Henk Dawson, an award-winning veteran illustrator, has his studio, Dawson 3D, Inc., in beautiful Seattle, Washington. Dawson specializes in exquisite three-dimensional illustrations for clients like Apple Computer, FedEx, ESPN, Volvo, Microsoft, Nintendo, Pepsi and more. NewTek sat down with Henk to find out more about this talented artist.

How did you get your start as an illustrator? I started out as an illustrator trapped in a career as a graphic designer. I had my degree in graphic design at the University of Washington and was working for the Gable Design Group. My boss, Tony Gable, noticed that I wasn't very good at graphic design and knew that I loved illustration. On my last day working for him he spent all afternoon helping me find freelance illustration work. He called all of his graphic design friends, anybody he could think of. Thanks to Tony, my new business Dawson Design was off to a good start. When did you start Dawson 3D Inc.? What prompted you to start it? Dawson Design started on July 4th 1990. That was when desktop publishing had just begun. In those days knowing a little about computers meant that you were an expert. I did newsletter design and technical illustration - basically anything I could get. Within a year I had enough work so that I could do illustration full time.

newsletter and magazine cover from the pre-3D days

Do you have an assistant? If so, what are their responsibilities?  My wife, Kristen, did all the marketing for 8 years. We still work out of the same studio but for the last two years I've done the work that she was doing. Now that everything is electronic, marketing takes less time. In the old days, people wanted to meet in person. Now the client contact is all via email, web and the phone.
Email newsletter samples	Source Book Ad

How did you get into 3D, and when did you add LightWave 3d to your toolkit? In August of 1991 I got my first 3D job. It was for a Game Boy game called “Faceball 2000”. I wasn't sure if the client would like 3D so I did the whole project with Strata Pro's demo software. Every time the client made a change I had to start from scratch because the demo software would not save. Anyway, the client liked it and I loved 3D and I never looked back. Soon, all of my  work was done in 3D. One day, while working on a piece for Time Magazine, I realized that I needed a faster program. Strata Studio Pro took 15 minutes to redraw a 20k polygon model wireframe mode. That's when I started using Electric Image. At the time is was a very fast performer and served me well for several years.	Faceball 2000 - My first 3D illustration
Play, the company that produced Electric Image, started to develop a modeling program with sub-division surfaces. I'm sure I was one of the last people on earth to figure out how cool sub-divs are and when I found out that LightWave had one of the best sub-div modelers I wasted no time in getting it. LightWave quickly became my 3D application of choice and since 1998 it's been the only 3D program that I've used. What were some of the challenges when you first made the move to 3D in your work? Because computers were relatively slow when I started doing 3D work, it was important to have a quick style so client changes were practical. I used very simple geometry and never turned ray tracing on.	Illustration For Time

I did, however, experiment with ray tracing and radiosity for personal projects. For instance when Kristen and I got married I set up a render that would work on one image for two weeks while we were on our honneymoon. It was a 640 X 480 radiosity render on my Mac II and when I got back it was only 10 percent done after two weeks of rendering! I find it amazing that I can now do a similar scene using LightWave and FPrime in near real time.

             
a two week render on the left. Ten years later a two minute render using LightWave on the right.

The team here at NewTek rushed out to buy the Tonka game that you created illustrations for when it first came out.
Have you worked on any other games since?
The Tonka game project was a great learning experience. Being sort of new to character design when I started made it quite a challenge. Over all it went well and I would love to another project like it.

Tonka Box and Badge

Currently, I'm working on an online educational game for children with autism. Praxis is the client and they have been wonderful to work with. There is very little time pressure so I'm able to experiment with new techniques and technologies. So far I have animated a monkey, a puppy, a bowling ball, and fireworks. The more I learn about this kind of animation The more I like it.

What are your favorite features of LightWave?
I love subdivision surfaces! It's kind of hard to admit but sometimes when I'am modeling with sub-div's. I get kind of obsessed and have a hard time quitting. I also think that LightWave's renderer is top notch.

The majority of your work appears to be illustration work. Do you also create animations for your clients?
Several years ago I did a personal project, a short called "Moon Dream" It was a great learning experience. Making a short animation was a good way to develop the skills I needed to do commercial work. For my commercial work, I've done small animations like the internet Exploder "e" and longer animations for the Federal Reserve Bank. The Fed job was the first animation that I did with people moving around: quite a learning curve. Currently, I'm working on animations for children with autism. It's been fun and challenging.

Please see: Animations I have animations that I did for Praxis, The Federal Reserve Bank and others.

Any favorite projects that you have recently worked on?
I got to help design the bottle for Pyramid Breweries. Karen, the art director, was great to work with. I like beer so it was a lot of fun doing research. Also, jobs for Pepboys and IBM were interesting projects that I've done recently.

           
Images for Pyramid and IBM

You have an impressive client list, any company you're hoping to add to that list - dream jobs, etc.?
I recently submitted an ad to PLAY, a source book that will go to toy companies that hire creatives like myself. I hope to get work doing packaging and advertising for kids' products and games. I've never done any work for Disney. They've got some great characters and I think that it'd be fun to work with them.

Other dream jobs would be to get more coporate advertising work. It's always a thrill to get a good assignment for a large corporation. I've really enjoyed some of these projects because there usually is enough time and budget to bring the work to a nice finish.

Any suggestions  for someone wanting get into creating 3D illustrations?
Most 3D illustrators run their studios by themselves. There are several skills that need to be developed for it to work well. Business skills, smart marketing, artistic talent, and technical savvy are all important. They are the 4 legs that need to be working for a 3D illustration business to keep running. For those that are just starting out, it may be best to focus on the art and tech part at first, preferably at an art school or a job where these skills can be developed. For the person who has a good handle on the creative and technical part, it would be good to read a few books on starting a business or find a successful business person that is willing to mentor you. Also, a good marketing plan that gets reworked once a year is essential. Finally, get involved; it can be helpful to join a professional organization like the Graphic Artist Guild or the American Institute of Graphic Artists. If all these things are in place, it can be a very rewarding experience.

How do you decide whether or not to use 3D in an illustration?
I use 3D for all of my commercial projects, but there are many times where a 2D element can save a lot of time. Texture maps can often replace geometry and a background painted in Photoshop can efficiently fill out an image. Although this is the case for my commercial work I've been developing my traditional 2D skills for the last couple of years. Developing these skills has helped my 3D work quite a bit. The way I see it is if you can draw it with a pencil, it's not that hard to model it in 3D. One thing that has help me stay focused on learning more about 2D is being part of a sketch group called Drawergeeks. It's been a great way to get feedback on my 2D work and learn from others.

Images for Cingular, Intel and FedEx

What is it about digital illustration that makes it work in the type of projects that you work on?
There might be two ways of looking at it. One answer is that it doesn't matter at all what the medium is as long as it looks good when you're done. Another, possibly more practical, answer is that going digital, especially 3D, offers more flexibility than any other medium. For example, I just did a project for an IBM magazine where the client needed 3 illustrations. They needed to look similar but be different enough to be interesting. I was able to create a complex environment and by simply moving some objects around, changing the color palette and lighting, I was able to produce 3 unique pieces. I can't think of another medium that could produce this much variety as efficiently.

Do you frequent any online communities?
 I frequently visit SpinQuad, CGChannel and NewTek; they all have great forums. Also flay.com is a great place to get LightWave news.

You created a very useful tutorial for the LightWave site that goes into detail about the coin image you created.
(click here to view) Will we see more tutorials from you in the future?
Yes. I was surprised at how much positive feedback I got. I'll have to do more. Look for a tutorial soon, on the way I set up lights.
 
What's next from Dawson 3D, Inc.?
I'm starting to get enough animation projects under my belt that I hope to make it a more visible part of my marketing. Also, I hope to pursue more 2D work. Hmm.. How does "Dawson 2D" sound? [laughs]
 
Do you have any LightWave plug-in's in your toolkit that you use on a regular basis?
I use FPrime and G2 on every project. FPrime allows me to render in near-real- time and G2 has almost every rendering tool that I'd ever want. Worley Labs has done a great job with these plug-ins.
 
What do you do in your spare time when not creating amazing illustrations?
Hang out with my wife, kids, friends and family, play rock guitar, eat bar-b-cue, read history books, go to church.

Examples of 2D Work

Will you be submitting work to the "Art of LightWave" book?
I already did - I sent in 4 images. I think that the book is a great idea. There is so much amazing work being done in LightWave. I can't wait to see how the book comes together.
 
What is the biggest challenge of running your own business?
Keeping up with the marketing. I wish that cool jobs would just come my way but that has never happened for me. I've always had to do a lot of marketing.
 
What artists inspire you?
Lots of them. I like the classical artists like Leonardo and Rembrandt. I also am inspired by many contemporary illustrators like Brad Holland and C.F. Payne. CG illustrators also continually inspire me to push the medium. In the early days of my career folks like Glen Mitsui, Jeff Brice, and Jim Ludke had a big influence on my work. The artists that I've recently discovered that inspire me are folks like Ray Caesar, Bryan Ballinger, Costa Krishnamurti and many others. Oh, and I can't forget the wonderful artists at drawergeeks.
 
Are you looking forward to the new tools in LightWave 9.0?
It looks like a good upgrade. A few of the things that jumped out at me on the feature list were: faster ray-tracing, better displacement tools, orthographic cameras, faster volumetric shaders, full support of OpenGL 2, Shade trees, faster sub-div's.
 
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us!
It was a pleasure.