From Dreams to Blockbusters: An interview with Fausto de Martini

You worked on some iconic details of the Avengers films, like Hawkeye’s equipment and the all-powerful Infinity Gauntlet.
Superhero films have been on the rise in recent years. Have you got any favorites among them – the heroes, the stories, and the cinematics?

In the Star Wars sequels, you reimagined the Tie Fighters.
Did it feel pressure or inspiration – working on the visuals that millions of Star War fans know and love?
What’s your favorite Star Wars film or show?

I felt a lot of pressure working on the Tie Fighters, since it is such an iconic design and loved by many fans. I ended up doing many rounds of design where I pushed in different directions with different wing designs, but the director preferred something very close to the original.
So, I never say I “designed” the new Tie Fighter, since it was designed by the brilliant Colin Cantwell (inspired by George Lucas’ napkin sketch) and Joe Johnston, which added all the amazing details you see in the Star Wars movies. So, I always say that I “added some cosmetic changes” to the original design.

My favorite Star Wars movie is Empire Strikes Back. I think they really pushed the quality and storytelling in the second film, and that whole sequence with the AT-AT Walkers in the snow… it was all done in 1980!!! Still holds up and looks awesome.

The Transformers was another beloved franchise that you got to work on, designing the ship and weapons of the deadly mercenary Lockdown.
How did you get this opportunity?

I was very lucky that the Production Designer Jeffrey Beecroft found my concept design blog, when blogs were still a thing.
My blog had only my personal works, like robots and creatures I have been designing in my spare time. I guess he liked some of them and contacted me.
I also had done quite a bit of concept work on the RoboCop reboot and one of the Art Directors knew my name from the project.
I had a meeting with Jeffrey and decided to start working in film full-time at that point.

And then Terminator Dark Fate brought a whole new idea for the Terminator franchise, where the liquid metal was combined with a solid endoskeleton. You helped create the design, can you tell us a bit about the process?

Is working on indie projects, like Kill Command, different from dealing with big franchises?

How do you manage your work? What stages are there as you progress from beginning to the completion of the project?

How do you prepare the materials and textures for the models? Do you create new textures for your work?

I have been creating and saving V-Ray shaders since I started working as a freelance concept artist, so at this point I have a library with hundreds of shaders, separated by type, like anodized metal, composite materials, plastic, cloth, wood, etc.
I use some procedural techniques applying a Vray dirt on blend materials to accentuate crevices and edges and using tileable maps.
That allows me to quickly get to a result where it looks like I unwrapped UVs and textured everything, but in fact is all Box, Cylindrical, Planar UVW Map modifier and these shaders.

What’s the final appearance of the models when you finish working on them?
Do you work on some nuances after you pass the finished models to the next stage?

I usually add as much detail in 3d as possible, especially since that allows me to render multiple angles.
There are some rare cases where I do 2d passes on Photoshop to explore decals and part lines, but generally I have to apply them back in 3D after it gets approved.

How does the animation process of the models happen? Is it something done by you, or is it a team effort?
How does it affect the final appearance of the models?

The final animations are all done by the talented team of various VFX houses (they are the heroes that really make the movies look amazing, taking our designs to the next level), but I tend to design thinking of range of motion and functionality as much as possible since that affects the design directly.
So, I do simple setups using forward kinematics (linking objects to dummies, etc.) and sometimes using biped in the case of a robot for example which helps inform the animators of how the vehicle or machine works.

Do you work on scenes where the machines are destroyed? This part seems just incredible. Does it require teamwork?

What programs and technologies do you use to create 3D models and animations?
Did you develop some helpful approaches while working on your projects?

How helpful is Project Manager in your work? In which projects did you use it, and where did it show the best results?

What inspires you to create the designs for the films you work on? Did any real-life mechanisms provide inspiration?

I draw my inspiration mostly from real-world designs, especially construction equipment. I think the research is key and keeping a large number of references is very important to analyze how machines work, the purpose of their designs, etc.

How do you provide the futuristic look to the mechanisms you design while making them look realistic and functional at the same time?
Do you consult engineers or other specialists?

I studied how real machines work, buying books and watching YouTube videos of vehicles and robotic engineering.
Also, having worked for a robotic company as a designer really helped me to understand how engineers work to create effective designs built for specific purposes.

Do you sometimes look back at your early works, and compare them with what you’re doing today?

What advice would you give to the many young and beginning specialists who’ll be reading this interview?
What main steps would you recommend in their professional development?
What deserves special attention, what life-changing steps are necessary to go as far as you managed?

With the emerging technologies we are witnessing it might be discouraging to some artists, but I believe we must work hard and strengthen our skills. Fundamental knowledge such as basic drawing skills is always very helpful and looking at how real machines/vehicles/robots are assembled and how they work is key. In the case of creature design, studying real anatomy to understand bone structures, how muscles overlap, etc., is very important. But then, to apply that, you should learn a 3D application to be able to apply your design knowledge and think “in 3D” versus staying in the 2d space.

Also, I can see tools getting faster so I highly recommend investing time to learn some storytelling techniques and start thinking larger, like creation of worlds, characters, and so on, so you can become a “world builder” versus an “asset builder”.

How did you come up with the idea of Project EDGE? What was your goal? What was the most fun thing about making it?

I came up with that when I felt that doing so many personal projects without connection to each other was fun, but I should invest my time in creating something bigger.
So, I started to write some basic outlines of a near-future reality, where political powers in the world shifted and space military became a focus. Also, large robotic corporations started to race against each other to create more advanced robots and Quantum Processing chips running powerful AI software, so in the world of Project EDGE robots are already a part of the daily life and creating tensions with job replacement and military use.

Let’s talk about Project EDGE 2 Art Book. When did you decide to make it?
How different is the finished version from what you had planned in the beginning?
Did you manage to put everything that you wanted in the art book?

To establish the world of EDGE I released an e-book in 2015. It was small with only 60 pages, but it was enough to give the readers a glimpse of the world and different factions. Then right after I released Project EDGE 2, I started to work on the second book… and I wanted to tell the story of a small group of special operation soldiers that are dropped into a mission in Siberia to retrieve a Data Drive and realize they became part of a larger and dangerous mission.
After finishing the story, called “Into the Darkness”, with two other writers I started to work hard to developing the characters, vehicles and all the environments in which the mission takes place, I started to work on the space designs, which is an expansion of the EDGE universe where humans begin to establish bases in Mars after building a large Space Elevator that serves as a space port, where the assembly of spaceships and various kinds of researches take place.