Artist Renders One Piece of Conceptual Digital Art Per Day in 2014

Motion and graphic designer Joey Camacho doesn't believe in lightning bolts of inspiration. Instead, he believes that amazing ideas emerge from a conscious, focused effort. That’s why, at the beginning of 2014, he decided to sit down at his desk, open up his computer, and start and finish a new digital art piece every single day in an Cinema 4D art-making experiment named Progress Before Perfection, viewable on his Raw & Rendered Tumblr.

Like many other creatives, Camacho felt paralyzed by his perfectionism. “Perfection is something that we all strive for in some form, I think it helps to a degree, but it prevented me from starting, completing, and being ok with failure,” he tells The Creators Project. “This project has allowed me space for all that to occur.” His goal to focus on progress above all, helped keep him motivated.

During the process of creating the series of works that range from mysterious underwater habitats to waves of dots, Camacho learned how to use Maxon Cinema 4D. “I learned to ‘see’ things clearer. To see light, shadow, reflections and materials much more clearly, rather than perceptually,” he adds. And most importantly, he took away an important lesson about creativity: that it’s not a magical formula but takes consistent discipline and hard work.

The Creators Project reached out to Camacho, who shared his favorite images from the 365 pieces he made last year:

"This is an example of me just playing around. I had picked up X-Particles for Cinema 4D, and was up and running with it pretty fast. Being able to explore, experiment, and create abstract images quickly is a great example of what can happen if you’re open to the process and not trying to make something too specific."

228/365 - “Jigsaw”

"This was the first time I dove into some hard surface modelling techniques. I just wanted to get better at modelling, and this was a long, nearly full day of working. Usually I spend a few hours on a render, but I wanted to push myself on this. This is one of my favourites because it really tested my patience and I learned a ton of techniques."

"This is an example of being inspired by ordinary things. I was out bowling with a bunch of friends, and looked at the pins and wondered what it would be like to model and texture one from scratch. Using Cinema 4D’s BodyPaint module to unwrap and organize the UVs and Adobe Photoshop andAdobe Illustrator to create the textures, along with plenty of visual references, I came up with this. It one of my favourites because it reminds me of what a great time we had, and how I won at bowling…for the first time ever."

"I had created a few of these underwater scenes, and at first had no idea what to expect. Up until this point I had mainly been creating rigid forms, andmodelling a lot of mechanical surfaces. Cinema 4D’s Hair Module and Sculpting Tools really allowed me to create these interesting organic objects andbeautiful scenes. I was really pumped on how they turned out."

Catch more of Camacho's works on his site, Raw & Rendered, Facebook and Instagram.

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