Digital Artworks Gallery - The Feri's ProFiles

Andy Simmons

Your full name and nickname : Andy Simmons

Your country : England, UK

Your Homepage : http//www.ans-graphics.co.uk

Software used by you : Poser 4, Bryce 5, Amorphium 1.0, Amapi 6 and Photoshop 7.

Current hardware (CPU, RAM, video card) :

1 Athlon xp1800, 512MB, ATI radeon 128MB (render machine)

1 Athlon xp1800, 1GB, ATI radeon 128MB, wacom pen (post work and modelling)

Education in traditional/computer graphics : 0,,, lol,, hated art at school because of what you had to draw,, mainly oranges and apples,,lol. Self taught but I have always enjoyed sketching from a kid. I regret now though not paying as much attention in art class, you need all the skills possible and its a slower and harder process to learn it all now ). On the computer side I just enjoy the challenge, no training at all, just a little patience.

How did you get into CG and when? : I have always enjoyed computers, I even developed a game with a friend for the ZX spectrum, it did'nt get released but it was a fun learning experience at the time. I tinkered with art on Atari's and the Amiga but never got serious about it untill I first discovered a demo of Bryce 3d in 97,, I was hooked. Bryce at the time seemed to bridge the gap between those high end software packages and my budget. I bought the software after a month or so of playing with the demo. At the time I liked bryce because of its simple interface and the speed you could build a landscape. After a year or so of learning and rendering I upgraded my pc and added a wacom tablet to my setup.

Does art play a role in your job? : Not really, by day I'm a electronic's engineer and by night I paint, some of which is commisioned, I want to make art my living but it's a very competive business.

What other form of art do you do beside CG? : Mainly Pastel portraits of kids and pets, very popular at christmas time. I used to do a lot of landscape painting before turning to CG, I studied seascapes and landscapes for a couple of years before hanging up the canvas (and got rid of the smell of turps) and turned full time on the computer.