Daniel Gonzalez

Daniel Gonzalez started out drawing and painting at a very early age. He attended the San Francisco School of the Arts to continue his painting studies and would eventually move on to 3D and Filmmaking at the Academy of Art University. Having a strong painting background, it was only natural for Daniel to be attracted to the Texture Painting and Surface Shading aspect of the 3D pipeline. He started out working on games and television shows at Blackpoint Studios in San Francisco and would eventually move to Los Angeles to work on A-list films at Rhythm and Hues Studios. Film work has also taken Daniel all around the world to such places as Sydney, Australia's Animal Logic, Wellington, New Zealand's Weta Digital, and San Francisco's Industrial Light and Magic. He has specialized in creature and hard-surface painting and has seen the trend of software move from painting maps in 2D to projection painting in 3D, albeit not always painlessly. This transition has been a slow but fruitful one, and in the name of artistic evolution, Daniel would like to share some of the techniques and shortcuts he has developed along with his fellow painters over the years.