Inspired from Strata's glory days of old, when Myst was the latest and greatest, Sakari Tiikkaja began his journey into 3d illustration and design. Sakari has a diverse style that he uses for his illustration and design work. Here he talks to us about his editorial illustration process, the 3d industry in Finland, and his connection with the Clone Digital Film Festival.

SS: Can you tell us a little about your background? What sort of formal art and design training do you have?

ST: As long as I can remember I've been enthusiastic about drawing. That and a keen interest in music led me to arts oriented classes in school. After high school I was admitted to a private design school which pretty soon landed a career in ad agencies in Helsinki. The hectic timetables and various clients were a terrific training for getting the jobs done and done in time. The deadlines were sometimes horrible.

SS: What got you started with 3D for your artwork?

ST: My father bought MYST one christmas. I was astounded by the virtual worlds in it and found out that it was all done in Strata. I persuaded the company I was working for at the time to purchase StrataVision 3D. I started experimenting how I could get the same results. Pretty soon I started implementing 3D in my workflow.

SS: You have a wide range of illustrative styles. Do you usually think of using 3D first to accomplish what you see in your mind?

ST: No. In fact I rely on the good old pencil and paper. After I have sketched the ideas on paper I start to think what is the medium best suited for the illustration at hand. Of course in some cases I know from the start that I will be doing it with 3D. But I still draw it first.

SS: Your work for the Clone Digital Film Festival has a futuristic yet fun feel. What is your connection with the festival?

ST: The festival director of Clone Digital Film Festival had seen some preliminary sketches of a robot character I was working with back in 2003 and asked if it could be used for a mascot for the festival. I proposed that I'd develop it a little further and it they liked it they could use it. The festival was just finding its form and the slate was pretty clean for me to design the robot. I wanted to convey some of the ideas the festival people hoped would be included such as digital movies (hi-tech movies that you couldn't see in conventional movie theaters), that there is something for everyone to see and that it's all about fun and they hoped that the robot would not be a hostile or frightful character as often is the case when portraying a robot. So the robot became sort of a high-tech goof, smiling and friendly. I ended up designing first the logo and eventually the look of the festival. Presently am in charge of all the graphic material for the festival.

SS: Can you give us an idea of what the 3D industry and market is like in Finland?

ST: My experience is that the 3D industry in Finland although being a relatively new field of industry is showing some promise of becoming a full fledged, well serving branch of industry. There are very promising designers and illustrators (who often do their work quite unannounced). There are also animation houses that produce 3D animated material for the television and advertisements, even some special effects stuff for movies. There are a number of technology industry companies such as Nokia that need 3D quite extensively to present their material. I'd say there is a growing market for 3D illustration and animation in Finland

SS: Do you find yourself selling 3D to your clients or do they come to you specifically for your 3D talents?

ST: It's a little bit of both. Depends a lot on the case. Lately more of the latter.

SS: Can you give us an idea of what your creative process is like with one of your editorial illustrations?

ST: I usually get the article from the editor which I read through and as mentioned earlier do some preliminary pencil sketching of the ideas that come to mind. I usually give 2-3 competing ideas if the editor hasn't provided me with instructions for a specific illustration idea. After that I refine the sketch to find out the elements I need and then it's pretty straight forward: modeling, lighting, texturing and rendering.

SS: I love the scratchboard effect you used with the airmail stamp. > What was the inspiration for trying this technique?

ST: I was doing a logo for a friend of mine who is a carpenter. I wanted to make a logo that looked like it was engraved or done with scratchboard to convey a classic and classy feel. John Byrne was experimenting with a line drawing technique of his, like in the Batmobile, in which the result is just a black and white image - like it's an inked image. I started to think if I could have a lined texture behave like in a scratchboard illustration I could perhaps have it rendered with John's line drawing technique. He helped me out a little to get my settings right and after some trial and error I managed to have an image that resembled an engraved image straight out of Strata.

SS: Mac or Windows?

ST: Mac

SS: What is your future plans using 3D, any plans for animation?

ST: I'd love to do animations. Unfortunately I don't have that much time on my hands presently.

SS: Do you have a favorite technique or look that you can achieve with Strata?

ST: I love the rendering quality. I like the effect I get when I "overdo" the lighting. Like what the airbrush artists often did back in the 80's.

SS: Why have you chosen to use Strata over other 3D apps that are available?

ST: Has to be the ease of use, price and the quality of renders. And of course the terrific group of people at StrataCafe and Stratalist.

SS: Do you have any advice to designers and illustrators that want to integrate 3D into their work?

ST: Well, I'd urge you to explore the possibilities of using 3D, not just the obvious photorealism, but also the things that you find when you go off the charted territory. Crank the dials way over the 100% (and they sometimes go to INF). And there's the negative side too. Go ahead and challenge yourself. You will be amazed what you can achieve.

You can check out more of Sakari's work at his website.