Meet the Masters: Alex Meister (aka dark-minaz)

The Sketchfab Masters are a group of super passionate and active community members. They are helping us run community activities, write tutorials and help out community members with support and feedback.

Today, meet Alex Meister, one of our long-time members whose specialty lies in props and beautifully detailed weapons.

Background

Ohayo, I’m Alex Meister, a Generalist in 2D and 3D from Switzerland. Currently living in the Kingdom of Wonder, Cambodia. I did work on a lot of freelance 2D jobs, but I am mostly focusing on improving my 3D skills, Working as a Freelancer and on my Private Project “The Digital Armory”. In 3D, I mostly focus on doing things that I am interested in (mainly swords) and pieces that I just feel like I need to do them at least once.

For 2D I mainly use Photoshop and Illustrator and for 3D I use Maya, 3D-Coat, and Substance.

Specialization

As an IT student prior to switching into art in the form of a game design diploma, my expertise lies mostly in understanding how things are made and how to optimize my models. I enjoy learning programs from the ground up to the point of finding their limits, so I like to improve my Field of Knowledge at a constant pace. During my studies, I started working with After Effects, Adobe Flash, and Unity to create little movies, games, and programs.

Using Sketchfab

I found Sketchfab via a contest in July 2013. Minions where the huge hype during that time, so Steve became my first online 3D Model:

After moving and not having too much time for 3D my account became a bit idle until around 2015. Ever since I started optimizing my models for 3D view and learning how to improve my models via textures, better topology, and better UV’s.

One of my proudest models currently is the Legendary Frostmourne:

And my Majin Buu, where I had the chance to work with another artist:

I have 375 models currently on my Sketchfab page and probably a lot more in the future.

Recently, I started to use the Transfluence on one of my newest models to give it a better Glow effect in combination with some of the newer post effects like SSAO. There are always new ways to make your models stand out on Sketchfab.

Work as a Sketchfab Master

My main focus as a Sketchfab Master is improving art, helping out by giving good feedback (see my article about giving feedback), working with Support in trying to fix issues as fast as possible, and creating tutorials.

I also love being part of the contests here on Sketchfab (like the 3D Editor challenge) and am active on the New Sketchfab Discord Server.

Check everything out on my ArtStation!