Michele Nucera

Review

Tell us about yourself: Who are you, what do you love to do, and where are you from?

I am from Italy! I have a bachelor degree in Fine Arts and I attended the Comic Book School of Milan. After this, I started working as comics colourist and I did so for a couple of years. Thanks to this, I developed passion for colours, but I needed more. I wanted to draw! Thankfully, I discovered the amazing world of concept art. Uncharted 2 art book was new on the market at that time and I was amazed from those illustrations. For this reason, I followed a concept art course, I started working freelance on a few videogames: mobile, slot machines, etc., and at the end, Ubisoft Milan hired me as concept artist full time! This was the beginning of my in studio career.

Refinery Rome

this was the first image we worked on. We have chosen a simple theme just to take confidence with Blender and Cycles and to learn all the tricks I needed. We have also used 32 bits color grading and this is why the lights are so bright. We placed the assets together, choosing the right composition and lighting. Then we render the main scene and did a paintover on top, pushing the lights and Photobashing the building.

What were the biggest problems you faced when you started as an artist?

to understand what to do to start my career. I was finishing school and, I had to find a job! I faced two choices: keep going with an artistic path, with very few freelance jobs and low pay, or work in a supermarket, with an average salary and secure contract. I was lucky enough to have the support of my family, so I ended up choosing the first option. Now I can say that this was the right choice! For this reason, I think that patience and stubbornness are artists’ best friends! (And luck too…)

What did you do during the mentorship and what helped you on each task?

I did two months of mentorship to learn how to use Blender in a concept art workflow. This is an amazing software and I would not have been able to learn all the stuff I learned without this mentorship.

Christopher’s help was very useful to understand how Blender works and how to set up the program for concept art purposes. We have used both Eevee and Cycles and we have studied the Blender nodes system and textures. I have also learned how to use extremely bright colors in Photoshop, working with 32 bits files. This amazing trick is something that I would never figure out without Christopher’s help.

Why did you learn from us and not other forms of education?

The mentorship was set up in a very personal way. We used to meet late at night because I was available only at that time of the day. The frequency was at least three times per week with a couple of hours for each lesson. Christopher showed me how to proceed step-by-step with my project, he showed me his workflow in real-time and after that, he left me the time to do it by myself. The lesson after that he usually checked all my progress giving me feedback. He was also available to reply to questions at any time.

How was the Mentorship for you?

Amazing! I regret that I did not have time to do more lessons. Before the mentorship, I did not feel very confident to use 3D in my concepts, but now I try to use it every single time. I thought this would have been just a normal mentorship about a 3D program, but I have also learned a lot of stuff about composition, coloring, and finalizing the illustration. Plus a lot of tricks and secrets to use in my workflow.

The Mill

​In this second image, I wanted to focus on Blender displacement and render Eevee. These tools blew my mind! We created all the assets we needed to build the mill. We rigged the characters and placed them. Then we assembled it, rendered the scene and we created this spooky atmosphere in Photoshop. Overpainted character in Photoshop and add final touches of lighting and level adjustment.

What would you say when you recommend us to someone who really needs help?

The average price of other online courses is almost the same as this mentorship, sometimes even more expensive. You can take one of the other online school courses and end up having feedback for just ten minutes each week or with CGVerse you can have a direct line with the teacher, meeting him whenever you agreed and for the length you need. You can ask every question you have and you will always receive a clear answer, and you can cover every topic you feel you want to learn!