Goro Fujita was born in Japan and moved to Germany with his family when he was two and a half years old. After finishing high school, he founded a company called "Quaintix" with a friend for which he did graphic design and programming work. Meantime, he got interested in 3D animation. So in 2002, he left Quaintix and started studying at the German Film School for digital production. His passion for animation grew stronger and drawing remained as a hobby. During the 3 years he spent there, he gained a lot of experience in many areas like the whole 2D and 3D filmmaking processes, from the initial idea to the finished piece, working on digital painting. He graduated from the German Film School in March 2005, specialized on 3D character animation and since then he’s worked as a freelance 3D character animator and visual development artist in Germany. Goro Fujita’s skills are as impressive as the number of languages he speaks. It looks as if Goro is always looking for new fields. He already masters animation, modelling and traditional sketching and goes on experimenting.

IT'S ART : It's not usual to meet digital artists who are familiar with 2D/3D graphic skills as well as animation and CG lighting. How have you become so versatile?

Goro Fujita : Back in high school, I had always wanted to work in a creative field. I have been fascinated by drawing ever since I was a little child. So my first goal was to become a graphic designer. I did web and logo designs back in the days, but it never gave me the satisfaction I was looking for. Then I saw the amazing animation ‘Alien Song’ done by Victor Navone in 1999. It totally blew me away and I got interested in 3D animation. I had a strong feeling that 3D animation was what I really wanted to do. The studies at The German Film School for digital production gave me the opportunity to discover a whole new world. I immediately knew that I had made the right choice with 3D animation.

During my studies, I met a student called Stephan Stoelting who showed me his digital paintings. I was astounded by his work and I started painting digitally. I decided to do a speed painting a day to improve my painting skills. Stephan mentored me during that time. From April 2004 to August 2004 I didn’t spend a single day without painting. During that time I learnt a lot about digital colours, lighting and composition, but as I mentioned before, painting remained as a hobby. I was focused on animation but I kept painting as much as possible during my spare time.

After graduating I realized that I had more job offers in the visual development field rather than animation. So I started applying for both animation and visual development jobs. If I hadn’t met Stephan, I would probably never have started to improve my digital painting skills. I’m very grateful I met him.

I.A- . I must say you have many varied drawing and illustration styles. Which one do you prefer dealing with? What are your favourite media and tools?

G.J. - That’s a tough question, but if I had to decide I would go for digital media. Painting digitally gives you whole new opportunities and optimizes your workflow thanks to the layers, the undo function, color corrections, and so on. Another considerable advantage is that you can paint much faster than using traditional media.

My favourite tool is definitely Photoshop. It’s very simple, intuitive and reliable. There is nothing missing in this tool. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t use traditional media anymore. I always have my sketchbook on my desk and I carry a small one in my pocket so I can sketch whenever I want.
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