Felix Chandran

An interesting thing these days, artists or should I say, digital artists constantly chattering about the latest software or upgrade that was launched. The fact remains that no matter what software we use, the focus is clear: to bring your imagination to reality.



I’m a digital artist with no educational background in Art whatsoever. I started drawing since I don’t remember. My parents have always treasured some of my kid scribbles.

Looking back now, I still admire my creativity at that age. Not to boast, but the truth is that a child’s mind lives in an another reality, a place where any thing is possible. You would have heard this before, but I am a living example of a mind in another reality. I’ve got the ticket to Neverland, North Pole, Yavin, Tattooine, Endor, Middle Earth and places that you dream of. And I play God there. I create and destroy what you see, that’s the power I have and a few of you have. The rest of the unfortunate just go about living their lives from morning to evening dreading the suppression of the Ticking Crocodile.

The ticket to these places lie deep within, a place in our hearts and minds that we bury as we grow older. Our childhood. If you had ever watched a movie, tele-serial or even read a book and felt that you could be one of the characters and that life would be like in a fairy tale, think again. We as kids lived happy, living a fairy tale before the nightmare of crude reality swallowed us.

Today, as an artist without the knowledge of traditional art techniques, I must say that my artistic capabilities has been exposed through computer software. Photoshop 5 was the first art software I used, and I’ve been hooked on ever since. I went on a learning rampage for 3 years exploring probably every 2d, 3d software available on the planet. Maya, 3dsmax, Bryce, Blender, Zbrush, Softimage, you name it, I’ve tried it. Premiere, Vegas, Avid HD, Media Composer, they’ve soiled my hands. The point I was trying to make was that I wasn’t interested in any particular software to get a job, but to find out which software would bring out my creativity.

The beauty of computer graphics is the ability to come up with amazing pieces of work in the shortest time possible. It has been 9 years now since I got my first computer. The engineer had installed Photoshop 5.5 and 3d Studio Max R3 on my machine. I started fiddling with Photoshop and started getting the hang of it. Created some doodles but I needed more.



I feel nostalgic when I look at the images above. Having finished my higher secondary education in 2000, I joined the B.Com degree program at Pondicherry University. Apart from which I enrolled onto the CA course as well. Every Sunday, I was supposed to go for classes but I failed to do so as usual. Frustrated with how my life was going, I used to head for the beach and enjoy the freedom that nature enjoyed. But shortly I decided to quit my college studies and pursue my real interest that is Art. My Dad got me into my first multimedia course at Pentagon Academy and life changed from there. Having a background in Photoshop boosted my interest once the classes started. My trainer Mr.Vignesh was a pivotal person in my career. He used to guide me and encourage me to keep exploring. But the company was facing problems and Mr. Vignesh had to leave. Another person was appointed. Mr Sasikumar had a background in the Media Industry and he cultivated my interest into the 3d realm. I didn’t enjoy 3d that much back then due to the complexity of the software, but thanks to my friend Jayan Joseph, I started exploring the possibilities of 3d generated art. Our project at Pentagon was the re-creation of the classic ‘bullet time effect’. We were inspired after watching ‘The Matrix’ and 2 months later we decided to create a 3d duplicate of the same effect.



Using 120 cameras in our 3d scene, and nearly 10 hours of rendering, we managed to create the 20 sec logo animation. Our Institute was impressed by our work and that was it. My career was set.

Pentagon Academy, the institute where I was doing my multimedia course had some major financial crisis. The faculty were agitated and left the following month. Unable to find a replacement to continue our course, the management informed the students that the course will continue in the following month, after which we were supposed to have on-the-job training. The call never came. After making endless queries to the company, we discovered that the company had shut down and we were not going to get our money back. We as students threatened to file a case against the company but it was of no use. Eventually, we came back disheartened.

Some of the students tried to get a job to recover the money they had lost. As for me, I decided to learn the softwares on my own. My parents were supportive and with a 256kbps connection I started browsing the web for tutorials and I started my learning rampage. I created some works which came in handy in the months to follow.

A few months later, a friend told me of a company that offered multimedia course with scholarship. I left the next day with a CD filled with my ‘home’ work and hoped for the best. The institute was Digiscape Gallery where I would spend the next one year learning and teaching.

Digiscape Gallery was a small company that was offering basic courses in Multimedia. I opted for a Diploma in Multimedia technologies, with a 40% scholarship. The good part of the institute was that the faculty were very supportive and I must say that a good part of my training came from that place. My faculty Mr.Ramesh was well versed with most of the multimedia softwares. I aspired to be like him.

I finished my course and started working on my project. It took me a month to complete the work. I had created a 40 second animation trailer for one of my own concepts: Spiderman 2030. Come on, my creative roots are from comics and I’m a Spiderman comics fan! Anyways, I decided to do the project at home since the computers at Digiscape couldn’t handle my renders. In fact, my SMPS blew up while rendering one of my scenes. After totally 120 hours of modeling, animation, composting, rendering and editing, I managed to finish the trailer and deliver the project (I was the last in my batch to submit it). Mr. Ramesh looked at it and stared at the screen. 40 seconds passed. He played it again. And again and again. Then he asked me one question. “you did this?”.

The project became a landmark at Digiscape and they started using my project for showcasing. A few days later, while I was collecting my Certificate, the management asked me what I planned to do next. I said I wanted to teach.

I left for Bangalore for my Christmas holidays and when I came back, I had an offer letter at my doorstep. I reported immediately and was excited about my new adventure. I had never had the experience of teaching anyone before leave alone standing in front of a crowd. But  the next 6 months was probably a turning point in my life.

To be Continued…