Personal Profile – Phil Wilkes
My name is Phil Wilkes and I have been involved with computer art for over 25 years, really from the infancy of home computing.
My first computer was a BBC Micro by Acorn Computers, and within two years I had written two games which were commercially released – Trench by Virgin Games and Orpheus in the Underworld by A&F Software.
After that I started writing freelance for magazines including Acorn User and Amiga User International. For the Amiga I wrote a number of graphics utilities including a simple fractal landscape generator and my own paint application. It was on the Amiga that I first encountered 3D software, first with Imagine 3D and later with an early version of Lightwave. One of the big projects that I undertook was a complete animated mini-movie called Explorer, which was distributed on a magazine cover disk, and which can still be seen on YouTube – although parts of it make me cringe looking at it now!
More recently I have used Poser, Hexagon, Bryce, Daz Studio, Vue and of course ultimately Carrara. What attracted me to Carrara was I was starting to see some really amazing images in online galleries, and when I first tried it for myself, I was really impressed by it’s ease of use, it’s terrific lighting and also just how fast it rendered! I had been importing Poser models into Vue for it’s lighting, but in Carrara I had everything under one consistent interface which made it much more productive, and it rendered around ten times as fast for a similar scene.
With Carrara, you’ve got some amazing tools such as real dynamic hair, surface replicators and global illumination, and all the modelling and animation tools that you could want right there at your fingertips, and you can pick them up and explore them at your own pace – for me, it’s the best all-round 3D solution.
2010 has been a big year for me – firstly by producing the Carrara Video Tutorial series with Infinite Skills, and then becoming a merchant by producing Hair products which are for sale through Daz3D. I’ve been delighted by the response to both of these initiatives and hope to continue to develop more and varied ways to support the Carrara community.
My other passion in life is music and while I was keyboard player for the Progressive Rock group Manning, I designed and produced all the images for the CD cover and booklet for their album Number Ten, which was great fun to do – I’d love to do more work with musicians. I’m also doing more illustration work and using my images as promotion pieces for 3D products.
Whatever project I am working on, I always try to bring a realistic feel to it, and Carrara is a great tool to use for that. I am thrilled to be a contributing artist to the C3DE series which is a great way to promote the many varied and wonderful images and artists associated with this great program!
