WHEN DID YOU BEGIN WORKING AS A PRO?
I got my first job after finishing Midrand Graduate
Institute. I got a bursary from a graphic design
agency, which required me to work at a studio for a
few months before getting a position as a VFX artist
at a film and commercial production company, where
I was doing storyboards, design, concept art, matte
painting, motion graphics and visual effects and
learning the different visual production processes.WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE PHOTOSHOP
TOOL?
My favourite tools are the Brush tools in Photoshop
for digital painting and the adjustment layers to
adjust various colours and values to the image
accordingly. I also use the layer blending modes
extensively for different overlay effects. Another
favourite of mine is some of the image
manipulation tools like Liquify, Puppet Warp,
Content Aware and Transform Warp.WHAT DOES YOUR WORKFLOW INVOLVE?
I still have a passion and appreciation for traditional
art and mediums, from the Old Master painters and
sculptors. I constantly sketch in my sketchbooks
between working digitally and often let those
sketches inspire the digital workflow and vice versa. I
find working in digital allows for a kind of creative
freedom to explore different ideas and techniques.
Being able to create a relatively detailed concept in a
short period of time, with the ability to do variations,
adding motion and working in 3D space, to viewing
the design in the real world as a 3D print, creates an
added dimension to my creative workflow, with
different possible outcomes.DREAMING OF DROIDS READER INTERVIEW
“My favourite image right now is my recent
Sentient artwork I created of a meditating
female mech,” says Cassiem. “It is part of a
personal project about sentient machines finding
a spiritual connection (inspired by Ghost in the
Shell), while trying to explore design forms of
the human body with a mech design influence.THEN AND NOW
segmented tasks and dedicate the time to the specific
tasks, or I just go with the flow and act on inspiration.
Most of these images were created with no specific
brief from any source, but were a collection of my
current moods and state of mind over the last few
years. I drew the images from experience in my
day-to-day life, whether it be from my environment or
partially subconscious thoughts. I have followed my
childhood passion of wanting to create sci-fi and
fantasy art, creating environments, characters,
creatures and robots. It’s that passion that’s gotten me
where I am and it’s the passion that drives me forward
into the future. The feeling of wanting to create
I also use this image as my current desktop
wallpaper and look at it when I am feeling
stressed or uninspired to remind me to just
breathe and meditate on what I’m doing.” Senika
is one of Cassiem’s earlier works, and it
demonstrates that the most challenging part of
his career was “that transition phase fromtraditional to digital, trying to emulate the
traditional look digitally, where now I have
accepted and embraced the look of digital and
how varied it can be. I am constantly trying to
evolve my workflow with the technology while
still retaining my passion for traditional art
and principles.”something and trying to create it keeps me going.WHEN DID YOU START USING PHOTOSHOP?
I first started experimenting in Photoshop with a
mouse I think in 2004, trying to transition from
traditional to digital using a comic book approach of
scanning an artwork then using Photoshop for digital
colouring. It soon became apparent that I needed a
stylus to paint digitally. At the same time I started
experimenting with different applications like Maya,
After Effects and later Zbrush and Keyshot, which I
now incorporate into my current workflows
depending on the project I am working on.