For over a year now Eduardo Lopez has been steadily contributing to Slashthree, and to underline his impressive efforts has been chosen to showcase his talent and views.

Saad Moosajee:
Eduardo, congratulations on your feature for our 11th release, "Déjà Vu". Start off by telling us a little bit about yourself.

Eduardo Lopez:
I was born in Mexico City, worked and studied photography at Eastman Kodak while training in minilab management and traditional darkroom techniques. With that knowledge I managed to get myself a job onboard a cruise ship at Carnival Cruise Lines. After a couple of years I moved to Cancun and started a photography business based out of a golf course. There I did some visualization and photo manipulations of another golf course in construction; my journey onto digital art had begun. Now I live more than 1000 miles away from Cancun, in a small town called Puerto Vallarta, off the pacific coast of Mexico, around the same latitude as Hawaii. To this day I’m continuing my photo business, as well as freelancing in the world of digital art.

Saad Moosajee:
A wise choice, did you ever consider pursuing a career in photography rather than manipulation, considering that you'd actually studied that?

Eduardo Lopez:
Well, the market for photography in this country is quite messed up; while a wedding photographer can make a very good living in the US or Europe, here it does not pay off, and all my studies on darkroom techniques and minilab administration became quite obsolete with the digital revolution, so I moved on and adapted.

Saad Moosajee:
And what about the market for freelance artists, have you made a successful living freelancing or is it more of a side job?

Eduardo Lopez:
Freelancing is definitely on the side, my business and work for the golf course takes up most of my time. I am focusing mainly on getting my artwork out there, and promoting myself as an artist, matte painter, etc.

Saad Moosajee:
Yes, indeed. We've seen your work in a variety of mediums, what is your preferred style, manipulation or matte painting? Are there any other styles you prefer?

Eduardo Lopez:
My preferred style is matte for sure, but I try to continuously learn new techniques, new software. I have made some advances on full painting in Photoshop, plus I keep my learning on 3D modeling up to date.

Saad Moosajee:
For this release, you strayed more towards the matte painting technique, did you do this because you felt it helped you to represent the theme better conceptually or aesthetically?

Eduardo Lopez:
I used matte mostly because my ideas were easily attained through this medium, although "Horrid" was mainly a painting piece, all other visions were completely calling for matte.

Saad Moosajee:
Now onto a different subject: you’re the oldest artist in the group slashTHREE, do you feel that maturity is a factor in artwork or no?

Eduardo Lopez:
Not really, there are quite a bit of artists here that show an amazing amount of maturity through their art and their work ethics; I don’t go around purposely finding out the age of the guys here, but when I do I am mostly amazed at how young they are; at the same time I find that the minds of young people are much more open and receptive, plus full of ideas and positive input, so I do learn quite a bit from my fellow artists here at slashTHREE.

Saad Moosajee:
Who would you say is your favorite artist within the slashTHREE collective? Medium doesn't make a difference.

Eduardo Lopez:
It would be difficult to name only one, there is so much talent here, I admire Myaka, for example, as well as bechira, zbush, there are also recent additions that are making amazing stuff, but I would have to say Zach is making some of the greatest artwork I have seen, which I admire quite a bit.

Saad Moosajee:
And who would you say is your favorite non-digital artist?

Eduardo Lopez:
Simple, Salvador Dali.

Saad Moosajee:
"Déjà Vu" presented a more conceptual theme than some of the previous exhibitions. Did this present a challenge for you when creating your work or did you embrace the theme?

Eduardo Lopez:
I think all themes can be worked on. If they present a challenge, even better, but I like this theme quite a bit.

Saad Moosajee:
Of your 6 submissions, what is your favorite?

Eduardo Lopez:
My favorite has to be "Ra", I feel it fit the theme best. The one that presented the greatest challenge had to be the "New Frontier"; it proved very difficult to build an underwater environment.

Saad Moosajee:
Give us a short, technical breakdown showing the process of creation for the piece "Ra".

Eduardo Lopez:
Well in this case, I preferred to start by creating my own base plate for the image, trying to find the correct point of view, the texture, look and feel, as well as the composition. I proceed to browse the net and search stocks for reference and elements, after collecting what I feel it is everything, in this case around 7 images, I start the composition process. When that is finalized, I move on to the blending, shading, detailing and painting to complete it.

Saad Moosajee:
How long does this process typically take?

Eduardo Lopez:
It depends on the piece; this one took a week, which was fast.

Saad Moosajee:
Wow, that’s fairly quick for a piece of that calibre. Where do you see yourself 10 years from now as far as art goes?

Eduardo Lopez:
Hopefully, I’ll be making 100% of my living from it. It doesn’t matter how or where.

Saad Moosajee:
What was your favorite single piece of artwork in the exhibition this time around?

Eduardo Lopez:
Not mine I suppose? Kidding aside, it is between "Daydream" by Myaka, and "3" by skam, but there are still some wicked pieces that might make it in.

Saad Moosajee:
Both great works. Have you ever had a déjà vu experience in your life that you were able to draw back on and use to somewhat inspire your submissions to this exhibition?

Eduardo Lopez:
There has always been some kind of magic about "Egypt", quite a while ago I read "Sinuhe the Egyptian", it was incredible how I felt I knew everything described in it, like a friend that tells you about a place that you have been to, but don’t recall that place, quite weird.

Saad Moosajee:
It definitely showed in the quality of that piece. Well, thanks for a great interview Eduardo, any last words for all your die hard fans?

Eduardo Lopez:
Hope you enjoy "Dejà Vu" by slashTHREE. Cheers!