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- Tell us a little about yourself, what have you accomplished in life?<table align="right" width="310px" bgcolor="#333333" border="1"><tr><td><center>
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I was born in 1978 in Azerbaijan, Baku which was then a part of the USSR. Due to early divorce of my parents (I was only 1 year old) I was growing up at my granny’s house with my mother, grandpa and grandma surrounded by their love and attention as I was the only child in the family. As my father is a traditional artist my mom thought it would be a good idea to sign me up to take a course in one of the local art studios to see if I could be an artist. Well... I hated it instantly. It’s strange cos I always loved drawing but I found it annoying and extremely boring sitting there for hours and trying to give shape to an apple or peach in vase or something like that. Later in high school I regained my love to drawing and did really well drawing futuristic cars, strange structures and creatures and simply “graffiti” style-like words in my schoolmates’ exercise books.
I graduated from State University of Art in Baku in 1999 and started working immediately after that as a 3D artist on one of the local TV channels. Before then in early 90’s I recall a great desire to learn 3D and CG in general, so I started learning 3D Studio Max, Maya, which was quite a challenge itself that time cos there was almost no information and tutorials on how to do serious stuff. There were a couple of good books on 3D Studio Max 2.0 and Photoshop in my town but by that time I couldn’t even think of spending 70-90$ on a book. So I kept learning CG stuff on various sometimes hard-to-see-anything scanned docs occasionally picked by me from various sources and official documentation which was of great help. May sound strange but internet was quite expensive to use at that time, but I managed to use internet for free at my workplace in late 90’s. Lots of things changed since then. There is lots of info and tons of great learning material. So now it became only a matter of desire, which is the most important motivation.
Nowadays I work as a freelance 2D\3D artist and animator on quite a wide range of visual products. Mostly producing graphics for TV commercials, Broadcast design, Music Videos etc. My immersion into 2D digital painting started soon after I had bought Wacom graphics tablet and started to use it in my work. Some of my 2D artwork were awarded by various CG related internet resources, were featured in several magazines and published in such books as Australian printed matter “Expose” and Russian “POINT-1” and “POINT-2”.
Being a huge fan of Fallout 1 and 2, I always wanted to be a part of it somehow. This desire led me to draw a couple of pieces like “City Ruins” and “Café of Broken Dreams” in post-apoc genre which turned out to be a good idea, as the both pieces (totally unexpectedly for me) received very good community response and soon became quite popular.
- What are your favorite computer games/board games and why?
Speaking of the brightest memories regarding board games I recall myself being a 7-9 year old boy inventing simple games on paper and playing them with every family member and whoever got in my way, sometimes even with myself
My first console game which I loved madly was legendary Earthworm Jim on SEGA platform. Even today I think it’s the best there is for consoles. Then there was MJ’s Moonwalker which was played millions of times by me.
Concerning PC games besides Fallout and everything that has relationship with it, I tenderly love all Need For Speed series (except the last “pro-street” one maybe). My favorite ones are the 3rd, Porsche and Underground series of it. Concerning Action games I’m completely in love with Mafia. Just love the whole storyline, characters, actors’ work and amazing feel of “old times” that guys from Illusion Softworks implemented in their Game. I still play Mafia sometimes, magnificent from all sides. Max Payne-1 and 2 was another big revelation for me. It’s unique style and atmosphere, amazing details even for today’s demand and superb dynamic gameplay are incredible. Used to sit on it days and nights.
- What hobbies do you have besides computer games?
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</center></tr></td></table>I like playing the guitar and singing. I’m not a pro with guitar but can accompany myself pretty well. I even got a couple of Depeche Mode’s songs recorded in studio – “Enjoy the silence” and “Freelove”. I like reading a lot. This is an approximate top list of my favourite authors: Anar, Chekhov, Zoshenko, Ilf&Petrov, Jerome Salinger, Jack London, O.Henry etc.
- What are your favorite bands/artists (music)?
Well, the whole list might be pretty big but my favorite band is definitely Depeche Mode. Just mad about some of their legendary songs like “Enjoy the Silence”, ”World in My Eyes”. “In Your Room”, “Freelove” etc. They are very close thematically to Fallout, it always seemed to me for some reason.
- Tell us a little about your role in the making of Fallout 1/2/3 (Van Buren)/Tactics/FOOL?
In the end of 2007 I was offered a contract work as a concept artist by Jason Anderson, Creative Director at Interplay. He found my online portfolio browsing CG forums and sent me a letter with this offer. Thanks to Thomas Beekers from NMA who gave Jason my contacts
I understood the responsibility of making real Fallout art for a real Fallout project and I realized it would be different from other fan art I did earlier. So I declined all other local offers that I had by that time and started working on the basis of Jason’s directions. It was really exciting to work with Jason. The man who really knows what the real Fallout is all about. His directions and valuable advice were really of irreplaceable help. I discovered many new fine points concerning things that make Fallout so unique.
- What's your favourite Fallout memory?
My favorite Fallout memory would probably be the moment when I first bought the CD with the Game and.. threw it away instantly! Yes. My brain wasn’t ready for it yet. It absolutely wasn’t ready for “turn-based combat” system. Wasn’t ready for not being a superhero right from the start with the Big Gun in my hands. It all came much, much later. Almost half a year later. It was sometime in 1999 if I recall it right. Slowly I got to the philosophy of Fallout Universe. I started to live on its rules and laws. I spent days and nights living with it. Living with my character’s problems and goals, having great fun speaking with people and discovering new places, getting more and more experienced spending hours on thinking which Skill to spend valuable points onto. There was no other game that would have such influence on me the way Fallout did.
- What specifically inspired Fallout for you? What were the biggest influences?
There is a couple of movies that had a big thematic and visual influence on me. They are “Johnny mnemonic” and “5th Element”
- Pop Culture played a big role in Fallout, what pop culture influences you?
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</center></tr></td></table>I think I have to say that I am actually letting Pop Culture influence myself in a reasonable amount, of course. Implementing elements of Pop Culture into Fallout is one of the main things that keeps it from being too unreal and too futuristic, unrecognizable. They say to you “hey, this can happen pretty soon, man, avoid looking disappointed!” etc. The strongest influence would probably come from Michael Jackson of “Thriller” to “Bad” period, his incredible music videos, Elvis and all retro stuff in general.
- How was it to be a part of the Fallout team?
Well, my answer is pretty obvious. It was awesome to be a part of it. It was a real wish back in 90’s when I stared at Interplay’s globe spinning in the intro video with it’s magic “By Gamers, For Gamers” words surrounding it and wishing to be a part of it somehow.
- Were there things that you wished you had added to either Fallouts?
Well there are things that I definitely would like to see in future Fallouts. One of them – more recognizable places. I mean it would be really exciting to walk through destroyed New York, or may be Washington. Yes I know they are regularly being destroyed in movies lots of times but in movies you only watch it for a few seconds, you never have chance to actually stop and look around finding things that are familiar to your eye, making your heart squeeze and feel something. That’s exactly what I want to do every time I watch movies featuring massive destruction – stop the moment and look around, have time to think about what happened, have enough time to realize that all of this might not be too far.
- What were you favourite places in fallout and why?
I like New Reno for its retro architecture, impressive characters and overall feel of once extremely glamour and ambitious, now almost completely destroyed place. There are so many interesting things to discover there. It’s exciting to see New Reno setting in Fallout cos’ this is a real place. Like I mentioned before I wish there were more real places in Fallout. NR for me is definitely one of the brightest spots on Fallout map.
- What is your hope for future Fallout games? Would you like to be a part of a future Fo team?
First of all I would like to see future Fallout games staying true to its original canon. I wouldn’t probably want to see it forced to fit any up-to-date demands be it visual component or thematic approach. I also wouldn’t want to see future Fallout games going halfway TPS\FPS or featuring a kind of blend between two. To my own opinion the perfect choice for today (2008) would be completely 3D isometric view with ability to zoom things in and out a little. I can name Titan Quest as a good example of implementing such approach. Just imagine walking through destroyed New York on that kind of graphic engine. Would look awesome I think. And yes, of course I would like to be a part of future fallout team. One of the biggest dreams maybe.
- Who would you bring with you in a future Fallout team and why?
It would be an honour for me to be involved in future Fallout projects with someone like Jason Anderson, Tim Cain, Chris Taylor, Leonard Boyarsky and many others who was at the very beginning of making original Fallouts. These guys are far more than just developers of cool games. Would be great to work in such team.
- In your opinion, what are the key ingredients that every RPG should have?
I believe that the very key ingredient of any good RPG is the storyline and only after it – visual component. It must be like a good book to read days and nights. What is the real magic of the book? To me – it's the ability to visualize words in our imagination. Words in a book can describe anything from love to hate, from small hut to whole towns and so on. That is the real magic about the first Fallout games – even today, when there are lots of visually eye-catching games, people still play it. Besides the fact that there are lots of visually cool stuff in first Fallout games you can imagine anything you want behind even a standard cave Tile (or should I say - Word). It’s strange but there were no tiles that looked repeating to me. That is what makes Fallout so unique. Everyone can build the world he was dreaming of in it. Results may vary.
- Where do you see computer RPGs going?
That’s a tough one. Well I think they evolve right, but the classic RPGs are not going in a very optimistic direction. More and more games today are being developed and adapted for consoles. It's today’s demand and there’s nothing to do about it. Consoles do require different approaches and dictate different laws and I don’t think that the classic RPG genre is going to survive untouched to fit into Console “philosophy”. May sound sad but let’s see where this road will lead us.
- How does the fan base hinder/help the projects that you've worked on?
Fan base was always one of the most important driving forces and great inspiration for me. Every task requires good motivation to be successfully accomplished. In my case, I always think about what could fans say or think when they look at something that I’ve done. It is a well-known fact that Fallout fans are one of the most exigent, passionate and sensible fans on Earth
So it’s really hard to predict what they would and what they wouldn’t accept. But it’s a bit easier for me cos I am a real dedicated fan myself and that helps me a lot. I know for sure what I would die to see pictured, which theme I’d like to see visually discovered and it turns out to be a good approach as I still get lots of positive comments on every piece I’ve made. There’s no bigger award for me than such comments.
- When planning the story how do you go through the process of integrating themes and story with the constraints on software?
That’s what is cool about being concept artist – there are absolutely no software constraints. I’m only worried about everything to look cool and correspond to the given task. <table align="right" width="310px" bgcolor="#333333" border="1"><tr><td><center>
</center></tr></td></table>Sometimes I see the complete picture quite clear in my imagination and sometimes I have absolutely no idea what will happen when I open a new file in Photoshop or start sketching on a piece of paper. I really enjoy telling a story of what happened in detail, try to analyze and sometimes predict the consequences. I widely use 3D in my 2D artwork. Say if I need a complex construction I tend to have it loosely modeled in any 3D package and then go totally in detail in Photoshop.
- If you could make any computer game that you wanted, which would it be and why?
Well I’d love to work on something featuring America of 30’s. And that would probably be something like Mafia 2 or 3. I’d really love immersing into all of that retro stuff trying to capture the feel of old times. That’s the theme that interests me a lot today besides post-apoc genre.
- Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Oh.. can’t predict things that far really.. 10 years is a significant layer of time. Lots of things changed during the last 10 years. I changed a lot. Anything can happen. But one thing I know for sure – in next 10 years I will be learning, learning and learning. There’s so much to learn, so much to discover. I hope I have enough time to carry out everything I plan in my life. Have enough time to live it in...highest possible resolution and on highest levels of details
- Any last word to the Fallout fan base?
Thank you so much. Thanks a lot for your comments and constructive criticism. Without your continuous support and inspiration lots of things would never happen in my life. Thanks for everything.