We Spoke to Gaku Tada About the 3D Art Industry Changing in Recent Years

Gaku Tada

Since we last spoke back in 2021, I was mainly busy with my tutoring business and university work while also creating my own 3D illustrations using Blender and Deep Paint.

Last year, I had a small booth at SIGGRAPH Asia in Tokyo, where I presented my Deep Paint tool. It was an amazing experience – people from studios like Pixar and Disney Animation really liked my tool and artwork. It was incredible to talk with them in person and see their reactions firsthand. Deep Paint is constantly evolving, and it now includes many useful features such as Noise Mix, Soft Edge, Fog Mix, and more.

The Artistic Journey

I used to work for top VFX studios like Weta and ILM, but about five years ago, I left those places to start my own 3D tutoring business. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as I had hoped.

So, I decided to shift my focus to something I truly enjoyed – painting, both physical and digital. It was a refreshing change, and eventually, I started blending my paintings with Blender in 3D. That combination caught people's attention, and I think that's what really set me on my current path.

I transitioned from working in a large team to focusing on personal art – shifting from B2B to more of a B2C approach. This kind of change is much more feasible in today's social media era.

However, making that shift required a lot of effort, mainly due to mental barriers. Starting an online tutoring business for the first time was a big step, and getting that first customer was both the hardest and the most rewarding experience, in my opinion.

Now, I enjoy developing creative tools and working on various artworks. My next goal is to dive deeper into character design and animation. While VFX work demands extreme detail, I personally enjoy a more expressive, loose style. I think my approach – mixing detailed and loose elements – gives my work a unique touch.

Thoughts on the Industry Changing

3D work used to be rare and much more challenging, but now, tools are easier to access and even easier to create. As a result, technical skills alone aren't as valuable as they once were. With AI, simply producing cool images isn't enough to capture people's attention anymore.

I sometimes miss the days when people were genuinely excited about new techniques that pushed visual boundaries and created things no one had seen before.

3D was once primarily a tool for photorealistic replication, but with faster computers and affordable (or even free) software, it has become an intuitive creative tool accessible to anyone. It's almost like a digital equivalent of pen and paper – something we couldn't have imagined just ten years ago. Now, 3D can be used in even more artistic and expressive ways for anyone.

I believe passion and inspiration are more important than ever, especially in this AI-driven era. To me, the journey of climbing a mountain is far more valuable and exciting than simply seeing the view from the top. I hope we continue to focus on that in the future.

Gaku Tada, Visual Artist

Interview conducted by Theodore McKenzie