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steven
ståhlberg
meeting mr. ståhlberg
From where I was living in Hong Kong, I had to travel by
the subway for about 10 minutes, and then by ferry for 30
minutes to get to Ståhlbergs island. I had no idea
how Ståhlberg looked like, so I strolled in the center
for 10 minutes before I heard someone shouting "Patrick!"
a bit away. A tall, vigorous
Swede stood staring right at me. We had found each other
(don't interpret it wrong!).
showing
off
That day was really hot and the air humid. The fact that
Ståhlberg is living on top of a mountain didn't help
at all. From the apartment we had a beautiful view (the
picture to the right is done by Ståhlberg, inspired
by the view). I was presented to his wife and two kids,
and offered lunch which I gladly accepted. Almost immediately
we sat down by Ståhlberg's SG Iris box where he was
working on a new model. It was the wireframe of a really
hot chick which stood on all four, viewed from behind (which
will probably be released some time soon). He showed me
a lot of old work and work in progress, textures he used
etc. He even showed me an awesome animation of a talking
robot-chick. The voice was really cute, it belonged to a
Chinese girl he knew, and the animation truly amazing. The
hair, the mouth and head movement was like a professional
animation, which of course it actually is, just not finished
yet.
the
person
So what kind of person is Ståhlberg? He's really nice
and very talkative. He did most of the talking really. At
the same time he's quite calm. He would yell at his kids
now and then, but otherwise he was really calm. Ståhlberg
is 39 years old, and originally from Bollnäs, Sweden.
He moved to Hong Kong a couple of years ago to work. In
highschool he studied languages and social skills. At first
he wanted to become a programmer but he wasn't very good
at maths, so he gave up that dream. He also wanted to become
an arts teacher, but discovered that they had lousy salary,
so that dream was crushed too. After civil service he went
to Australia one year to study arts, and then 2 years at
Bergs in Sweden. There he studied illustration, design,
typography and general artdirecting subjects. He worked
for a company for 6 months before it went down because of
bankruptcy.
Ståhlberg is actually
self-taught in modeling and rendering. The only program
he has really used is Alias Poweranimator.
work
Nowadays he lives entirely on freelance jobs. Mostly he
gets to do boring and uninspiring commercial jobs. He'd
like work in the film industry, like special effects, animation
and directing. (ILM would be ideal for him!) Just before
I left Hong Kong I met Ståhlberg once again. He told
me then that he had a greencard and a job in the US. So
in three months Ståhlberg and family will be moving
to the States. I'm not sure where they are going, though.
interests
Ståhlberg's main interest is of course 3D-art. He's
on some big mailinglists, and gets mentioned in magazines
now and then. Just recently he was the feature artist in
a Brazilian magazine called "Digital Designer".
He gave me a copy of the magazine, even though I can't read
Brazilian and neither can he, and a huge poster with one
of his pics (the half naked chick sitting in a Gigerish
chair, released in iCE a while ago). While his jobs often
are boring (last job last Xmas in Beijing animating a communist-like
guy in front of the great wall), his own creations are often
very exciting. He draws mostly hot chicks, and some other
science fiction stuff. Other interests involves his family,
working out to keep fit, movies and reading about movie
making. How did Ståhlberg get involved in iCE and
the artscene then? It was simply Slothmeister's work. He
tricked.. er.. talked Ståhlberg into joining iCE.
wisdom
We discussed a lot of things on both our meetings (some
things I won't mention here ;). A lot of people have asked
Ståhlberg about applications and education. Since
Ståhlberg only know Alias really well he hasn't been
able to answer the first question. Considering education,
he thinks the main use you have of that is getting contacts.
What they teach you, you can often learn yourself if you
are really interested. So kids, go to college to get contacts!
I asked Ståhlberg what
he thought about applications such as Poser and Bryce. His
opinion is that the intention of the programs is good, i.e.
making good pics without any effort, it's just that they
aren't good enough. By having the application do the hard,
boring, difficult tasks, you can concentrate more on the
whole image/animation, design, layout and storytelling.
On the level Ståhlberg is working, they don't even
think of "abusing" the applications as a lot of
people on the artscene does. A follow up question is if
this kind of application will need less artists? Leading
to unemployment in that field. His answer to that is a straight
no. He thinks that in the future the technology is so widely
use, they will need even more 3D-artists. Completely digitally
animated/rendered soap-operas, TV-series and feature films
will be common in the near future.
So, they will need a lot of
artists for the huge market that will come, and Mr. Steven
Ståhlberg doesn't worry at all.
HIREZ.ORG EXCLUSIVE SHOT!
His latest character in progress "Rebecca".
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Screenshot from animation
in progress |
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