{"id":146,"date":"2019-02-04T12:32:26","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T12:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/?p=146"},"modified":"2020-07-10T15:49:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T15:49:09","slug":"artist-profile-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/?p=146","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Hickinbottom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Artist Profile<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Sorry Andy, but this image is the nuts.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

            Character artist, render meister, muscle car enthusiast and stein slugger, Andy H has had a pretty good run on the CG circuit working for animation and toy companies as well as marketing himself as an artist in his own right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

            He always wanted to be a cartoonist\nwhen he was a kid, and was pretty good at drawing for his age, but\n(regrettably) those skills stopped developing as his interest in computers and\ndigital art increased in the mid to late 90s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            “I did graphic design at\nuniversity, which led to me getting my first job  in 3D, not graphic design!” Andy tells\nme. “See, I did it as a hobby for some time, and grew to find it more\ninteresting and exciting, and wanted to pursue a career in that instead,\ndespite being self-taught.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ladies are very receptive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            After that, He worked full time at a\nfew animation studios as an animator and modeller before becoming a freelancer\nspecialising in character modelling, which He has been doing for about 15 years\nnow, working for big names like ‘Hasbro’ and hawking his wares on the\nconvention circuit. I first met Andy when he was producing characters for\n‘Underground Ernie’ and ‘Wheels on the Bus’ at a company in Telford. I\npersonally worked alongside Andy at Pebble Mill on ‘Friends and Heroes’ where\nwe met a plethora of interesting and talented people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            “My work is very low-brow. I\npretty much never have any deep meaning behind my pictures, or any complex\ntales. It’s eye candy pretty much! I’ve done a few pics based on current events\nthough, such as a tribute piece after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake \/ tsunami. The\nvast majority of my work is totally free from politics, social statements or\nother heavy subjects.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Devilreux<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            Andy’s work is very self-indulgent.\nWhatever he’s being inspired by, he likes to get those inspirations out of his\nsystem and into some art. It could be a friend, a pinup or fetish model he likes,\nsome artwork or a film he’s seen, or just a specific character style or theme he\nwants to make at that time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            “Virtually all of my paid work\nis along family friendly \/ kid friendly themes, so I hardly ever get paid to do\npinups, which is probably why i nearly always do them in my free time. It’s a\nrelease of sorts!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plastic figurine designs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            The vast majority of Andy’s creative\ninfluences come from 2D artists – mainly ones that specialise in pinup art, that’s\nhis main passion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            “Shane Glines is my all-time\nfavourite artist – i just love his style and his work is so expressive and\nappealing.” Andy gushes. “I also love classic pinup painters such as\nGil Elvgren and Bill Randall. I have many inspirations and they influence my\nwork quite a lot, such as the style, posing, appeal and composition.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Andy works in digital 3D, but he\nloves collecting original pencil \/ ink drawings, “They’re one of a kind,\ntactile and special.” he informs me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Doris Diner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            “I do try to keep practicing my drawing, but I need to improve a lot. I have high standards!”. Well his CG rendering quality is definitely of a high standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            After an ‘early start’ in the CG\nindustry Andy feels a bit like he’s slipping behind in this now very\ncompetitive and saturated industry. He’s never had any formal training, he had\nto figure stuff out himself, and as he gets older and busier he finds learning\nnew tech and software to be a bit of a chore. He isn’t the only one! New tools\nseem to come thick and fast and you could spend most of your time keeping up to\nspeed with tools instead of creating art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            “I find I can struggle to keep\nup with new software developments unless I have to, or get I paid to as part of\na team environment.” he says. ” In the future, I want to step up my\ngame and improve my lighting, use Zbrush more, and get used to simulated hair.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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            Andy has strong views on the 3D art scene and the process in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            “I see lots of skilled 3D\nartists out there who seem to copy 2D concepts for their personal work most of\nthe time, which although is good practice for paid work (most modellers copy\nfrom 2D concepts in paid jobs), I find it quite boring from a creative\nstandpoint, since they’re essentially duplicating something into 3D that\nalready exists.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            ” I’d like to see more 3D\nartists designing their own characters and coming up with fresh new ideas and\nstyles.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Naomi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            “I also tire of how slow and\ntechnical it can get working in 3D compared to more natural creative skills\nlike drawing. I want to be an illustrator first and foremost, but I use my 3D\nskills as a means to an end. For the amount of time these pieces take, its not\ncost effective as a paid job, so I rarely get commissions or paid work for 3D\nillustration.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Most of Andy’s stuff can be seen on his Facebook page<\/strong><\/a> and on Artstation<\/strong><\/a> as well as in toyshops in the shape of ‘My Little Pony’ and the like. Enjoy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Happy Valentines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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‘Bunny Girl’ was a popular character and, from what I remember, appeared in disguise on ‘CG Society’ Jobs page.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Rheya<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Alexandra.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist Profile             Character artist, render meister, muscle car enthusiast and stein slugger, Andy H has had a pretty good run on the CG circuit working for animation and toy companies as well as marketing himself as an artist in his own right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[28,26,27],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","tag-3d-rendering","tag-andrew-hickinbottom","tag-pin-ups"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samsara-gs.co.uk\/magazine\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}