Digital
Designer Magazine Interview by Alberto Andrich
1.Who
is Michael "Yaz" Yazijian?
2.Where
are you from? Tell us a bit about your history.
3.Where
did you grow up? What were your influences?
4.What
is your professional academic formation?
5.How
many years of experience do you have in computer graphics?
7.When
and how have you been involved with computer graphics for the first time?
8.What do you like the most in your work?
9.Which programs and platform do you use?
10.Which
features do you miss in the programs you use?
11.
How is the Internet affecting your work?
12.What
do you expect to get from the market with your work?
I am a Digital Illustrator and Texture Artist from Montreal, Canada.
I am a Canadian citizen of Armenian origin. I was born in Lebanon, but due to
the war in the 70's, my family and I had to move to Egypt and then live in Cyprus.
Eleven years ago, we moved to Canada. I currently live in the beautiful city
of Montreal, Quebec in Canada.
I
was influenced the most by growing up on the warm island of Cyprus. This greek
country is rich in history and tradition. I grew to love ancient civilizations
like the Romans and Greeks and learn about Armenian mythology. Later on in life
I was influenced by comic book artists, and then the Old Masters of the Renaissance.
After finishing high school in the top of my art class, I followed a 4 year
intensive art program in one of Quebec's toughest art colleges. I am a graduate
with honors of the Illustration & Design program from Montreal, Canada.
I have been doing freelance work since 1997. When I graduated, I worked as an
intern in a graphic design studio, then formed my own company Yazstudios and
worked on the World's Largest Painting Project for Fedex. I also did a lot of
freelance work for various clients. Then I worked on TVA International's (one
of the biggest television stations in Canada) Xcalibur project.
The
first time I saw a computer in high school, I fell in love with it! Right then
I knew that I would pursue a career involving computers. Soon after, I bought
my first computer, a Pentium 166....a dinosaur by today's standards!
The freedom to do whatever I want to do, whenever I want to. I can work during
the day or at night, during weekends, without having any limitations. Also the
ability of my artwork being easily transportable and viewable. I can easily
store hundreds or paintings on a laptop or cd.
Although a bit dated, I use Windows NT because of its stability. Win98, WinME
and Win2000 have not passed my crash tests! My all time favorite 2D software
is Adobe Photoshop. I also like using CorelDraw for vector graphics and Corel
Painter to paint with my Wacom pen/pad. As for 3D software, I like 3DS MAX and
A/W MAYA.
The ability to do all the work for me, while I sit back and do nothing (laughs)
! In the future, it would be nice to have an AI (Artificial Intelligence) embedded
in the software that would learn your habits and tell you what you could do
to improve your work. The one thing I find very annoying is when they change
the positions of the tools every time they release a new version of the software.
It is
greatly affecting my work. I am getting incredible exposure in a very quick
amount of time, worldwide, 24 hours a day. A while ago, I redesigned it and
added lots and lots of new artwork as well as a contest and tutorials. All
this work paid off because yazstudios.com has now become an incredible success
that I am very proud of. It is like my baby! I take care of it.
I think
it is important to put your heart into your work, to make your site personal
so that everyone can relate to you and to share your knowledge with the rest
of the world. It makes me very happy to hear that I have inspired other artists,
the way I have been inspired by those before me.
As you
can see from my work, I am a versatile artist. I get bored doing one type
of artwork for a long period of time. So I would like to continue getting
as many different types of contracts as possible, ranging from book, cd, magazine
or video game covers to editorial illustrations and personal comissions.
Eventually,
I would like to work in the film industry as a concept artist/illustrator.
Art is a passion for me; I live to create art and teach others to do the same.
6.Tell
us a bit more about the Xcalibur project.
Xcalibur
is a realistic style medieval 3D animated television series that will air in
late 2001 on popular kids cartoon stations. It was a big production between
France and Canada that was done using Maya and Max, motion capturing the actors
and keyframing some others. I worked in the textures department, creating high
resolution texture maps for the faces of the characters and matte paintings
for the backgrounds. All my work was done using Photoshop and Maya. Xcalibur
was a fun project where I got to work on a large scale production.
May/June
Issue #31
