Student Showcase - the art of Sabah Masood

Sabah Masood is one of our many talented students here at Bucks, specialising in 3D modeling - with a focus on design and architectural visualisation. She is in her final graduation year, but she has already established a successful freelance career doing digital 3D modeling for clients such as Pinewood Studios and many others. We asked her about her work, and about how she managed to launch a freelance career at such an early stage.

Bucks: You have already established a successful freelance career – who are you working for?

Sabah: I currently work for SpotMatik, one of the smaller companies intertwined with Pinewood. This department specializes in live stock footage (with Visual Effects) for health and the global environment.

My role is to model the props and models for the VFX artists to take them into their live footage and composite them. In addition to this, I am a freelance artist working on three other commisions; live projects related to 3D architectural visualization. 

For the last 4 years, the Amersham & Wycombe college hosts an end of year show that lasts for a week. This show is open to the industry and public. the purpose for this event is for students to display their work and make awareness of their skills to the industry. Sony and Pinewood Studios were among the VIP guests to appear at the show. They saw my work on display and left me their business card to get into contact with them. Soon I went for an interview and we agreed on a few projects. It's very important to make your showcase look professional with business cards. these cards can be used even outside of work. they will be passed around and eventually, your reputation will grow.

Bucks: What project has been the most fun to work on?

Sabah: Every project is fun and exciting as you learn new techniques each time as well as improving you skills. However, creating a virtual news studio for Centroid In Amersham College was the most fun to work on. This is because I was the test model to try out the virtual studio with real camera settings.

 My job was to create the virtual set, (concept, design, model, lighting and rendering). When the model was complete, virtual cameras were added into the scene using the Centroid Motion Capture system which allowed me be the news reporter in my environment. The time that goes into one Project is worth it seeing your work come alive!



Bucks: What have been some of the biggest challenges?

Sabah: Biggest challenges would be working in Live projects that require specific details and features to be completed. for example, I am currently designing a restaurant for a client in Chesham. As this is a live project, the client requires a photo-realistic scene with accurate furnishings and measurements. you have so much freedom when you are working on personal projects so it is easy to experiment and get carried away; but when you are working for a client, you are restricted to what you can do! but it is still an exciting experience.

Bucks: What advice would you give to any student at Bucks who wants to take on freelance work?

Sabah: My advice to students is this:

There is work out there. All the studios I have spoken to, they all say the same thing: "We are not always looking for someone who has a degree; if the person is good at what they do and have a strong passion for it... they are more likely to get the role".

Promote your work from a very early stage! get business cards, blog, website (pay the extra for a premium... its worth it) and speak to everyone about what you do. Even in situations you won't think of speaking about what you do, just do it... this information are passed around and you never know it might reach a person who wants something done. Don't be afraid to show your work to people, even if you don't feel its good, its still good to get a different perspective.

If you want to work on freelance projects whilst continuing your degree, make sure you are capable of working on a freelance project as well as your university projects. for a career in animation, we all know how complicated and time-consuming it can be - so just be aware that if you have a live project, you will need to put in twice the effort in order to make sure you can meet both your uni deadlines and your work deadlines. the last thing you want to do is become overloaded with work - which can lead to illness. So, be prepared and be willing! Your client may not be impressed if you decide to cancel your job half way through.


You can see more of Sabah's work at her deviantart page here.

For more on the experience of studying at Bucks New University, come and visit us at one of our Open Days,  take a virtual tour of one of our animation studios, check out what our students think of our course, and see why we're ranked in the top 12 creative universities in the UK. Find out why we're giving free laptops to all our students, and why we give all our students free access to videos at Lynda.com. Also, see what financial assistance might be available to you. Learn which is better for animation, a PC or a Mac? Get hold of a copy of a map so you can find your way around campus, and learn about motion capture at Bucks.

 To see more work by our talented undergraduate students and recent graduates, check out the work of Andy Thomas here. Also see our latest commercial project for Rocketseed, our short film done for a global aid agency, and take a look at the excellent work of designer Monika Dzikowicz, architectural visualisation specialist Krsytof Michalski, Alex Whitfield and the 3D artwork of Mike Swan.)