Pricing, Career Paths, Finding Work | Interview | Professional 3D artist DEREK ELLIOTT

I had the pleasure of interviewing Derek Elliott a full time freelance 3d artist from Austin, Texas. We talked about his freelancing and how much he charges, how he attracts clients, whether its worth going to college/university and much more.
Find out more about Derek here
derekjellio...
/ @derekelliott
www.behance.net/derekelliott
More gabbitt media...
Say thanks: paypal.me/grantabbitt
My website www.gabbitt.co.uk
Discord server / discord
Learn the basics of Blender 2.8 :
• blender 2.8 | Complete...
Recommended paid for beginners course from CG boost:
academy.cgboost.com/p/blender...
recommended graphics tablet:
I use a graphics tablet to paint with and my recommendations are written below:
Ultimate Buyers guide - • Ultimate Buyers Guide ...
Normal Graphics Tablets
Normal Graphics Tablets
Cheapest + FAVOURITE:
Veikk a15
US - amzn.to/30Kps1e
UK - amzn.to/2X6AjjK
Gearbest (best price) - bit.ly/2Wia6hg
Veikk a30 - great alternative is a15 not available
Amazon UK - amzn.to/2EqrAlI
Amazon US- amzn.to/2D2IhCm
Most sturdy and with tilt:
Huion h610 pro v2
Amazon US - amzn.to/2D5n8rk
Gearbest best price - bit.ly/2Lq31Hr
Display Tablets
My Favourite
VEIKK VK1560
Best price - bit.ly/2UKNpSU GearBest
Amazon US - amzn.to/2VxNdGH
Heard good things:
Huion Kamvas GT
Gearbest - bit.ly/2SR7q8r 15 inch
Amazon UK - amzn.to/2UMy7NG 13 inch
Amazon US - amzn.to/2D4dUeN 12 inch
Money no object :)
Cintique 22”HD
Amazon UK amzn.to/2EoDdtp
Amazon US amzn.to/2WTccEA
What I use
Mobile studio pro
UK - amzn.to/2UMNc1x pro 13
UK - amzn.to/2EnMX7u pro 16
Amazon US - amzn.to/2D0iPxd
Facebook: / gabbittmedia
Twitter: / grantabbitt
Sketchfab : sketchfab.com/grant.abbitt
Patreon : / gabbitt

[@oliv3r569]

"Passion will cause you to learn" Can confirm. More than a few times I've been awake at 3am playing with nodes while youtube is autoplaying 3D content videos.

[@CGMatter]

at this point my only shot is interviewing myself

[@grabbitt]

I'd love to interview you 😃 are you free next week at some point 😃

[@danieleliahushapiro4280]

Wonderful, i am witnessing a live piece of Blender history!

[@Cyber_Kriss]

@@Zantonny 18 subs ? Oh wow, let me interview you plz ! Offer of a lifetime !

[@cinematicfilm6559]

hahaha. Genius Comment.

[@speedracer4878]

Wow, thank you so much for shooting this interview!!

[@tupacfilms]

I love his tutorials so productive and fresh. Thanks him so much for it.

[@aluckyshot]

Pretty sure I just found him yesterday and here he is with my favorite Blender teacher.

[@juanvalbuena8953]

Derek's work is awesome, one of my favorites youtube channels!

[@ffgdcpzae]

Derek Elliot is an inspiration for me, I discover hem on the render weekly with the pots and I start learning blender from that day

[@antenim4001]

A very much needed interview. Thanks to both of you for this.

[@bprempeh7]

Thanks Grant. Would definitely love to see more.

[@RenderRides]

Ahh I've been anticipating it and clicked on this as soon as I got the notif :D

[@timvanhalewyck3370]

Keep it coming Grant! Would love to see more like this!

[@ejiah10]

I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Design and I was really more interested in the 3D process. I relate so much to Derek and I'm very glad that I stumbled upon this video! Thank you Grant for this! I am in that place where I'm figuring out what to do with my life hahaha this helps me so much. Thank you!

[@ROFLAND]

Probaby the coolest related to 3d interview I have ever seen. Thank you

[@danieleliahushapiro4280]

Great stuff, Grant, as usual, only useful and interesting stuff!

[@jurgenvantomme]

Great interview. I hope you will do more of this! And thank you Derek to give us an idea of a price range. Grant don't be shy to add your screen to the interview :-p It would be nice to see the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewed.

[@InterPixelYoutube]

Brilliant Podcast! Really Interesting and great Questions Grant!

[@Jasonart.1]

So inspiring and full of useful information. Thank you for another great video.

[@nanukproject]

Hey Grant, great interview, thanks for shearing, you both guys do great job

[@jeffosborne440]

Great interview with excellent insight and advice.

[@getsomehelp1049]

Love these Interviews!

[@Wzxxx]

:)))My favorite 2 channels. Darek’s and Yours. Great idea I am huge fan of Derek’s channel and work.

[@ScottNicely]

Grant thanks for the interview. Derek thanks for sharing your story. You are both great artists and your tutorials have been a massive help in my learning process on Blender. I am just at the section about self taught vs college and I wanted to through my 2 cents in. I partially agree with Derek on the networking aspect of college but I feel self taught artists miss out on learning the fundamentals of design. I think when they start, they are so gung ho to learn the techniques and the nuts and bolts of the software or medium that they skip learning the most important part, which is building a solid design foundation. Plus almost of the tutorials skip this as well. I think it is very important to take some classes on design and art fundamentals whether that is art school, a two year community college or even just classes at your local community college. I am a 20+ year veteran of the graphic design industry with a BFA.

[@uzairbukhari99]

This video was so good, I wish I could find more one to one interviews between artists. I'm planning on getting into 3d freelance market but I've noticed that many people require animation of products / logos than just modeling.

[@wanchoke]

Very interesting topic. Thank you for your good information.

[@northofvalhalla5087]

Fantastic interview!

[@Dantti]

Such a great interview! Thank you both! Very pleased to hear the mentality of not overworking and taking time to relax. Burning out is such a big issue these days that can take months or even years to recover. Also congrats on getting married!

[@DerekElliott]

Thank you 😊

[@IvinNayaYoesel]

Two of my favorite youtubers :)

[@duncankones9729]

Good work maan. I really like your work as well as Derek's work. I am one year into blender and thanks again for your free tutorials..

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@imfaded3105]

Great interview..

[@lawrencelawine9082]

Oh this is going to be an interesting video! Will watch it later and hopefully get kind of approved by you when it comes to pricing ^^

[@Gavrev]

Enjoyed this a lot Grant. Interviews are always a great thing, bringing a sense of community as well as insight and awareness.

[@TheColinStein]

Great stuff. I love Derek's work, tutorials, humor, and calming voice. Took some of his suggestions about getting myself out there. I would like to see a split screen and not just staring at one face tho whole time. I appreciated his animations every so often throughout, those were cool.

[@maddiehad]

no

[@jcbritobr]

Great Interview!

[@bohdandonchyk]

at 4 minutes into the video, I realized: “yep this interview is a pure gold mine” perfectly chosen questions, extremely valuable answers. Thx

[@grabbitt]

Thanks

[@itsmarathe2717]

Yes i love this conversation please do more videos like this...❤❤😍😍

[@ashrafulalam188]

You both are really great

[@GroundUpProduct00]

Great questions!!

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@narendra672]

Both are excellent 👍

[@metasamsara]

Really nice interview, if you make more there's a question I'd like artists to answer: How do they get started on a project? Do they make sketches of their inspiration, do they jump straight to modelling the finished product, or do they make a mock up version first? etc...

[@DerekElliott]

I usually sketch or write a lot before I get too deep on the computer. For shorter or smaller ideas I might go straight to Blender though.

[@fraicheness]

What a nice fella!

[@bojanadrangova7189]

Very interesting video. I watched Derek for the past couple of days, he is great. Considering the college question, I agree with him paying for college these days is just to get the networking part, and in some cases because companies work with colleges. With the networking part and the whole community though, people like you Grant with the discord channel, and other tutorial creators have a lot of like discords or other kind of channels, or just like small/big competitions help a lot if a person decides not to go to college. So if one is to consider college vs self-taught, and of course going to college will get you into debt, there is other options to get similar opportunities. For skills you have the whole internet, for community Grants discord and some other ones. What I would say if you need somebody to hold you accountable and keep you on track find a buddy on these channels and do projects together. :D

[@taimurcgi]

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll definitely join 3D related servers and try being active in them!!

[@gregovchinnikov1046]

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD !!!!!!!!!!!!! Two Blender Legends

[@pradeepdurai8661]

2:07 what a wholesome guy...!

[@ChippWalters]

Good job Grant! Darek's a very talented guy who also happens to like Chinese food :-) 👍

[@DerekElliott]

Mmmm

[@Cyber_Kriss]

Who doesn't like Chinese food ?

[@Learn3DBD]

Thanks

[@Userdoesnotexit]

love his stuff ... interviews with CG artist is good content.. looking forward for more. maybe bring the flipped normals peeps ? :D

[@Cyber_Kriss]

I can't stand those guys... they have no sense of humor.

[@ashtonkutcher281]

@@Cyber_Kriss humor*

[@Cyber_Kriss]

@@ashtonkutcher281 Ahaha, you are right. Thank you. (I am french btw ;)

[@yuriitsiko5894]

You know guys. Meanwhile watching this interview. I recognized and also I made sure that no matter who you work for and no matter what software you use, Blender or Maya. You can achieve success everywhere if you strive to be the best at it.

[@justanameonyourscreen5954]

Nice...I agree...an overall fixed price per job sounds like the right way... Edit: pretty sure I've watched this guy's channel on making the cell phone...

[@jonathanwalsh1206]

Grant Abbitt interviewing Derek Elliot, my two favourite Blender heads.

[@kenshin_cy3719]

hmm why my 3d modeling is not that acurate making a totally different version of an object but still learned a lot from both of you :)

[@jamesoliverfarrell1797]

Legend, what a great guy! also great questions you asked and let him speak etc. He flown nicely! Just seen this channel and yours. I may not use Blender but a great source of knowledge and inspiration / learning here.!

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@petrgrebenicek1067]

Asking the real question. What if I post picture of my cat one day and another day the same picture, but rendered? Does that still counts as "don't do"?

[@vain3d973]

DEREK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@amrasbine9252]

Hi everyone, Do you any twitch streamers that are doing freelance work or talking about freelance work in 3D? Any design long-form sessions? Something like a Blender session or a Photoshop session that was useful for you? If not, any long-form honest audio or video materials about design freelancing? KZbin streams or podcast episodes that have impacted the way you see business finding ? The reason I'm asking this question here is because the search engine on twitch is not well optimized for finding topic-specific content and I know there is good content over there. Any resource/link/idea would help.

[@no-trick-pony]

Disliked the video. Almost. WHY WOULD YOU NOT WANT TO SEE PICTURES OF CATS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Then I reminded myself of the rest of this great interview and super-helpful tips and liked the video. Thanks Grant & Derek!

[@designer9137]

Derek :)

[@datapower2317]

Could you please update a tutorial about the diffraction of light in blender? just like rainbow effect or irridescent effect on a single plastic? I hope you could help...

[@grabbitt]

i'll look into it

[@datapower2317]

@@grabbitt Thank you very much!

[@cyberking8049]

some time stamps would be nice

[@helicopterdriver]

Very good interview. I went back to school and ended up teaching my Photoshop class more than the teachers knew. Waste of money but fun. I did freelance work for 25 years so I understand the business and client relationships That is an art in itself. Love 3D design but quite frustrated with Blenders jumble of interfaces and steps to get anything to remotely work like a normal (Industrial) 3D design package. I have 20+ years of Photoshop, illustrator, CAD design, and CNC programming experience but I'm very frustrated with the Blender interface. Texturing and shading with all the different options and pitfalls drives me nuts. I can do 100% of it in Fusion360 but get nothing to work in blender.... nothing. So many steps to get basic designs I can do in 30 minutes in Fusion to get a usable result in Blender. Can I submit a design for you to demonstrate the techniques? I've watched a lot of tutorials but don't get it to work at all. The shader interface is maddening! I've rage quit it many times in the past and still can't get past the complicated interface. It's better than it was but still not intuitive at all. Each task has it's own window, subset of choices, settings and usually bad results. I like Photoshop, it can be very complicated, but the interface is good. I'm retired so I do this for fun only, Blender is not fun... so I default to Fusion360.

[@grabbitt]

Sure I can try and take a look 😃

[@gower1973]

Blender and Fusion are totally different programs designed for totally different purposes and so have entirely different workflows, Blender is a mesh modeller and animation tool for making 3D animated films, Fusion is for proper real world design and engineering of parts for manufacture comparing them or saying one is better than the other is dumb. Your probably having problems because you don’t know what you trying to do so don’t know where to get the right information from, Do you want to model an object, or texture it, or rig it or animate it or do physics simulation or motion graphics or what ever

[@bbossman]

I'm still a beginner, but man i hope i can become a professional someday

[@bossa8020]

nooblikeplays easy do thing u enjoy

[@MilanKarakas]

Technical question: what program do you use for the interview? Skype, or something else?

[@grabbitt]

we used google hangouts. I would have liked to use discord but it kept crashing

[@MilanKarakas]

@@grabbitt Oh, thanks.

[@MilanKarakas]

@@grabbitt Thanks. I will try to use google hangouts at some point.

[@berringervids]

Ok, so how do I lock objects in a array to another object? Rivets on a sphere for example! :)

[@grabbitt]

Not actually sure 😃

[@danieleliahushapiro4280]

Collection instancing and good parenting I guess... dont abuse the children...

[@berringervids]

@@danieleliahushapiro4280 Not worked with that (parenting) but I checked it out and sorted the problem I had, thank you so much for the answer! :)

[@danieleliahushapiro4280]

@@berringervids glad you had it sorted out :)

[@jasonl9266]

How can a coder like myself transition good 3d artist and fx ?

[@grabbitt]

It's just down to practice

[@HR_CreativeWorks]

Interview crossmind channel person also please.

[@d_denragon]

More content like this? Bruh is that even a question? XD

[@Smoses_senpai]

I want to model and animate a cat just to post it and tag him

[@subhankitbasu620]

2nd !

[@Cyber_Kriss]

Conspiracy theory : Derek's studio was CG, the lighting was an HDRI, and even the guy was an avatar of himself. Don't trust those guys, they can create another reality. Sorcerers...

[@grabbitt]

that is correct :)

[@algodius]

1st

[@kreativearchitecturalanima9697]

Thank you for this video, I recently lost my job & freelance is only positive way forward for me. It's especially hard when you work in a certain niche & job opportunities pretty much non-existent due to current global situation wherein. I love Dereks & your videos super informative as always.