During that time archviz wasn’t really enough for me so I kept expanding my horizons, researching other areas of CG, waking up one hour sooner so that I could practice some ZBrush before going to work. Eventually I grew past Arqui300 and decided to go freelance in order to be able to work on different types of productions.
Q. How do you come up with your character or environment ideas if they are for an independent or personal project? Do you find networking helpful in picking up new projects? Do you enjoy freelancing over working for a large studio or which do you prefer and why?
DAVID: To me the idea for a visual concept usually starts with a story. I find it easier to make look decisions if I have a context that justifies those decisions. The networking inspires you and also has a big influence on your visual choices to tell the story.
So far I tend to prefer working as freelancer. Mostly because it gives you a lot more control of your own time. But there are a lot of downsides to working as a freelancer too. You’re responsible for everything, getting work, doing the work and making sure you get paid. This takes a lot of time and energy. Working on a big studio you just focus on the task at hand, someone tells you what to do, at the end of the month you have money in your account, and you can even take some vacation while still being paid. Plus you get to work on colossal projects that you could never face alone. If the projects are exciting and you have a good work environment the security of working for a studio can be extremely comfortable and rewarding. I guess I might just not have found the right opportunity yet.
Q: Can you give us some background on your specific software skills, what software do you use most often in your industry? Which software do your prefer for personal projects? Did you start out traditionally and if so, do you continue to do traditional art alongside digital art? What do you recommend for someone just starting out and wanting to create art for the game/animation industry?
DAVID: I started with 3DS Max as my main tool but a couple of years ago I got into Houdini and fell in love with it. Currently I use it for everything but since I also teach at a school where the 3D course is based on 3DS Max and V-Ray I’m always in touch with it as well.
I explored the traditional arts. Always had a thing for drawing and when I got into sculpting in ZBrush I tried to improve my drawing skills as well and really does reflect on your sculpting. I also did a few traditional sculptures where I built the base and the metal skeleton and finished with clay. It was a great learning experience as well. I didn’t continue with those traditional practices. I learned from them and moved on to other unexplored subjects and activities.
Being a generalist requires a lot of dedication to keep updated with all the software 
developments and techniques.
For someone wanting to dive in the Computer Graphics universe I would recommend taking some time to experiment but as soon as you can try to figure out what you like the most and focus on that. There is so much you can do, so many options that it’s easy to get lost. And don’t worry if you can’t draw or if you think you don’t have the skills. Those are easy to acquire as long as you are committed. All you have to do is put in the hours and if you’re passionate about something, putting the hours is all you want to do.
Q: Who do you consider to be leaders in your industry and what are they doing differently that gives you that sense of admiration? For example, do you look to others in the industry for mentor-ship or do you yourself mentor or both? Is there a particular show, game or movie either now or in the past that you would love to have worked on or hope to work on?
DAVID: To be honest I don’t follow the industry that much. The big names that come to mind are probably the most obvious: ILM, WETA, Framestore, MPC, ManvsMachine,… these are all amazing companies and there are so many more. Either by the scale of their productions or by the creativity of their work, these stand out for me.
There were some people in the industry that were important to me and that I still admire to this day. I would have to mention Ryan Kingslien and Allan Mckay with whom I did some online courses. Being a teacher I’m now more of a mentor myself, though I will never stop being a student.
Whenever I see a movie or a tv series I really like I wish I had worked on it, wanting to be a part of something I enjoy and admire. Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool, Avengers, Game of Thrones… to just name a few.
Q: Do you have any predictions about [future of industry/specific trends, software or other] that you can discuss?
DAVID: Houdini will keep invading the industry pipelines. The productions are always more ambitious and expensive so efficiency very important and Houdini as an amazing set of tools to deal with tasks and manage whole pipelines very efficiently.
The other big thing coming up in my opinion is real-time rendering. Engines like Unreal and Unity have the potential to revolutionize the way we produce VFX. Imagine a future where you see your work in real time without having to work abstractly in a simplified viewport and than having to render to actually see what you’re doing.
Q: Is there anything else you can tell us about yourself that we haven’t discussed to give our readers a sense of who you are on a more personal level or if not, how you tie your personal into your professional? Any cool hobbies, businesses, upcoming events, workshop’s etc…
DAVID: As you probably got it by now I like to try different things and learn as much as I can and not just in CG but in life in general. I love what I do and I think that’s one of the key elements to living a happy life. I also think it’s important to balance work with fun, sitting time with physically active time. So besides working and teaching I play a few instruments, I do yoga every morning, I workout at least 4 times a week, I don’t eat meat, I travel, I read… and I could go on.
Q: You mentioned teaching, can you tell us about the great tutorial you did “Intro to Terrains in Houdini and Unreal“ for CGCircuit Do you enjoy teaching and what drives you to create tutorials for others?
DAVID: I did my first online tutorial maybe over 5 years now, but got into it more seriously and consistently, maybe a year ago.
The main reason is to just give back, inspired by so many great people who were generous enough to share their knowledge. Being mostly self taught on everything, that has always been one of my main learning resources. So I thought I should share some myself and since I already have a lot of years of teaching experience it made total sense.
Q: Any upcoming projects you are working on or hope to work on? Will you be creating more video tutorials for CGCircuit (we hope) and also is there any software that you would still like to learn or improve upon? Do you think an artist is ever done learning?
DAVID: I’m currently working on the sequel to the Intro to Terrains in Houdini and Unreal. It’s and advanced course where I’ll show a more complex terrain workflow that will not just give you more interesting results but also more artistic control and more interactivity in UE4.
I’ll also be covering some very cool workflows for dealing with real world data for generating terrains and/or game assets with baked maps and all. Really cool stuff that I’m eager to share.
There’s always things to learn and skills to improve. Always new tools and techniques coming up. You never get bored in this field and you’re always a student.
Q: Last but certainly not least, is there any advice you can give to students and those just starting out, that are looking to follow a similar path? Any resources that you find helpful, which software should they be learning, which workshops attending, networking events (both local and national) etc.?
DAVID: My advice is to take some time to explore and figure out what excites you the most and then just put everything on that until you’ve mastered it. This sounds easy but apparently 97% of people give up before they reach master level. The choice you make isn’t necessarily for life. You can always change direction later. After 5 years of being a character artist you can still decide you want to do VFX. It’ll be a new challenge, starting from the bottom trying to reach that master level on a new area, but it’ll be easier if you’re already went through that path before.
As for resources, checkout Artstation, YouTube, Vimeo, 80.lv and everything related to your interests but when you do it, don’t just swipe through it. Take your time to look at the images/videos you like, try to understand why you like them, what are the strong points and the weak points. Read the articles and not just the titles. Apply some self control and don’t spend too much time looking at what other people have done. That’s time you could be doing something yourself.
SOCIAL MEDIA INFO
Website: https://www.cgmonkeyking.com/
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/cgmonkeyking
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKoiOtW0KqCCtYBUQ7p7mfA?view_as=subscriber
Email: david@cgmonkeyking.com
We hope you enjoyed our interview with David Anastácio Ferreira as much as we did, to learn more about David please check out his tutorial Intro to Terrains in Houdini and Unreal on CGCircuit as well as check out his links above.
If you have any questions or feedback on this blog, we’d love to hear it in the comment section below or email me at lori@cgcircuit.com
About the Author:
Lori Hammond, CG Circuit
Author & Content Producer
Experienced multi-talented Artist/Designer/Blogger with an extensive background in the Arts & Entertainment Industry(Animation, VFX, Game & Product Design)
