Dan Palatnik interviewed by Andreas Vondrasek Some Time ago I started to reminisce about the good old Rock and roll era. Looking for reference materials, music , and media from this time period on the web, I found a really great site showing unbelievable 3d meshes of cars from the 1950’s and 1960’s. After contacting the owner and creative guy behind all that wonderfull retro stuff I thought about doing a interview with him, so here it is...

Who are you and which part of the world do you call home?

I was born in Brazil and live in Rio de Janeiro. I am 49 years old and I have been an illustrator and graphic artist since 1982.

How did you get into 3d and 2d, digital art?

In 1988 I got acquainted with the CG scene when I purchased a book called "Creative Computer Graphics", by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. It was full of stunning images and concepts that made me think of the endless possibilities for my work.

In those days 3d was almost exclusive to the Commodore "Amiga" platform.

My wife worked for IBM's house organ and needed a text editor, so we spent a good deal of money on a PC AT286. She was quite happy with Word and Wordstar word processors, but the RAM amount was deceptive. Four months later we made a trip and in New York we bought 2 boxes of 1,44" diskettes, a numeric co-processor and a piece of vector software named MicroGrafx Designer. This program was full of features but in no way as smart as Illustrator (or Freehand) for Macintosh.

Mac by then was a small box named SE with a tiny B&W screen, and the only way you could see your work in color was by printing it. That's one of the reasons we chose the PC, it came with a 14" NEC Multisynch monitor.
Anyway I pored a lot over the computer until I could do some serious CG.

In 1994 I heard of Bryce. Bryce was considered a mere 3d playground, but it could lend itself to interesting results. By the same time Corel bundled a software called Corel DREAM, which worked with splined cross sections and primitive 3d objects. I started to do some of my favourite objects, radios, furniture and cars. Quite crude.
Finally after several PC upgrades I got hold of a 3.0 version of MAX and started to see the light. It was only when MAX incorporated Polytools that I ditched surface modeling and managed to use a streamlined workflow that I still keep in my present work. My illustration technique was airbrush, and when I got deep into CG I abandoned all my conventional media, but I still try to reproduce the "old school Airbrush look" in some of my renders.

How does Dan Palatnik spend his non-computing time, any particular hobbies?

Well I spend it with my family, wife and 2 daughters. We bike a lot. I like photography, watching a lot of movies in my VCR (yes, still I record them from cable) and reading books about art and design.

Where do you take your inspiration from...music, art, literature, or other artists?

I listen to a lot of music while I work, from doo-wop to classical with a lot of 70’s and 80’s rock in the middle, and a good amount of ambient chillout music. But inspiration often comes by bumping into good references on the web, or a certain car pops up on my mind. There are so many excellent CG artists around, and I try to learn from every topnotch render: textures, lighting setup and so on. I also love those old-school airbrush illustrations, both for advertising and for sales brochures, and I sometimes try to capture that mood.

You made a lot of wonderful models that are on your home page. Why those great retro cars?
Is it the feel of that time period, the good old rock´n roll era?

Let's say car design was more interesting back in those days... Purely a personal opinion of course.

What has been your biggest challenge?

The VW Beetle is the most difficult car to model! I did four Beetles: German 1952 and Brazilian 1968 sedans, 1962 Cabriolet and 1949 Hebmuller and I cant say they are even close to perfection. Motorboats were challenging at first too, but once you get the hang of the overall hull shape it's a breeze from then on in.

What are we going to see from you next? Any works in progress you want to talk about?

I would like to model a plane; actually I did a DC-3 a long time ago. I like 30’s and 40’s aircraft but there are many cars I still want to see modeled. Right now I just finished a 1949 Ford Anglia which took 4 days to complete and a 1952 Lancia Aurelia 2000 with special body by Ghia. An interesting WIP is a Maserati replica project to be done in fiberglass or aluminum. I did a 3d model based on various 50s racing Maseratis, and when the client was satisfied with the shape I created about 70 cross sections of it so the real body can be built. The mechanical part is presently being undertaken, and as soon as it is complete the body will be made using my vectored cross sections.

What are your future plans?

Many more 3d cars. Italian 50’s sportscars, maybe some early 30’s American cars too. And restart a few that were left on the back burner

So my friends, thats it.
Thanks a lot for your time, your art, and your support doing this interview Dan.
And you Planit 3d members out there, thanks a lot for reading and if you enjoy the wonderfull art of Dan Palatnik check out his website here... http://www.palat.com.br/.

All images © Dan Palatnik.

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