An Interview with Marco Rolandi

3dtotal: Marco! How are things going? Thanks for this opportunity to pick your brains! Now then, you describe yourself as a freelance concept artist - that’s all very well and good but what I want to know is how do your friends and family describe you?

Marco: Straight and personal from the start - next question! Just kidding! First, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk a bit about myself. Speaking of which, while I have lots of friends, only a few of them really know me for what I am. Especially when we talk about the things I do for a living. There is one thing all of them seem to agree on though: I’m a dreamer. Which for them means I’m basically a naïve, asocial nerd, living in a parallel world made of “my stuff”. Of course, I beg to differ; it’s obviously them (and not me) that are living in their small nutshells and missing out on the whole picture!

3dtotal: Is there a typical job or client that you get often, and what would this work involve?

Marco: This is quite a tricky question to answer. Till last year I would have told you that my freelance activity involved a lot of different clients and jobs, but since then I've decided to move to something completely different and I'm now working in a big structure. I decided to do just that in order to be able to grow, both personally and technically. And yet, today I would probably be forced to answer the same question: “I'm not authorized to discuss the matter any further”. *Laughs*

What I can tell you is that going from the freelance activity to a defined position into a certain pipeline has proven to be very difficult. Moving from my own set of tools to something completely new and unknown has been not difficult – it’s been a real nightmare. I felt like all my experience was reset with a switch and I spent an undisclosable amount of time trying to relearn the ABC of CG. Spheres man, spheres! Not even teapots, I'm telling you. A bump map? I’ll get back to you in a couple of weeks. A normal map? – Maybe next year, if they don't fire me before. As for the clients ... I can tell you I'm not working for a pizzeria. Not yet, at least (who knows considering this “economically exciting” period!).

3dtotal: Sorry, that last question was pretty dull - well done for getting an interesting answer out of it! It does sound like you have some really exciting times ahead, but as you say let’s leave them for the future. Can you tell us a little bit about you came to be ‘discovered’ by such high profile employers?

Marco: The question wasn’t dull at all, but the answer might have been, especially considering the kind of work I’ve done in the past 13 years! So ... how did I get out of my little dark room with no windows? Sheer luck, I guess! With a lot of help from the Internet! What is really wonderful these days is the sheer power you have to show your work to millions of people at a click of your mouse. That was absolutely impossible some 10 years ago. Today you can drop a line to one studio executive and say, “Hey, here’s my work. Maybe you’ve seen this on the xyz website. Interested?” Keep in mind that some of the high profile employers (at least the most open-minded and dynamic ones) keep on watching the Internet, both as a means of employment and as a way of keeping up with the industry, so you might end up receiving an offer from them even before you send them your CV. Tutorials for textures collections and publications in books helped as well, especially because it gave me the chance to show any potential employers the way I work.

3dtotal: Your designs are awesome! My favourite of all is the “airplane CbrK74 model” - I absolutely love the mix of futuristic and retro elements. Where did this design come from, and how do you start with a project like this? Is it just ideas in your head, references and inspirations?

Marco: The design for the CbrK74 is quite old, and I would say form follows function, or at least the need. One day I imagined some complex chase animation, where the fleeing plane was supposed to slalom between waves of an angry sea, then jump onto a cliff, scaring away sheep and the occasional farmer, and continue the escape between trees and roads. No plane could do that, unless it has a structure similar to a bird with wings that could move independently. But since I didn’t want the whole wing to move, I only made half of the wing flexible and then invented the rotating engines. That wouldn’t work in reality of course, as no structure would be able to sustain the change in acceleration caused by the moving engines, and the engines themselves would require an enormous amount of fuel to operate, but ... well I kind of liked the idea.

Generally speaking, I would say that ‘chaos’ is my main source of inspiration. I still remember my room as a teenager; my mother’s pale face as she tried to get inside; my friends willing to help me clean it up. With dynamite!

Time has passed but things haven’t changed too much. Today I use some sort of ‘ordered chaos’ (my wife wouldn’t allow the unconstrained one), made of objects, tons of books, movies, music and images I both shot myself and collected over the Internet. I usually listen to music and even watch movies while I’m working. I basically use everything from modern Indian videos and Japanese pop music, to 1920s and 30s European architecture, to 19th century mechanics. I also travel a lot. Less than I would like, but probably more than the average guy. In the end I try to feed the sponge between my ears with everything I can. And still, inspiration might come from elsewhere. Sometimes it’s just a matter of trying to see the world we have in front of our eyes from a different perspective. Keep on asking yourself ‘why’ things work.

3dtotal: You know, that answer makes me want to look out of the window, get on a train and do the ‘brain sponge’ thing that you make sound so appealing! With so many images and memories buzzing around in your head, do you find your projects often start with one set of ideas and end up with something completely different? Or is your chaos theory under more control when you’re actually working?

Marco: Whenever I work on something, I usually start with a very basic idea. Almost light, some shapeless forms that create mood and communicate my feelings. And then I refine and refine and refine. Let’s say that you have to imagine a scene with two characters talking. You focus on the dialogue, the feelings and the characters. Everything else is blurred. Light, colours, everything will try to match what’s happening on scene. Then you begin to widen your vision, imagining the same scene over and over again.

Each time the scene is less blurred and more detailed. So that black spot in the background has transformed into a facade hidden in shadows and the scene gradually emerges from a blurry substratum. And then you start playing, messing up everything you’ve done until that moment. Adding details is a lot of fun. I love to give some sort of meaning, to create a relationship between form and function of the objects, architectures and places I design.

For example, one thing that’s always amazed me is the way a simple problem has been addressed differently by different cultures. You’ll see this in very simple objects (like European copper buckets and their Japanese traditional wooden counterparts) and again in technological marvels (compare American and Soviet warships, for example). I love trying to find unconventional answers to otherwise simple questions, and all these examples from real life really help.

3dtotal: Now I have been very sneaky and translated your blog into English. I’m not sure how well Google handled it...

Marco: Okay, I’ll translate it instead!

3dtotal: Thanks! What I’m reading from your entry in October last year is: “I finally decided what do with my life. I can see people rising, applauding, cheering and shaking my hands (he finally did it). Being a kid of 33, I decided to throw away almost everything I’ve done in the past (or rather, what I have done so far that led me in the wrong directions) and start from scratch. Reset. See you in the next life.” So ... Err, what’s all that about!?

Marco: Simply put, I woke up one morning and thought of my early youth, of my childhood dreams and ideas. I realised that I hadn’t followed them. I asked myself why? And then an interesting discussion started, with me on one side and the child on the other. Embarrassing arguments like, “I’ve tried to be responsible, to put some order in my life, to find my place in the world,” were slaughtered by the simple, direct and naïve question of a youngster: “Responsible? For what? And this order? Where does it come from? You happy?” He won, 10-to-1. He even laughed, and like the older brother explaining a card trick to the puzzled newborn he said: “Ok, let’s start again”.

And that’s it. I threw away my career in architecture (which was basically what I was pursuing) and I began to follow my wildest dreams. And as it turned out, they weren’t that wild. To some people they even made sense. I took a chance, but somehow it seems to be working. Last year was great, I felt like being a child again! I played with LEGO, watch cartoons all day and pretended I was going it for work. Lovely! This year I'm back on being serious. Apart from my work at the office I'm also doing some other things, mostly preparing my next moves. I've also begun to give some order to all the things in my head. Create some sort of logical order and throw out a story. A trilogy to be exact (how original, you might say?).

3dtotal: Brilliant! It’s always great to hear about life-changing moments such as this (even if they do involve chatting with an imaginary version of yourself!). After you decided to make this big change, what was the first thing you set about doing? And if anyone is reading this and thinking their life could do with a radical change too, what piece of advice would you give them?

Marco: Once I’d managed to understand what I really wanted to do with my life, the first thing I did was bang my head against the wall several times (my animal side was demanding that I “followed the crowd”, again). After recovering from the headache, the second thing I did was to start planning. Having a dream is great, but understanding that dream will let you understand the future self you’ll need to become in order to fulfil it.

Take a white piece of electronic paper. Write down all of your current strengths and weaknesses on one side, and write all the required skills for your future self on the other. Be honest with yourself. Then try to understand how to link these two sets by filling in the blanks. Once you’ve figured out how to become a candidate for the final prize, you’ll have to think about how to win the prize itself. This will require more planning. You’ll end up with a lot of ideas and a path to follow. But the headache will serve to remind you: all the planning cannot compensate the lack of passion. You’ll have to follow your dream, not a damn plan written on paper. Work with passion and enjoy doing it. Have fun and don’t waste too much time following the map.

3dtotal: If you could conceptualise and model a little scene on your computer, which you could transport yourself into whenever you wanted, what would it be like and what objects would you model to go into it?

Marco: I love secluded spaces in harsh environments – fortresses, castles, whatever. I love seeing the danger outside while feeling safe and protected at the same time (I guess it’s just the old keeping-warm-by-the-fire-while-outside-is-snowing syndrome). I also love ancient buildings; those places that are able to tell you a story, whispering to you of the lives and feelings of people long gone. I would say that I love everything that lets you feel something and tells you a story. If I had to invent something right now, I’d like to stay in the long-abandoned library of an ancient fortress carved directly into a cliff, where I could hear the waves roaring fifty metres below and feel the chill as the cool wind came in through the carved windows. I would begin by creating the room, the carved bookshelves (everything is made of rock in here) and a large bow-window. Set an orange reddish light coming from a fireplace and then begin modelling the exterior. I would do one cliff, adding decorations and windows on top of it.

3dtotal: What are your hopes and dreams for the future?

Marco: I really hope the guys at NASA consider my application for that astronaut position they just opened. Apart from that, I hope to become the ruler of the universe before my 40s, and find the meaning of life by pure chance, waiting for the tube during the rush hours. As you can see, my hopes are absolutely lame and common. Being more serious, I hope to be able to communicate with others using my work – plain and simple. Sounds strange, but even in a world of total communication it’s still rather difficult with the usual difference between hearing and listening. On the other hand, my dreams ... well my dreams are still just too wild to confess. That's why, when anybody asks, I always tell them that I want to become an astronaut. Really! And anyway, I probably have too many for a single lifetime. I honestly believe dreams are like the sun that sets behind the horizon. Something we couldn’t live without and we’ll always ride towards, but at the same time impossible if not dangerous to reach. What’s fun is in the ride. And I’m having it all.

Re-printed with permission of 3dTotal.com

An Interview with Marco Rolandi

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