Please introduce yourself
Hello folks. My name is Sigge Bjerkhof, I’m a 3D artist based in Copenhagen Denmark. I work in Cinema 4D and Redshift/Corona. I used to work as a photographer and cinematographer commercially for 12 years. I’m extremely happy I made the transition to 3D, where I have full creative freedom. Besides doing 3D, music is one of my great hobbies, I play the piano and guitar.
How did you get into art and what motivates you to create?
I’ve always loved to draw and create things since my childhood. My sister is an artist and we’ve had great fun creating wacky and fun drawings together. I have also played music most of my life, both piano and bass, and I’ve performed on stage and played with several bands, so creativity has always been a root joy for me. I started out with photography which was my first entrance into making a living from my creativity. It was a very fun journey, where I learned to deal with pressure, clients, and all the joy that comes with shooting.
In 2018 I opened up cinema 4d for the first time, and after a week of playing around, I was pretty sure that I wanted to dedicate a lot of time to learn this crazy tool. I was quite terrible in the beginning but found that my knowledge from photography translated very well into the world of 3d, where it’s basically a mirror of reality. What memory do you recall most vividly from childhood about your creative talent?
I used to draw caricatures of my teachers in middle-class, to their great annoyance, partially also because it actually looked like them. In general, I was pretty much always either dreaming or drawing, instead of paying attention in class.
What memory do you recall most vividly from childhood about your creative talent?
I used to draw caricatures of my teachers in middle-class, to their great annoyance, partially also because it actually looked like them. In general, I was pretty much always either dreaming or drawing, instead of paying attention in class.
How would you best describe your style and who/what are some of your major influences?
I’ve always been fascinated with compositions, lights, and shadows, and how they interact with each other. People often think that I spend a ton of time on my lighting, and that I use some sort of advanced setup. The truth is that I work quite the opposite, I use very few lights, in most cases just a single big light source. I love to keep it simple. I draw a lot of inspiration from old Greek sculptures, and photographers who study materials and minimalism. I’m also a big fan of Bresson and Vivian Meier’s Street photography.
What is part of the creative process that you would rather avoid, and part that you can’t get enough of?
I avoid everything that has to do with math, uv unwrapping and partially also modelling, to me it’s a bump on the road, and drains my creativity. On the other hand, I love coming up with crazy ideas and then see if I can execute them. I work intuitively mostly by the philosophy of “what if…” for example “What if I took a wooden pillar, and turned it into bubble wrap?” And then I try to feed of that idea. I usually spend very little time on the ideas of my renders, and my best work is conceptually almost always done within 30-50 minutes. When I spend longer, I usually end up overthinking the piece, and I end up not liking it.
How does commercial pressure and the business of art effect, shape, or guide your creative decisions?
Most of my Instagram content are created purely for my own pleasure, It’s a playground for me, away from clients, design guides, and rules. When I do client work, I try to incorporate as much of my own style as possible, even though it’s not always an option. I’ve been lucky so far though in that context.
Your favorite book, song, film.
The truth is I’m often very impatient, and therefor also quite a horrible reader, but my father read “The Hobbit” for me when I was a kid, which is still one of my favorite stories. My favorite song? That’s almost impossible to say, but I love music from the 80’s and music that has real melody, I’m pretty oldschool 😊. My favorite film is Lord of the rings.
Send a message to your future self.
Hey buddy, hope you’re having fun 😊
