David Padilla pushes the boundaries of digital design with dark fantasies

All three of David’s artwork are rendered in Redshift. He likes this engine so he can pay particular attention to the light and texture of a scene. “The overall lighting of the three scenes is dramatic,” he adds, underlining the element of mystery in each animation. He also utilised Area Lighting to further the contrast between light and dark to achieve this mood. Other than being rendered in Redshift, David uses different software and resources in each artwork to further challenge himself and also go above and beyond with the brief.

In Below Zero, the artist interrogates different textures and organic growths. An icy liquid spreads across the scene, freezing everything in its path. “The aim is to translate the power of nature,” he explains of the complex scene which adds another layer of complexity to Gravity. He chose the icy liquid as he wanted this artwork to drastically alter the previous scene and, in turn, create an entirely different mood. To create the shape that grows from the soil, he enacted “a system of Splines created in X-Particles that uses Vdb to represent the shape.” He then programmed the particles to have a period of emission time to make the “disappearing effect”.

Once David was happy with the overall look of the animations, he took the final compositions back into Cinema4D and Redshift in order to replicate textures and light systems across the three consistent artworks. The result is three wonderfully engaging animations that pull the viewer into the scene. No stranger to working with texture, lighting and themes of organic matter, David was able to push the technical execution of each composition to do something different while being recognisable as a triptych series. Each artwork explores a different dark fantasy, a creative explosion of David’s vision which unites organic matter with groundbreaking digital technologies.

With a myriad of tools and techniques at his fingertips thanks to ConceptD 7 SpatialLabs Edition, David was able to push himself creatively beyond just the technicalities of the animations. Letting his imagination run wild, he injected a distinct personality into each artwork, the small details making all the difference through the smallest of details. The machine allowed him to zoom in on the depth of the digital surfaces, allowing the designer to realise out of the box 3D experiences that otherwise would not have been possible. With detailed 4K colour accuracy, optimised vortex flow, increased connectivity and plenty of other SpatialLabs Technology to tap into, David was able to dig further into his creative process, and as a result, find new meanings within his work.

“Most projects are defined by creative restrictions so you cannot express certain feelings or get out a script,” David finally goes on to say. “But you can always contribute your own stamp to improve the scenes at hand and make the result more impactful. Whatever the level of expertise I can offer in a project, I connect with the art and feel it somehow. Therefore my artworks are much more than the highly technical process, they are full of meaning.”