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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1451520
Jerad Marantz is an industry veteran in Film, Game, and Television with wide-ranging experience that led to a focus in character and creature design. With an array of skills across sculpting, painting, and illustration, he brings a unique sense of style and design using KeyShot to fine-tune light setup and materials. Here, we find out more about why KeyShot is such an important tool in his process. What led to your interest in character/creature design? Creating and writing is what I’ve done for as long as I can remember. As a child, I was inspired by the same films and characters so many other artists have been inspired by. I remember watching Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman: The Animated Series, classic horror films and spending my weekends at comic book stores. I started out collecting horror comics (mainly EC’s Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and Haunt of Fear), then moved onto the superheroes. I was really into Batman and Spawn in the ’90s. Oddly, I never drew the characters that really inspired me from those amazing properties until I started working. Back then, I created my own stories and characters. I was obsessed… I still am. As a child, I drew every day and sculpted traditionally, just trying to get the ideas out of my head and in front of me, excited by the idea of doing it better every time. Of course, I was always really bummed when it didn’t turn out the way I wanted. That hasn’t changed either. I remember figuring out that a concept artist was a job before anyone else I knew. That put me on the path pretty early. Not only did I think it would be an exciting job/dream come true but, for some reason, I thought I could be good at it. I think it takes that kind of naïve ambition at the beginning as an artist in order to actually achieve your goals. Then again everybody’s a little different. I was fortunate enough to get a few internships at low budget FX houses and work on a few movies through