Your Cart is Empty
The Edge: Lukas Filip’s Fairy Tale Houses
Today we talk to Lukas Filip,a member of our online community, Rhino Jungle. The dreamy quality of his renderings caught my eye and I asked him to share a bit more about what he does.
Novedge: Tell us a bit about who you are and what you do
Lukas Filip: First of all, I’d like to thank you for choosing me for this interview and for giving me this opportunity. My name is Lukas Filip, and on the forums I am known as “Yosi”. I’m from Slovakia, and I am 27 years old and live in my hometown Kosice. After finishing Secondary Technical School of transport I decided to get a degree at Technical University of Kosice in Civil Engineering, which is where I found out all about CG. As for what I do, I am currently at the end of my part time job as seller and designer at a kitchen studio, and beginning official cooperation with Matus and Veronika Nedecky’s at Flying Architecture visualisation as a CG artist.
Novedge: Your work has a certain "dreamy" quality: can you talk about how you approach your images to create this effect?
Lukas Filip:I’ve never thought about it that way, this is kind of hard to explain… Generally, I follow no strict rules. I usually go with my feelings, instead of relying on exact repeatable steps. My melancholic nature might be the cause of this "dreamy" quality. I’m a lover of cold weather, frosty days, dense fog, and mountains half-clad in heavy clouds and so on. Not that I dislike sun or anything.
Novedge: What is a recent project that you worked on?
Lukas Filip:That would be Traditional Housing in Slovakia. After visiting one of these houses I got enchanted by the simplicity of this project, use of raw rood, this so-called "return to our roots." I am starting to feel a bit fed up with glossy and flashy looks in architecture, and prefer simplicity over complexity, use of neutral-coloured matte materials and so on.
My main objective was to create something that would make you feel you are part of the nature and give it certain fairy-tale feel (what is better suited for a fairy-tale scene than a lovely wooden cottage at the edge of a forest?). The moment I decided to work on this I knew what the scenes should be about, colours, composition and all.
The early morning scene is my personal favourite; it has everything I love – the time is just before sunrise (I am an early riser), it has my favourite colour tones – shades of blue/cyan with rich green grass, dense fog engulfing the valley and so on… The day scene is more traditional, lots of light and a little girl chasing a deer. Who wouldn’t want to live in such environment?
I have to be careful though, for this could backfire just as well; some people might actually imagine a lonely wolf instead of a lovely deer, with the chase thing being the other way round, that would be a big no-sell material!
Novedge: What software do you use? Why?
Lukas Filip:Some six years ago I made my first render using Archicad. Continuing to Artlantis Studio 2.0 I tried to gain more knowledge and enhance my work. Experimenting led to passion and I found myself craving for more, constantly unsatisfied with my results. During this time I learned most of the basic stuff, the need for good lighting and the basics of texture mapping.
I eventually ended up using Rhinoceros 4 and V-Ray. Why? It is very user friendly, it doesn’t require a NASA-built power station, it is stable enough, and when a new version comes out, it actually is a new version, not a bunch of service packs packed into a prettier coat. With a V-Ray plugin for rendering and Photoshop for post processing it gives me everything I need.
Novedge: Where do you find inspiration for your work?
Lukas Filip:I’d say everywhere: just observing life around me. While shopping, sitting at cafeteria, trekking, reading books… And of course in works of famous CG artists, like matte painter and concept artist Raphael Lacoste, or Viktor Fretyán (MIR).
Novedge: Can you tell us a bit about your upcoming projects?
Lukas Filip:As I mentioned before, I’ve never been satisfied with anything I created in my CG portfolio, some I even dislike. There are several personal projects in my mind right now. Some I hope to finish by the end of this year, maybe even a re-mastered version of one of my older projects ;-). Then there are one or two much more complex projects, in terms of time, research and skill needed that will require several years of mere preparation. The theme itself is very famous and if actually finished, it would not be part of my usual architectural portfolio.
If you want to see more of Lukas's work, check out his online portfolio and connect with him on Rhino Jungle.
Learn more about Artlantis, V-Ray and Rhino on our website.
Related articles
Also in NOVEDGE Blog
