I’m Nickels, aka Nicholas King and I’m a 3D Artist. I work as Head of CG in a post-production studio for films and commercials. I’ve been in this industry for over a decade, working on everything from 2D, 3D, full CG commercials, and visual effects for movies, so I would call myself a generalist when it comes to my talent.

You can find my work here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickels
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nickels
Genius: https://genius.com/artists/nickels-nicholas-king
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/notnickels
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/notnickels

1.) What elements and/or characteristics made you say to yourself that you wanted to do Computer Graphics for a living? Who are your influences/heroes/role models?

It must’ve started at a young age. I mean, I have always been into art and the process of creating things. The biggest role model to me would be my father. He dabbles in art but he got me really into computer graphics when he brought home 3DStudio and installed it on our home computer. I couldn’t keep my hands off of it, and worked on a fully 3D short film as my first school project when I was 10 years old.

2.) If you could compare yourself to someone who is already established in your line of work, who would that be and why? If you don’t like to compare yourself, then what separates you from other everyone else who does what you do?

I like to work on outlandish ideas. Things that are not the norm, and use everything I’ve learned in my professional experience. Sometimes the ideas that I execute are so far out, but done so well, it leaves viewers baffled. I created a Pokemon GO video on my YouTube that went viral. It was just a bunch of Pokemon that were thrown out of a military aircraft and splatted on the ground. It was rendered to look photo-realistic, and simulated using an industry-standard crowd engine, Golaem. It left a lot of viewers asking how, but also why? This is the impression that I like to leave, and it’s what I’ve been doing on my Instagram page ‘Nickels’ lately.

3.) Everyone in life goes through adversity of some sort. Is there anything in your life that has any influence on the work that you do? What is the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure on your path to becoming who you are?

The two difficult hurdles that come to mind would be one of the obvious ones, which is dealing with restrictions on projects. This can come from budget limitations, brand requirements, or deadlines from clients. But I always look at it as problem-solving, and finding the best outcome out of those restrictions. The second thing that comes to mind would be a lot of the backlash I received through comments and direct messages on Instagram. Since my work look very real, people tend to get fooled by it even though I mention on my profile and across the internet that I work in film and commercials, and that I’m an artist.

4.) How do you prepare yourself to create? What is your process?

Speaking about the work on my Nickels Instagram page, the thing about what I do revolves around a very strict pipeline. There are stages to pass and execute before moving forward. I wish it were as free as to just mess around, and maybe that is possible on smaller, simpler projects. But when I’m doing most of my work, it’s a process. I first sit with the collaborator and we juggle ideas, bouncing off each other and piggybacking off of any campaigns happening around his/her career. Once we have a clear enough idea, we shoot a video and I take over the project. I start by creating proxy footage, whether it is to clear up track marks, or visualize what the setup will be. Then I start tracking the shot and proof the track to make sure it looks convincing and works. Modeling of the device or concept begins, and after this process, I drop it in the track and start setting up the animation – if it opens, or does some kind of function. Once that’s complete – I’m in the home stretch, I do the lighting setup, render, and finally composite everything.

5.) Unfortunately many industries are full of talented individuals who more or less become the “starving artist” and don’t get any recognition for their talent and/or hard work. What do you plan to do to make sure you stand out and get noticed?

Trust the grind, as long as you’re passionate about it. I would consider myself a ‘successful’ starving artist. I started out as an intern, making nickels for my hard work, but I loved what I did so I never stopped. I slowly got better, more experienced, and in time, kept moving up in my industry. This meant more exposure to interesting work, a bigger network of clients and friends, and ultimately more responsibilities.

6.) Would you rather work for a big corporation or would you rather stay independent? Why or why not? What makes one better than the other? Are you able to make a living with your art? If so, how were you able to attain a career doing what you love? If not, what do you do in order to fund your business? What advice would give to someone who’s interested in pursuing a career in the creative industry?

There really isn’t a perfect answer for this. I had an Art Director once who worked side by side with me when I was a CG Supervisor. We were both passionate about what we did, and we are very close friends. The only difference is that we are very opposite in where we stand – working under a company, and staying independent. I feel as a true strong artist would rather stay independent, which was his outlook on things. Working under a company will draw limitations to your creations, so you’ll need to able to bend and warp your ideas to fit the client needs. This doesn’t usually sit well with strong artists. I work at a post-production studio, so I’m fortunate enough to make a living doing this. I understand the bread and butter work needs to happen, so I supplement my cravings with doing what you see on my Instagram page, Nickels. This is more of a hobby for fun, and gets me back into creating things that I love. At the same time, it’s able to bring my team and I extra work because of the exposure. We’ve been privileged to be able to work on music videos, and visualizers because of it.

7.) How do you think the internet and social media affected the creative industry and how artists are able to market themselves? Social media is obviously an extremely important element in today’s world, especially when it comes to business, branding, marketing, etc. With that being said, do you think an artist will be able to survive in today’s economy if they’re not social media savvy?

Social media is extremely important in my industry. If you’re doing art professionally for media, this means you’re doing it for people to see, brands to get noticed, projects to get recognition, etc. We can all agree that YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, these are all platforms that are beating TV and film. The amount of viewers on these channels are tremendously high, which is why it isn’t surprising that agencies and clients are purchasing media spots in these outlets. Unless you’re very lucky and you’ve found a very unique niche where you can market your art outside of the digital world we live in today, I don’t think you will survive without understanding social media.

8.) Typically, entrepreneurs who try to create products and/or services for mass consumption for the general public and make more money are seen as “sell-outs.” Do you see it that way and if so, what do you plan to do to make sure that what you offer stays true to your brand and make a good living at the same time without having to “sell out”?

It’s easy to label someone as selling out. But I truly believe that there are two types of sell-outs. Entrepreneurs have a very strong characteristic in that they move from project to project as each one finishes and becomes successful. This could be considered a sell-out, where he/she puts in the work, get’s it to an appropriate level, and sells out to leave it behind and move to the next thing. There isn’t anything wrong with this and sometimes is completely the right move. The other type of sell-out would be doing the exact same thing, but staying put and using that success to push a platform and branch out to make it better. This reminds me of the Hydraulic Press Channel on YouTube. After they became extremely popular, they didn’t just drop what they were doing and run away with the cash. They grew as a channel and started Beyond The Press, which hosted so many other different kinds of episodes that have nothing to do with a Hydraulic Press. It’s really quite fascinating how far they’ve come.

9.) Professionally, where do you see yourself 5 years from now?

I always get this question, and I can only say that I love what I do, and the industry that I am in – so I don’t see myself doing anything other than that. I’ll be concentrating on my brand Nickels on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, so let’s see where we go from here!

Thank you so much for this interview!
Nicholas King ‘Nickels’