Artist: Christian Dimitrov Website: https://www.christiandimitrov.com/ Location: Sofia, Bulgaria 🖼 "Hello! My name is Christian Dimitrov. I'm from Bulgaria. I work as a concept artist, illustrator, and matte painter for games and movies. I love to draw and create fantasy and alien-looking landscapes. I'm currently based in Bulgaria as a remote freelance artist." ❓Who or what influenced your artworks and art style the most at your early steps? Tell us about your journey. 🗣 I think that the main source of my inspiration has always been nature and its unique and never-ending beauty. As for artists that have inspired me through the years are way too many to name them all. If I could name a few, the Ivan Shishkin, Aivazovsky, Isaac Levitan, Frederick Church, Edgar Payne, from the more modern era artists, Syd Mead, Möbius, Alan Lee, John Howe, and many more. ❓How did you start your professional career, and how did you come to that? 🗣 After I graduated from the National School of Arts in Ruse, I was accepted into the Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts in Plovdiv. While I was studying there for my bachelor's degree in graphic design and photography, I was offered a job as a designer/painter for a game studio. This came at a perfect time because at that time, I was starting to feel that I wanted to do something else more in relation to movies or games and that seemed like a good start. So I left the academy to start my first job in the game industry. ❓What are hardware and software tools are you using at your workspace and why? 🗣 I'm working on a Windows 10, PC machine and I'm using Adobe Photoshop and Cinema 4D. ❓What do you think is the best way to work for you: full-time, freelance, part-time, and why? 🗣 Personally, I prefer remote freelance. It's great to work from home and be able to have flexible work hours. That being said, I really like full-time too. It's great to be part of a team and be involved in-depth on a particular project. ❓What was your most challenging project so far, and why? 🗣 Actually, it's the one that I'm working on at the moment. It has a lot of different challenges that make me learn more and try to be better. ❓What do you think are some portfolio "must-haves" as a freelance artist/2D artist/3D artist? 🗣 A good thing to have is to know what type of projects you want to work on and reflect that in your portfolio but make it your own at the same time. ❓What do you think is the most important thing artists need to develop to succeed? 🗣 Having discipline and knowing what type of carrier you want and working towards that. ❓What is your dream project or art direction that you're starving to try? 🗣 My dream project would be to work on a personal project on a bigger scale and explore my vision for different themes and fantasy worlds. ❓Can you tell us about a personal or a professional project you are proud of? 🗣 I'm proud of the landscape illustrations that I did for Nuare Studio and the matte paintings that I did for Axis' cinematics. ❓Is there anything you learned in the industry that you didn't expect? 🗣 It's more than one thing for sure. One of them was how many important aspects and departments there are for the creation of 5 seconds shot of a movie or a cinematic. ❓What are you passionate about? Do you have any hobbies besides art? 🗣 I love going on hikes and taking landscape photos. I also love playing football. ❓If you had just one question about anything that you could ask and get an answer, what would it be? 🗣 How many PSD layers my PC could handle without crashing? :D