Hello! And thanks for taking some time to have a look at my workstation (or should I say maker station?) and hear a bit about what I do.
I work full time as a freelance visual effects (VFX) artist, as well as a 3D motion graphics designer (MGFX). I’ve been in the industry for around six years now.
For those of you who are clueless as to what that means. I’m typically tasked with creating special effects for TV shows & advertising and commercials.
It can be a super varied job. One week I’m creating black holes and space nebulae (I typically work for about 6-7 months of the year on a space documentary for Science Channel/Discovery), and the next week I’m animating a diaper commercial (yes, that’s happened, but thankfully only once!)
When James isn’t parked at his desk, he’s a keen climber and boulderer, skier, hiker, as well as occasional gamer
I got interested in Visual Effects from a pretty young age, mostly from watching the behind the scenes extras on DVDs of my favourite films at the time (LotR Trilogy, Star Wars, you know, the usuals for an 11-year-old).
I was big into video games too. More specifically, the modding scene on games like The Elder Scrolls series.
This eventually led me to create some of my own (in hindsight, very badly), but it had me hooked and wanting to learn more about how digital assets were created.
I realised the crossover of these two seemingly unrelated at first fields, and the rest is history!
I studied VFX at the university in London. After I graduated, I landed my first job at a relatively small studio focused on TV advertising.
After getting around three years of industry experience, I made the decision to start my own company and work on a freelance basis.
It’s been incredibly rewarding so far.
I’ll talk a bit more about how this happened further on. It ties in with the current coronavirus pandemic, and sparked the creation of my workstation/studio which you’re reading about!
If you’re interested, you can check out the kinds of things I get to work on from my studio over on my website.
I used to love working on side projects and creating short films in my spare time.
However, as I’ve become busier and busier with work, I find it hard to be sitting at a desk for more time than I need to be.
To add to this, I have a rare form of autoimmune arthritis. The best medicine for that is to move.
Thankfully, I’ve been symptom-free for quite a while now after developing healthy work habits to keep me moving, which tie into my workstation as well.
I’m hoping to get back into creating short films in 2022.
If I were to summarise my studio in a few words, I’d go with efficient, optimised, focused, laid-back & calming.
I think these are all important ideas to promote as a designer.
I started using this room two years ago. I’m still constantly moving things around to get the setup just right, but I think I’m finally content with its current configuration...
How long thatwill last though, who knows.
3D plan of James’ living room. It's a great way to visualise the space and make design changes before buying any furniture
One of the perks of being a 3D artist is that I’m able to build a 3D plan of where I work. This helps to visualise how things will look.
This can sometimes help avoid dragging my sofa from one side of the room to the other at 2 am when I’ve had an epiphany of a “better” layout.
Looking at my workspace, there are a few things that make it work for me.
I’ve always thought it’s all well and good investing in the fastest GPU/CPU to get the best performance on whatever software or games you may be playing.
However, the way you interface with that content is through your screen. If it isn’t up to scratch, then the money you’ve spent on the flashy internal hardware is in some ways wasted.
James hates the feeling of being crammed into a small space. “When you’re using a mouse, graphics tablet, often a notepad and drawing pad, that extra space is invaluable”, he says
I’m keen on having a lot of desk real-estate too. My desk measures two metres wide (78,7''), and about 70 cm (27'') deep.
I found a designer on Etsy and he built it for me out of upcycled scaffolding boards.
There is also a fair amount of empty space in the centre of the room. This is by design too.
I wanted to have an open area that I can use to move around in. Whether this is for yoga, some basic stretching, or flailing around in VR.
