Careers in art rarely follow the plan, and Thales Simonato's began because his brother got bored with a computing course. One family swap introduced him to Photoshop and Illustrator, then 3D, and he's never really looked back. Since then, the Brazilian artist, now based in France, has worked across advertising, film, TV and games, while developing a colourful, stylised approach to character art that's impossible to mistake for anyone else's.
It's also a good reminder that the tools only get you so far. You can spend hours debating the best 3D modelling software or investing in one of the best drawing tablets, but Simonato's work comes back to the same thing every time: strong design, expressive characters and knowing exactly what you want to say before you start clicking buttons.
