Produced By - Daring Journey From Egypt to Canada to Excel in VFX | #33: Mahmoud Salah

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

Mahmoud Salah is a lead modeller and creature artist with a passion for bringing characters to life. With a background in post-production as a generalist 3D artist and a knack for character modeling and design, Mahmoud's artistic prowess has taken him from his birthplace in Cairo, Egypt, to the vibrant creative hub of Montreal, Canada. Join us as he shares his experiences working on captivating TV series and feature films, and discover how he continuously hones his skills through personal projects. Get inspired by his global pursuit of VFX excellence and gain valuable insights into the industry's intricacies. Embark on a journey of artistic transformation, learn from Mahmoud's experiences, and unlock the secrets to standing out in your creative endeavors. Elevate your online presence with the help of Trailblazed, your (and our) favourite digital marketing agency. ⁠https://trailblazed.digital/⁠ If you enjoy the show, please, consider supporting it on Patreon or by buying a virtual coffee (or chocolate). ⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/ProducedByPodcast⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.buymeacoffee.com/producedby⁠⁠ Boost your creative career by joining our new Skillshare course and feel free to let us know how you liked it. ⁠⁠https://skl.sh/3Rh7ZtY⁠⁠ Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date, get the latest news and much more. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7092551882589528065⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Connect with Mahmoud: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salahcg/ https://www.artstation.com/salah-cg Connect with the host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow the podcast: Links: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Web: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://produced-by-podcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://instagram.com/produced_by_podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT5LHnM6YCaeVzIr0WatOsw⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lnkd.in/e5Y8Wscx⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/produced-by/id1684669642⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you enjoy listening to the podcast, please, leave a review on your podcast app, subscribe and share it with your friends. You can also send us a message and share any feedback, advice and tips for guests. About Produced By: Produced By unveils captivating stories of courageous people who set out to pursue careers in highly competitive fields, despite often challenging circumstances. Enter the spotlight with our guests and get inspired, whether your interests are in the creative industries, personal growth or you simply want to have fun. Listen to individuals who represent a wide range of professional backgrounds, geographic locations and career stages. So come along to follow their adventures and learn from life's experiences as we kick off on this epic journey. Thanks for listening and see you soon! Connect with Tomas:X: https://x.com/TomasLoucky⁠⁠⁠Stan: https://stan.store/TommenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasloucky/⁠⁠Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisistommen/⁠⁠Unproduced:Newsletter: https://unproduced.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unproducednotesSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033Ddo8ibDlLYoaP7FFLIWMore:Links: https://linktr.ee/produced_by⁠⁠⁠Newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://producednewsletter.substack.com/⁠The Podcast Club: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/25420030/Tools & gear that support the show:Metricool: https://f.mtr.cool/HRJBZKRiverside: https://riverside.sjv.io/vDnDodFavikon: https://www.favikon.com?fpr=tommenRa Optics: https://ra-optics.myshopify.com/discount/TOMMEN?rfsn=8803777.591d19JamX: https://jamx.ai/podcasters-offer?ref_id=e02d48af-ef66-4e76-b804-c2e8d282a8bfSome links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If you find them useful, using these links helps keep the podcast running. Thank you!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to Produced Buy. Just quickly before we begin, if we enjoy the show, please consider supporting it by joining our Patreon. You can choose from a list of memberships and we'll receive some exciting rewards. Thank you and back to the episode. Hello Mahmoud. Thank you for joining us from far north America and welcome to the show. Hi Thomas. Thank you so much for inviting me.

So can you please introduce yourself? Sure. I'm Mahmoud Salah. I'm a lead modeler and creature artists. I've been working in Canada or North America for seven years now. For this, I have wide experience in commercials and advertising in Egypt. That's the short introduction and during the video

I think it will go into details So you said from Egypt Is that where we come from? Yes Yes And why did you move to Canada? The sad truth If I asked you

Have you seen any visual effects Or heavy Visual Fix movie From Egypt You'll say no Yeah you can't recall anything so that's the thing we do have like a market for bfx but i can't see i can't say it's industry so we do have a very talented artists we have a couple of talented companies

that they work so hard for to do vFX but still it's not like a big industry like north america So that's why, that's the reason. I decided to move to join the big boys. And it's going well, I think. And why did you decide specifically for Montreal or even Canada? Actually, I didn't decide which city I moved to, I started, that my transition from Egypt to Canada. I took a short course at Think Tank.

It's a very well-known school for teaching VFX. You heard about it? It's in Vancouver. Oh, not the good idea. I didn't know about it. Yeah, it's Think Tank. It's in Vancouver. They have multiple options for how, like for education.

I talk to mentorship. Mentorship, it's just one semester. if you have a purpose experience or you went to other schools or you went to or you do have an experience already you were working somewhere and you just need some mentoring or you need to push your skills or something I needed to learn how things works from the how things work in this side of the world and actually it was an easier faster way to get a visa I'm being honest. Yeah.

Need to be smart. Yes. And during this time, we were facing a revolution in Egypt. So getting a visa and all these jobs, things, it's hard. Like, you will apply for a visa and everything delays and it wasn't easy. Like now, there's a lot of guys just apply to work and you get overseas. It's easier than before. I picked maybe not the best time to apply for visa for jobs or anything.

So to make it faster, you travel with your money. So no one would say no. Just go and learn or travel or do whatever you want. Yeah, so that's what my plan. So I started with Vancouver. I took four months for the semester. It took me six months to find a job from the day of landing. which I was very lucky, I think, or maybe hard worker.

So I took the course. I took the course, I made a short demuril. I started applying for jobs. Yeah, I got my first job at Zoic in Vancouver. I was there for 10 months. What kind of company is it? Zoic It's

Like they do also Visual Fix For TV and movies I think it's fairly well-knowing company I'm not sure I'm here to judge or Catergize companies But according to how people say it's medium-sized company Yeah

That's what the people call Not me When I was there for me It was a big company There was a lot of talented guys but if you compare it to ILM or weta you know you'll call it medium size yeah of course that's what I mean it was actually very nice experience there then what next I was going to ask you I guess it wasn't remote right you actually were there physically in

Yeah, I went there. Yeah, yeah. So what was... That was 2016. Oh, okay, yeah. So what was the experience, like, moving, you know, from Africa to North America? What did you feel like? Were you excited or scared?

First time traveling by yourself. I traveled in Middle East a couple of times, but still, it's same language, same people, we don't the same thing. But the first time you travel, the very broken English. Still broken till now, but it was more broken back then. Yeah, it is scary. It's challenging.

But it's worth it. To be honest. Like, I advise anyone to travel as much as he can. Just to have to do. If someone anyone asks me, why

traveling, what do you say about traveling? I will say travel as soon as you can. At least, have time to process it or you decide earlier in your life is traveling and living country is for you or not some people spend 10 years or something and you say you know what I want to go back to my homeland for any reason the reasons are limitless I was 30 years old when I traveled start to traveling and I actually hope I wish I

did this earlier just to have have the time to buffer if I actually likes it. Do I like this country? I don't like it. But with the age, at least for me, some people say, oh, Asia is just numbers. I think age is very important. You can't reverse time.

Yeah, you get older, you feel it in your bones and your joints. It's not all this, what do you call it? These people host, I forgot the word, anyway. Yeah, so it was a scary little bit for the first two years. But after this, actually, you feel it, you get used to the culture, to people. You weigh your ways through things, the renting, all this, like live things. Jobs and works is the same. To be honest, it's the same everywhere.

Yeah, here are the companies are, if you have one thousand people work, and all the quality and all the VFX and the things I was making fun about Egypt that we don't have VFX industry but it's still the same you have a task you have to finish it and just we use the same software the same broken machines

the same lagging the render crash the software crash everything crash like we grew up with this mindset the outside the outside world that they used all this technologies that we don't have to use the softwares we don't have they use the supercomputer silicon machines that we don't have it's the same thing sometimes

actually i work in the company and my home machine yeah my home machine is way better than the computer i'm using in the company yeah it's a multi-million million company and they just don't want to spend more money on my machine and it's i don't understand like yeah i i guess i i guess Give me some more gram. I can't open the file. I'm not mentioning any companies, but it happens a lot. Yeah, yeah. And before you moved there, were you already working in effects in Egypt?

Yes, I was working. Again, it's not exactly the same industry, but we call it like graphics or 3D or mostly we, we call it graphics, the graphics career or graphics field. So you can do a little bit of both, actually. So I worked for, I think, 15 years or something. And the most heavily VFX used in Egypt in commercials and advertising. So we do a lot of advertising, commercials, and like Egypt is very like a high.

like a hub for the media. At least things are changed for the last 15, 10 years. I keep looking at the snow. It's snowing outside, so I keep looking there. And are we talking about the area around the capital city Cairo? Yes, exactly. So most of the Middle East work, it happens.

Not most, what I'm saying, things have changed for at least for the last 15 years. They start to spread away. But before this, Egypt was the hub for the media. So any visual fix, any filming, any editing, color correcting for the videos. I don't know the exact name for these things. But they used to be happening in Egypt. So we get a lot to do a lot.

lot of VFX and commercials, a lot of graphics, animation. And you know that 30 seconds or 10 second work on each commercial, but a lot of them. Like you work in a company, we work crazy hours. Like, you go to work and you leave when the work is done. Yeah. I call working in Egypt. Yes. It's the military for VFX.

You're just a young guy. maybe you're 20 years old you don't know anything you actually you give you a task we need to animate a chicken or something you never did animation you never did feathers you never did anything

before you just you watch the tutorial the video and you do it through the you learn through the process of the commercial you learn in the hard right a fairly yes

and you There is no resources. Imagine this and even there was no YouTube. There was no resources. You just read the help, keep scrolling and the help. You go there, you click. That works. And was there like a look back?

Was there a big competition? Like there were a lot of people in the industry. So you had to work this way to be able to stay there? When it's a niche. a career or field, you're just like, let's say, 500 people in the whole country, there is a competition because you have two companies or three companies. Oh, I didn't know. Yeah.

Now I think we have a lot. Like, I will say, you still can count them. A lot of them are very small studios, not a company. There will be a studio. most of the how it works there it's a studio of at least 10 guys or 10 people or 10 humans working there you have like two moddlers two animators one combustor you know like just a couple of three for production with the owner of the company so it's just a small studios and it works great for them like having a small studio and you have a bunch of generalists finish the job it's the

best situation for the market there some companies actually can go to 200 300 people in busy seasons you can they can reach these numbers till i left i never worked in a company have more than 30 people uh uh I didn't like working big companies there. I also preferred most of the time I prefer to work in small studios. It was nicer for me. I feel like I learned every day you learn. Small studios, you work with more passionate people or more talented.

Could you have five people, they do all the jobs, so you learn more. Yes, yes. Everyone has a bunch of experience. Big companies. A big company is more relaxed. You just work eight hours. You do just a little bit of work. And if you compare it to the studio of five people,

you do a little bit of work, this is you touch your work, you wait for review next day. That's it. It's very relaxing. I know a lot of people won't like it. I know it. But to be honest, if you compare it to stay awake for three days, a week, every week to working eight hours.

It's like a vacation. I don't know if it's safe to say this. But, you know, let me ask you, I'm curious because I like to, for you to explain the terms, some of the terms we mentioned in case someone who doesn't know anything about the effects is watching. So can you explain terms such as with modular,

texture artist, compositor, generalist, in your words? Oh, sure, yes. I can't speak about all the terms or all the roles there because there's some stuff I don't do or some roles I never did before. But let's consider, let's have a situation. We have an alien or a creature chasing a car and we'll crash it and the car will explode.

So to have this scene or this action scene in a movie, you will need someone to build like 3D model for the car and a 3D model for the alien or the creature. Most of the time companies like to separate those rules. So you have some people specialized in modeling organic creatures. and you have some people like or specialized in working in hard surface modeling. Sometimes you can do both, but it tend to be the person himself doesn't like to do both. If he like to do organic, that's why he likes to draw, he's right to sculpt, he has some knowledge in anatomy, in creatures, in animals, so he will be better and have more knowledge in the specific thing. And people who do hard surface, they also more, they like to do like a spaceship, robots and all this hard surface guns, all this stuff.

So you have, when I say have someone, most of the time it's not just one person. It's maybe two or three or a whole team. Just to make things simple, I would say someone. So you'll have someone to do the 3D model of the creature. and you will have another team or someone to do the textures which will draw the skin, all this scales and the texture details of how the skin look like, how the eyes, the ears, everything, he will draw how things look like.

Then this guy will call all the team it's a texture artist. Then you will have someone to do look div. It's a short for look and development. he would work on the model or whether it's the creature or the car to make it how it look like as a real life like how the skin react to the light how the light will react to the skin if it's a very moist creature if it's a dry creature like imagine the difference between a frog very speckler and very moist creature or something like an elephant. All this will be decided by our director or the director himself. Is it? So this look-div guy will make it like very,

how it would react or look like in the lighting. In the same time, we don't wait to each other. Like, they don't work in parallel. You know, what other word I forgot? Like, they work together. Well, is it simultaneously? Yes. So in the same time some people will work trying to test how it look like in the render the same time the rigors work on it. So the rigors it's from the rig. It's very like make it

simple the like the would the build like a skeleton underneath the creature or the alien so the animators can use it to animate it. If you look back like it's a all the joints, all the, if you have the creature is a very liveable and you need it to look very real, you will build some muscles. So they build it from inside out. All the things actually you don't see. Like that's a whole year of work. People doesn't see on the screen.

But we do it. Like they build the bones, the muscles, everything underneath. So it actually for the viewer to look very realistic. when the creature jumps or act or react you will see the body jiggles or the muscles moves all these things so this is done by the rigors then the animators

then the touchback after the old animation with the look div we try to test them together like how the animation and the render look together after all this it's only working like a 3D then we will try to add it on top of the filmed footage like the real footage with the actor or whatever

the combo this is the composting they add the 3D render with the film itself the footage G film and that's it you have a final result then you've got months or years of work You see it for a few seconds on the screen. And 10 seconds, yes.

And as you meant, look, look, look. Need to pause it. And as you mentioned before, it can be either organic modeling or a hard surface. Which one do you specialize in? I tend to call myself I'm a organic modeler or character or creature modeler. But still, work is work. sometimes you don't have a hundred creature in a movie you will have two three creatures two three characters and that's it and the rest of the work are buildings cars uh and other models

someone need to do so when we finish all these things i will have to jump in any model adjusting a vehicle a car or any model that's the nature of the of the job but uh and i like to call myself on character and creature mudler so are there some maybe characters or just assets that you worked on and are worth sharing for some reason maybe something interesting challenging or you enjoyed for some reason uh one of the least things the last thing i did actually i was very proud of i did I was working on Halo, the TV show, after the game. You know, Halo, the famous game, they did a TV show.

And there was a creature in it. They're the brutes. There's big, big guys called the brutes. And I built them and were the leader of them called Atreux. Sorry, are there like soldiers? I'm sorry, I don't really know the game. Are they like human soldiers or is it some aliens? No, no, no, like creatures.

You look like an ape. Okay, okay. Like a sci-fi alien abe. It's not an ape, but that's the simple way to describe it. So when you say sharing, just speak about it or you will show pictures or videos. I will, do you have it? I guess you have it in portfolio, right? And people can...

Yeah, yeah. I will share it in... It's on my portfolio. I guess in an art station as well, isn't it? Yes. Cool. I will share that. Sure, thank you.

So I was lucky to, like, model it, sculpt it and texture it. So I did the whole process. I learned after there's some other vendors or other companies reworked on it. I didn't know this. After I shared it, some guys thought, oh, I worked in it. I didn't know. You work in a company and you leave and you don't know what happened to that. But he passed it to other companies.

So I just did the initial model. Maybe it. But also the model have been done like a thousand of times. In each game, they change it. So there's tens of guys work on the same model. So I'm just talking about the first season of Halo TV show. I'm not sure about season two or any other shows. Yeah, it was very cool.

Yeah, I'll have a look. It sounds cool. It's an art station. I'll send you the link. And so it was like on a big TV show. Are there some other big projects worth mentioning and those that you can mention that you worked on? I worked on Avatar, the Air Bender, but I haven't seen the work I did in the trailer.

Oh, I'm not sure if it's there. On Netflix, right? Yes, yes. I didn't see it in the trailer, but hopefully it's on the show when I watch it. That would be a shame if it wasn't there. Yeah, I hope so. there also one of the projects

we worked together but I think we cannot mention that one yes we didn't work together no there's a movie the movie well the

Disney the hunted mention yeah you released it already I went to see it on the theater there was a crocodile in one on one of the scenes

I worked on the crocodile too it's why it was fun to work on it I sculpted all the skin details and yeah there's a there's a lot of stuff like small stuff here and there a lot of digital doubles

it doesn't it's not worth like mentioning and you don't want to ruin People's experience that maybe some people in the films are not real. Like the wrestling, people think it's real. But when you know, it's fake, you lose hope in humanity. I thought so when I was younger.

I'm not going to lie. All of us, yeah, and you fight with your brothers and sisters. Even, you know, like, till this moment, I have a lot of friends that actually, they don't know what I'm doing in my life. Like, they don't understand it. And when I start to speak about something, he'll say, yeah, like, the makeup they did for this creature in this. I love the makeup. What makeup, man?

It's full CG. What do you mean? Full CG? Like, I see it's a living being. No, I understand. That's my friend. Yeah. But you cannot blame them because they don't know it.

But because, for example, I was just going to say that. Also, I said that I work in VFX. And a friend asked me, oh, so you are on the set. Have you met any famous actors? I was like, no, it's VFX. It's different. The same question. I get asked the same because I only see screens and that's it.

I don't even see the people I'm working with. And do you do also do work on. personal stuff in your free time like I don't know either practicing or working on your portfolio I'm very nerdy in this part I'm always working inside projects I'm always working on personal work not everyone so this thing actually we can speak about it for a while I'm not sure should I encourage people to work on it or no and it's a very weird situation I love don't get

I love working in my own stuff it's totally when you work on your own stuff it's totally different from what you do at work you have your own ways you have your own shortcuts

you have your own style you have you feel like your own boss yes exactly I'm trying so hard to just be positive about the industry.

So, yes, you feel you're doing your own thing, your own style or work in your own time, and you feel the passion you do. It's different from how you do it in a company or at work. So, and it's very, so here when it comes a very, a lot of people who encourage you to do a lot of personal work and that's how you will get higher and people like supervisors and leads or whatever who will hire you do you like to look at your personal work to know exactly your to understand your skills our skill set what exactly can you do because when you look at the final project or the final results in a movie we know like there's hundreds of people worked in the same shot so you can't

call anything you don't own anything and in the other hand I have been in interviews or sit with supervisors they didn't give actually much attention to my personal work at all. They didn't care about it. They only care about the final

like what I, what movies I worked in on what assets. I was surprised like you know that there's a hundred people worked on it like your point of view it's totally different from other point of view of other supervisors. So I think it's

personal thing you decide to do a lot of personal work or you bought all your energy our work and company work i don't know i love doing it i love now i'm being doing a lot of 3d printing can see that's my stuff here no it looks pretty cool i was going to mention that later to people who are not watching the video that i wish i had such a background because it looks really cool Yeah, I keep collecting stuff. Then I start to, you know what? I can print my own stuff while I'm putting it. Do you have like a 3-day print?

Yes, I got one. Oh, wow. Here I'm covering it. Okay. The sun can affect the reason. Yes. You know, the liquid. There's a liquid inside.

So if it gets exposed to the sun, it's the exact same way when how the liquid I'm not going into this biochemical things, I don't know. But you have this liquid. They call it resin. Yeah. When you get exposed to the UV lights, it's hardening. So the sun will hardening the liquid inside the machine. So you have to cover it.

Yeah, yeah. And actually it's a very cool. Yeah, hobby. Yeah. I was just going to mention just a side note when you said that there are, for example, way more people working on a specific shot in a big film that I think it's something that

not many people who don't work here know. For example, I didn't know either because when I spoke with someone from VFX and they said they worked on this and that film, on this and that asset, I was like, oh wow, it's pretty cool. You can put it into your portfolio. And they were like,

hmm, not really because there are plenty of people so you cannot really say it's my work. So I think that's the reality that not many people know that although you work on it, you worked on this asset, then it's a bit tricky and you cannot really put it into your portfolio, as you said. So just a little trivia for people

who don't work in the industry. Yes, that's very true. There's a lot of sad stories about it and also there's a lot of happy stories. Like, like, okay, if I'm calling myself an artist or my fellow co-workers, we are an artist, you have this ego and you have this attachment to your work. That's the sad truth.

Like you work so hard on something and you wish to call it yours. And you spend a lot of your time like six months or something working in something. You get attached to it. you know like that's that's it uh and some some stuff it's actually they get they cut it from the movie it's more sad it's not i can't speak from the perspective of artists by speaking from the perspective of production that is in close contact with the artists it's totally understandable because you'll literally work on it all all day i don't know let's say several weeks or even month. It's like your baby, right? And then for some reason they decide not to put it into the

film. It's totally understandable. For many perspective, it's understandable, but from just a human little artist working and every day, he's just doing very small details and you get attached to it. You can't help it. Like I hear it a lot from people like older than us in podcasts or movies don't get attached to your work don't get attached to your work good it will affect you just go to the company a nice person work hard and everything but as soon as you get attached it will affect you ah they cut out they changed it after a lot of time especially changing i'm not sure if it's the same thing good if you change it in the period of the six months It's not the exact same thing you did in the first.

You still feel, oh, that's not the work I did. So it's very tricky, as people like to call it, very tricky. Yeah, I've got a good example for people to imagine. I don't know if you heard, but there was a film, Coyote versus Ecmi. And I think it was from Warner Bros. You know, Coyote versus Ecme. And it was in a production and post-production for, I don't know, months or years. And I think after film was finished or almost finished, they decided to not to release it.

And there was like a big, you know, big bus about it, talking, you know, on social media and everything. And it seems like in the end, they might release it. I don't know. But just imagine being a person who's working on it for months or even. years and then you find out that they're not going to release the film at all after it's almost finished. It'll be devastating, you know. It happens a lot like you will hear this so many times and that's the nature of work again. If you want to boost your online presents, check out our digital marketing agency called Trailblazed. You can also enroll in a skill share course

called the 10 tips on how to succeed in your creative career, which was inspired by the podcast. to subscribe to our weekly newsletter called Creative Spotlight to stay up to date with the show and more. Links are in the show notes. Thanks. And coming back to your personal work, I wonder how do you choose what you are going to work on? Is it, for example, that you decide to build something you like from film or TV series or something that you want to test yourself or you want to showcase on the portfolio, What are the reasons? Very good question. So lately, I start to...

I tend to stay away, I don't know why, stay away from this fan work or fan-based something or you did something that's actually been done before. I'm not saying all my work is original, but I'm trying as much as I can to stay away from this fan work or do something have been done before trying to do something new.

I'm not successful every time, but I'm trying. And also... Effort is appreciated. Thank you. And I have been pushing myself to do my own concept. Like I do a concept

and go through the whole process. Like keep working on it, like sketching, drawing it. Then I do initial model for it, like a very basic model, then detailing it and take it to the whole process. Just to have my own... It's very peaceful when you do things

and just it's you and you have the paper or you and the work or you and the machine just doing your own thing. It's a meditation. You put all your passion on it and you really do your own stuff, your own style. That's the thing that when you get appreciated or you, like let's talk about like the era of social media.

The likes you receive on your personal work versus the likes you receive on the company work or the professional professional professional work. And you would appreciate more the one on your personal work. That's my stuff. Like I worked so hard on it. So you actually feel it more. The likes on the company work, you know you did like 10. percent of the work. So come on, guys, like my own work. No, it makes sense because it's like 100% from you and it's understandable.

And can you take us through the process, basically, from how you decide what you're going to work on? And then once you start working on it, maybe, you know, some steps or even how long it takes roughly? Sure. So mostly when I do something personal, it will be a creature or something in this category, a creature. You can call it creature alien. It's just a weird creature that we haven't seen before. So one of the things I like and I'm proud of it of my work, I did like a lion and inspired by the lionfish. so it's a normal line have the same line look like but inspired but I can try to open it here the line fish it's a fish called lionfish because it's almost it doesn't look like a line but do you call it line fish good I don't know why I've got I've got some my process on my mind but I don't know it may be something completely different not gonna lie it's a red fish

that's all wow That's what you create. And there's a fish look like it. Yeah, that's my personal work. And we have the lion fish. How did you get such an idea? From the lionfish itself. So that's the lionfish.

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's what I thought here. So you can see their resemblings. So how did you decide to combine these two? Oh, because of the name? So, yes, I will tell you. So most of people will see it. I wasn't thinking about it, actually, but all my friends called me,

oh, I like your avatar line. I like your avatar scene you did. That's why I'm telling you, I'm trying to be original. I'm not successful all the time. They did the same thing. They mixed like normal animals with marine animals. animals and Avatar the movie, the blue people. They look at the, actually that's how they mentioned it.

I want the movie, the Panadora, to seem like it's underwater, but it's not underwater. So they mixed a lot of marine life with lions and pancer. We all know how Avatar looks like. Yeah, yeah. I think I was thinking the same way when I did it, but I wasn't thinking about Avatar until I finished it. Ah, okay, I did exact same thing they did in Abbot. I was so much investing in myself drawing and sketching. Yeah, so I was trying to show you, like all the process, I have it on my art station.

So I will start with very basic sketches, trying to draw how the line look like. And if you got, like, it's a line, right? So you have to start from learning how line look like. Like just sketch lines, see the main lines, lines of the anatomy, all the landmarks. Like any guy or any person who works on creatures or anatomy, like this words they use all the time, landmarks. Yeah. How the show line works. Like all this, it's a lot of stuff.

So as soon as you know, the main. things you need to mark in your creature, you can exaggerate it or you can keep it the same like I'm trying to find an example. Like if you're trying to make the creature look evil or something, it's very familiar. You can just move the eyebrows. Yeah, the cheek bone, yeah, the cheekbone very pronounced and that's it it's an angry evil creature just look like this it's angry all the time

that's what we say but if we if we look at like a tiger tiger looks cute actually and it'll be very beautiful they don't look evil but it will rub you a part so you get in this part like should I make it cute but it's very deadly because it's strong or should I show

the people and that's what they do in the movies bad or evil creature, it should look evil, very evil with very squinty eyes or whatever. And he's angry all the time. But in nature, like, look at the elephant. It's a huge, a hugest mammal, I think. And he looks so cute and sad all the fun. So it's very hard to decide which side you will go when you're concept thing. And that's the enjoyment of it.

Like you keep looking at all these animals and try. to take parts of this animal part of the fish try to mix a fish with the line and see what can you mix okay so the the line fish why do you call it line fish because it has all these fins that look like the main of the of the line so i have a stick with this side so i took the main of the line and i replaced it with the fins of the fish it was actually it's as simple as this all i did it's a line of the fish and I put all the fins of the I replaced the hair like the big hairy parts or the man or the with the fins of the fish and that's it now you have a creature a cool creature yeah and something unique and original that no one has done they did it in avatar but I discovered

this no but they didn't do this specific creature right No, no, this, this, like the aspects of mixing marine life with mammals. Yeah, they did it. But in a totally different direction. Like, at least that's how I see it. And what would be time scale from, you know, from you drawing on a paper, getting an idea and actually creating the asset? Let's say how many days or months?

Yes. Now that's the surprise thing. A lot of people will say when you do personal work, try to give yourself a tight deadline. So to train yourself how things works in real life. You get a task, you have to finish it in two, three days. That's true when you're a student or you're still trying to break it into the industry. or you're still learning or training. So you actually need to push yourself on a very tight deadline. But after a while, when you work and you have your own work and your life is not life. At least you have a job and working on a job. You don't have to pressure yourself this crazy. Take your time. The more you take, it will look better.

If you rush things, it will look so bad. It's simple. I don't have to. I didn't invent time. When you write something, it will look bad. And you can see it. Only some people actually have this talent of working so hard, 24 hours is just crazy doing things.

You still have some life. You still have some sick days. You have two wrist. You have a back pain and tailbone pain. Shoulder pain. Yeah. So take some time. enjoy the journey as they say and don't trash it so how it took me eight months in this project

and i'm working beside my full-time job in my free time every time every day maybe two hours i can take a whole week not working it's my personal work so when i feel i need to work on it I will work on it. It's totally different. When I was a little bit younger or I'm still trying to break it into industry, I will do this to myself. I have to finish it in one month. So it will look like you're working a part-time job.

You finish your job, you go home. There was no working from home back then. I have to go to the physical life. You go back from. work and you start your own you're the other shift of working from home in your personal work for maybe another eight hours six hours every day so you have you need to build a portfolio sometimes you need to put actually there's a very good example some people will go like have a job in the industry and let's say he's a junior muddler or something and during he's a working as a

a junior modeler. He likes maybe animation so much. He loves animation. He wants to be an animator. But his skills at this moment give him a job as a junior modeler. It's okay. Keep working as a junior modeler and keep learning to be an animator in your free time. You can take online courses, you can purchase some courses or whatever you get the courses from. And just keep learning. learning and you have to push yourself and push your skills. It's totally fine and a lot of people do it. Even if it's the same thing, like if you're a junior model and you're trying to push yourself, hard to show your company or show to other companies that you actually worth more than just a junior,

like you can do better, you work on yourself or even switching a little bit in the company or switching your rule. totally fine just work at home push yourself hard till you're at least happy with the position you're you're I wonder what software do you use for your work right now I'm using Maya I'm using Z brush I'm using substance pinter I'm using Mari that's the main software and you will have on a Photoshop you will have a I use Nuke only at work. I don't use it in my personal machine. Actually, I don't know how to use Nuke.

Nuke, the composting software. Yeah, yeah. And it's just the basics. Like, in work, you just show the end results of your render. But I can't do the whole composting thing. I use After Effects, like the old school, just like using Photoshop. Yeah, yeah. You bought layers in top of each.

others that's how i work but you mentioned quite a few softwares is each software specific for specific part of the work or why so many different parts so maya it usually for modeling three-d modeling Maya it's a whole package like it's a 3d package so it did most of all the pipeline but the way i use it like Maya is my i use it like uh may i You can do modeling, rigging, animation, visual effects. You can do explosions. You can do simulations. You can do the rendering.

So it's a full package. But the softwares tend to have... It's a whole software, but it almost feels like it's a separated tool. Like you can do some basic texturing in Maya. But it's very basic. But you need another software. it's like the whole software only about texturing. So you can use substance printer or Mari.

We used to back in the days Photoshop, it was the tool for it. But you can't, it's 2D. You can't work on 3D models. So it's like Photoshop for 3D models. It's exactly Photoshop, but for 3D model, you can see the model from everywhere, so you can draw it. Zeprash, you can. do like for zebras you can do very basic sculpting in Maya but you can't reach the same amount

of details you can do in zeabrush so you will use zebras for detailing sculpt it's almost like using a clay sculpt but it's fully digital uh for after effect and nuke it's to compose all the like their rendering to reach the final results it's again like Photoshop for image for your final image and final touching and all this cleaning up your rendering or cleaning up your final results you can add the specler the where like the light flares or you mix it with the background all the things in Photoshop you can do it for a picture but when you need for a video in a video you need an editing video editing software so you'll use a Nuke or Photoshop

So I think a couple of softwares in each cartier, like for modeling, you need a software, for sculpting, you need a software. Or we can use a free software like blender that does all those things for free. And I heard that although it's free, it's actually good software, right? It's a very good software, but that actually is also a good point. it's a free software most of the companies doesn't use for a lot of reasons I'm not going into it but if the tricky thing it now it's actually tricky because a lot it's a very good software and it's a free and every couple of months you will have updates are very good updates with tons of features or tons of plugins you just refresh it or I don't know how you do you do it

because I update it for free and they have ton of tools. So it's very good. But the thing if you get used to for using this for using blender, it's not the same tool to use at work. Like in most of companies, they're using Maya. Yeah. You need to learn that the software they're using and on the industry to get that job. Just when you get a job, use whatever you want. But just to get a job, you have to have it in your CV. Yeah, like I understand you're a very good talented artist. to hold you use blender i'm not a guinness blender do whatever you want but at the company they will ask you do you use maya no so you're not getting the job man just learn what they use at the

company when you work there use whatever you want at home there is i think that's that's a great point and maya is like industry standard right so it's really helpful to know that exactly yes Yeah. I was going to say before you mentioned Nuke, that to become VFX artist, you should have a, what do you call it, quite rich pocket to get all these softwares. Because I can imagine it's not cheap. Actually, the thing is, there's some software you will use for 10 years and they will cancel it or they will stop the volume. I used to use 3D SMAX. And I was like, what do you call it? A fanboy for 3Ds Max. No, Max is bitter than why I'll keep fighting with my friends. It's just, I was a young guy, just like to fight about anything.

But it's the same thing. Like nowadays, you'll find a lot of young guys fighting for Blender. Man, it's not a football team to fight for it. It's just a software. Just relax. use, learn the software they use at the company so you get a job. I heard it. I will keep working so hard until companies start using Blender.

Why? Why don't fight? The whole company isn't going to change their whole process and, you know, change everything just because of. Like, there's a few, yes. I mean, no, I meant like just because one person that joins them. yeah yeah i'm talking to him those third person the imaginary person we're talking about yes but uh it's a good software you can use it as a tool like have it i have it on my own

computer as a tool i will need for a while maybe i will receive a file or there is a file i downloaded that from blender so i'll open blender switch it to another uh extension and import to Maya. So it's a very good software, but I mean, companies still not working it, using it. So just learn what the companies use so you can get a job and that's it. Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. I was going to say as we are approaching one hour. I have some few last questions. I didn't ask you what would be your advice from your career. either a professional career or a career of someone who decided to move

literally across the world as you told us before what would be our advice to people who want to follow similar path as you've got or join VFX industry or even in our film industry what would you advise them actually I didn't feel it was one hour it felt like 10 minutes because yeah it felt it's really fast as well I'm enjoying talking with you thank you Like that? I hope I am the right person to give advice. I really hope this.

I'm not sure. But I will try to sound like a wise person. I have a beard now, so I can do this. Especially for the podcast, yeah. Yes. I need to have glasses. Then you look even wiser. Oh, I can take any advice from you now.

My advice will be, first, I think I have advice, just be a good person. The thing is, there's a lot of people have this mental of, I don't know, there's too much fighting for, in the companies. I don't understand fighting for, or this very challenging things for a job. It should be, we call it entertaining industry. It should be entertaining. Yeah. So there's a lot of pressure in a job that it should be fun.

And so I'm trying to choose my words. Okay, I'm talking to people like artists who want to work in a company. So being just a good person who respects everyone and it will actually, It will travel with you. If you're a good person, you will work with people and you leave a good history about yourself. People will mention good things about you. It will help you actually to, when you go to other companies, you will meet the same people. And they will refer you in a good manner.

They will mention you. It's different from person to person to try to be this good, good. person all the time but it's hard i understand but try to to stick on the good side i'm not sure how to say it i the words will travel with you trust me if you're a good person work so hard to you're working so hard to update your skills and yourself technically every day trying to learn this software, trying to learn this software. And we call it soft skills, which is the most important skills, the social skills and the personal skills, it should be number one.

Then all these technical skills come later. So the hard you work on being a good person in everywhere and every aspect, trust me, it will travel with you and it will be more maybe if it wasn't, more important than your the big skills you have or your CV or all the companies you work in it if you're not well-mannered it will travel faster than your work trust me i hear a lot of people that no one want to work with them anymore and for for what man just you will will live for 80 years or something just keep them a good 80 years yeah yeah That's my very wise from an old man.

Okay, let's go for the technical, technical things. Working hard and being hard worker and all. It's very, yeah, that's also very important. Like we see how they work. Yes, how technology will actually replace us in one year. We didn't even touch talking about, I'm avoiding talking about it or not talking about it at all. That's not my thing.

Don't scare people. I'm not scaring them, but I'm just saying it's still, it's technology. Like if you go back, not so far. Like, watch a documentary about, I think, I'm not sure. I think the documentary about ILM or a documentary about Jurassic Park, the first movie, and have all these people, the, old school, the teachers of us and have all the respect for them. They were used to build all these practical dinosaurs and all these real dinosaurs, robots,

and all the things. And when someone came to them that we will do, we'll make dinosaurs in the computer, they said, you're going to do animation or on a calculator. That's how they looked at the computer. Back then, the computer for them was just a calculator. And they're not imagining how this weird thing can actually do animation. So we are in the same position now. There is a new technology coming and we think, what AI will replace humans? It will never replace the human touch and the human feelings and the human art.

It will, trust me, but I'm not scaring anyone. Just keep up to date and work on yourself. The software updates like I used to you. lot of softwares are used to use and they're not used anymore right now so like keep up with the trends and stay stay yeah any stuff yes software new software released in your carty career on your in your field learn it get it at least if you don't have time or energy at least you have to know what this software does and there's a software called

XYZ or something so you can recall it when you need it just keep up to date to be on the top of your on the top shelf what the good manners don't don't climb on other people's shoulders

just to reach the top shelf you know what I mean yeah of course just work hard on your self and just drag people with you don't get on top of the other shoulders yeah uh personal work i think we talked about personal work like it actually for from my point of view personal work will put you in a good position at least you can show your own skills you can show your own work your own maybe you have been working so hard to be a modeler or and no one can

consider you as a concept arts i'm talking about about a personal perspective but you can do actually you can do some personal you can do some concept so maybe you will someone will reach you out to do some concept art and you will enjoy it more than than modeling or the opposite maybe you're a concept artist and you can do 3d modeling so when someone reach you as a 3d modeler you find actually you enjoy it so personal work will be a good way to marketing yourself I wish I can talk more about how you're marketing yourself. I'm the worst in this.

Some people actually better than me on how they market themselves in social media. And he have, I don't know how they do it, like one hour per day updating the social media. But I'm talking about social media for your work. The social media is that you just keep scrolling and watching me. and reels that wasting your life not not the social media we all do this we all we know this bad habit but I'm not talking about I'm talking about the good social media that actually affect you like updating your work updating good good comments on other people work you like other people work make common connection with other artists yeah

Grow your network. Also, I have one. Yeah, exactly. It's very important. I have an advice I forgot on how to, like, how to, like, I'm not sure. There is other, I hope, like, what do you call it? College or schools teach, now they teach guys the new generations,

how to use social media in real life. I don't know if anyone teach this or we just, people learn it by trial and error, I don't know. Like, as college nowadays teach people how to use LinkedIn to get a job or not, I hope they do. I don't know. But these things actually, it's very important. Like, I didn't know how to, like, I was surprised when recruiters tell me about, for example, when I was working in a company and my contract ended and I was leaving, I was. And that's the good thing.

When you're trying to be a good person, people would actually reach you out until you give you advice. Because you saw you working hard, you're being nice to everyone. When you leave a company, you live with a good history. People actually feel sad for you leaving.

Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying I'm a good person. I'm very evil inside, but anyway. I know. we work together. Yeah, I'm just joking. So people

will reach you out and give you advice like so I was surprised when the recruiters from the company gave me advice how to deal with other recruiters.

I didn't know this. So they told me reach out to a recruiter and talk to him directly like you apply to the company it's okay just apply to the company

online so all your information will go into the database of the company. But then you have to reach the recruiter and talk to him in person. Tell him, I am whatever I'm working. Until he was just a very short paragraph about your situation, what you're looking for. And he told me, this way, you're actually saving time for me. Because as a recruiter, my work to look for people and look for new candidates and people to hire.

You're reaching me out. You saved a lot of time for me. It was totally different how I grew up. I grew up. It's too rude to reach someone. Hey, man, that's my work. Do you have work at your company? I feel bad when I do this.

Like, you feel like I went into someone's bathroom to talk to him. That's too rude. But it's totally the opposite. They told me, no, do this. So it was totally different from me. me. So that's how you grow your network and just talk to people. You will be very behaved and just very professional. Small paragraph, very professional. Take care of your English. I'm not the best one to give advice, but check your spellings. I don't, but a lot of people,

actually, especially native speakers, they get irritated so much with those things. initially recruiters, I don't know why, and HR, us as artists, we don't even see letters. Most of us have, what this part? Dixiel. You know this issue with not reading words? I see it flipped. You know this thing? I'm not sure.

It's an issue like a learning issue when you develop it as a kid. You can't see letters. You see it inverted. Oh, I thought. Maybe like something like dyslexia or something like that. Yeah, this is the word. I found out like, yeah, I think most of us have this. Like especially artists, I don't know why.

We don't see letters. We see it flipped. That's what, maybe that's why we draw. Like you grow up, you can't see letters. You know what? I can't try it. So I will choose something else to describe my feelings. I will draw something, but I can see what's going on on the blackboard.

Yeah, yeah. I have no idea. that's my theory. Anyway. Yes. So reach out to people, reach out to recruiters. If you're trying to get a job for the first time,

as soon as you finish a good demo reel or a good clean, a piece of art or anything you're trying to market yourself with, spend the time, I will say a month, add all the recruiters, you see on LinkedIn, just keep adding them. And they don't mind.

Most of them actually, you add the accept. That's the work to find you. So when you reach out, you save their time. Spend all the time. After a month, you will have a huge database. You will know what's going on in the industry. Recruiters add all the, like the post. We're looking for a junior.

We're looking for a mid-artist to work on. this we work for a senior artist to work on this we're looking for a lead who do this so we know all what's going on besides also add some artists and some friends and the industry to build your connections as soon as you add all of this your link then will fill with all this uh ads and all this important informations you'll see an ad actually that the right the right in the ad we're looking for amid the artist doing XYZ

reach out to whoever and just hi I'm doing this this this this I'm looking for what's the it's the job still open are still hiring most of them actually are very friendly maybe and don't get a

I'm going to speak with some friends oh man they never answer me they never responds to me it's not tender it's not it's not feel so bad but rejecting. You're not right. Like, it's,

it's just, I think you also need to understand that they receive so many, you know, messages and applications and everything. Yes, the emails is like a spam. Like every day, they receive thousands of emails. It's not just you.

So it's not personal at all. You just keep working, keep spreading. Yes. and it will happen, I'm sure. Yeah, I agree. And one last question. We mentioned art station, but where can people follow you and see your work?

Yes, on art station, what's my name there? I think. My name is Mahmoud Salah. I will edit too. I have it. Salah dash CG. That's how I write it on the HTTP. But if you search for my name and my name, you will found it.

I think that's the only place I share my art, only art. Any other social media, it's mostly filled with personal things. And link it in also use it for professional uses. Yeah. So if you want to see my play, political views just reach me out in Facebook and we can fight about political views in Facebook no don't search for me I I close Facebook yeah hopefully I will never go back to Facebook again and yeah yeah sounds good and so is there also something that you feel

like I forgot to ask you or you would like to share I think we talked about most of the things. I wasn't sure if the podcast, you will know that your audience from, I think, they tell you when you go there, like YouTube, they tell you the age of the audience. So most of the audience are, yes, most of them are like professionals working on industry students or younger guys. I wasn't sure. I was planning to ask you before we start. I don't forget. I think we can expand on this after the recording. Okay. No, no, I was about to ask you to drive the conversation to which direction.

If it's more about students, we can talk about students more how to help them. But I think we covered both sides. Like if a student or someone start to start in the industry or a professional. I think it's like, as I said, that target listeners, of this podcast are, you know, to encourage people who want to pursue such careers or people that are already working in, you know, creative industries, but obviously not high professionals. I used to joke that one day I will invite Kevin Feige, but probably he's not the president would be, you know, target audience.

But it's like the people, you know, to enjoy the chat about this stuff, to find out something. For example, like today, it was like a nice deep dive into VFX. Then it's people who want to get motivated to find out more, to learn, how to get there, you know, what software to use, what advice to get from someone who says, is spirit as you are. And yeah, that's pretty much it. And I think this episode was a great, you know, you know, introduction and chat about VFX from someone as experienced as you are.

Thank you and I'm happy that you consider me experienced. Of course. It was, yeah, just about to say, thank you. It was a pleasure and I wish you good luck in your career. Thank you so much, Thomas and hopefully we can work together soon, very soon. I agree. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast app, get in touch to provide your feedback or share any ideas for future guests. Thank you and see you soon.