Episode 1: Jeryce Dianingana

 Transcript brought to you by: https://gotranscript.com/

[music]

[00:00:18] Jasmin Habezai-Fekri: Welcome to the first episode of the All Inclusive podcast. I'm Jasmin Habezai-Fekri, a 3D environment artist currently freelancing in the game industry and attending university. Anything stylish and colorful is my job.

[00:00:31] Ashley Wade: My name is Ashley Wade. I'm a 3D environment artist stationed out here in the Colonies in North Carolina, in the United States of America. Jasmin and I wanted to start this podcast because we just felt like-- We saw a need for just like a different kind of podcast hosted by different kinds of people, getting different kinds of guests on. We want this podcast to feel diverse in a purposeful, but not a preachy way, because I think sometimes that can happen with podcasts where it's like, "Oh yes, this is the diverse thing," or, "This is about diversity." We want to have it instead be we include diversity because that's how the world is, and just have it be a lot more normalized as it is in the world outside of our door today.

[00:01:27] Jasmin: Since Ash is from the US and I'm from Germany, we thought it'd be such a cool way to show how diverse industry is by connecting various professionals from any background from across the world, and especially seeing somebody who's coming from a similar background like yourself and pursuing their dreams and achieving them so successfully is very essential, I think, as in growing in your career yourself. I think we really need that representation, and we want to be part of providing that representation for others.

[00:01:57] Ashley: 100%. I think also a podcast like this can be a really good source of information for other people, or like Jasmin was saying earlier, seeing someone who looks like you, who may have the same ethnic background as you or even just like the same upbringing as you in general, can be really heartening to see sometimes when you feel like you're working towards something all alone and by yourself.

Sometimes it can be really good to hear a professional artist talk about their struggles and their failures and their success stories and help it become a lot more of a humanizing experience instead of like these people are up on pedestals. These people are so far from where you are right now and you could never even hope to get to that level. Having this podcast and having guests come on and talk about these things freely and openly can just help give support to those who really could appreciate something like that right now.

[00:03:06] Jasmin: Most of all, since we both never done something in this way, we felt it's such a fun project to do.

[laughter]

It's such a challenge at the same time.

[00:03:15] Ashley: Oh yes, it's a challenge.

[00:03:17] Jasmin: Exactly. It's like we found in each other, I guess, like a really cool team to bring this to life. I hope we'll have a lot of fun continue doing this. I'm sure we will. It's already--

[00:03:28] Ashley: For sure.

[00:03:29] Jasmin: [unintelligible 00:03:30]

[00:03:32] Ashley: I think our goal with releasing this podcast is that we would like to get it released about once a month, which I'm not really sure exactly when this episode is going to drop. After that, hopefully, we'll have gotten our feet wet enough and have a routine going with asking people to come on and getting things set up that the next consecutive episodes can be very easy to pop in and pop out. We're looking at having episodes come out maybe like once a month, give or take, hopefully, if we can find time in our busy schedules to still make it work, which we have. I think so far, we've still had it work. Thanks for tuning in and listening to all of us talk.

Our first special guest of the first-ever podcast episode of All Inclusive is Jeryce Dianingana, and they work currently, or he works currently at Rocksteady Studio out in the United Kingdom, which is really rad, really cool. I think Rocksteady is releasing a Suicide Squad game soon, which I assume that he is having a small part in, if not a larger part in as a 3D environment artist there. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk with us today.

[00:05:13] Jeryce Dianingana: Oh, thank you for having me. I'm the first guest so I have so much pressure.

[laughter]

[00:05:17] Ashley: You are the first guest. We were talking about who should we have on? Whom should we have on? I was like, "Please, can we-

[00:05:28] Jasmin: Exactly. [unintelligible 00:05:30] talked to him before.

[00:05:30] Ashley: -call him and beg him to come on?"

[laughter]

Because even just from seeing your interactions on Twitter when I see them every now and then, I have just been so, not necessarily impressed isn't really the right word, but you just emit so much light to me. I think that is something that sticks out to me about you specifically, so you're a great person to have come on.

[00:06:03] Jeryce: Wow. Thank you. Thanks a lot. That's really nice of you. Thank you.

[00:06:09] Ashley: Yes, for sure. 100%. Do you think you could tell us a little bit about how you got into 3D art in the first place?

[00:06:19] Jeryce: Yes, of course. That was always a dream. It was a dream of mine to work in the video game industry since I was a kid, I think like most of us I think. I started to have this dream when I was maybe 11 years old when I first played Halo on Xbox. Some people are going to kill me, but anyway.

[laughter]

I did an accountant degree before going to my game design school. [laughs]

[00:06:53] Jasmin: Oh.

[00:06:54] Jeryce: Yes, what a change. I went to this game design school in Paris because I'm from France as a kid. I did three years over there. It was a really, really nice school. The name of the school is ICAN. You'll have to say the French way, ICAN.

[00:07:14] Jasmin: Yes, of course.

[00:07:15] Jeryce: After my degree there, I started in the architecture with Unity, actually. We were doing real-time architecture visualization but with a Unity engine. It wasn't video game, but it was using the video game technology. I started with that. I practice a lot my lighting skill, texturing, and whatever. My first AAA job was at Ubisoft Quebec in Canada. I worked there more than a year on Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the one in Greece.

[00:08:01] Ashley: Nice.

[00:08:02] Jasmin: That's amazing. I love that game.

[00:08:06] Jeryce: Now, it was a really nice experience like to work on an Assassin's Creed game. When you were a kid-- I played the first one when I was still at school, very young. To be there and making one, it was like, "Wow, I did it, mom, I did."

[laughter]

[00:08:24] Jasmin: That's sweet.

[00:08:26] Jeryce: After one year over there, I moved to Montreal at Eidos Montreal. It's the company who made Tomb Raider, the latest Tomb Raider. Really, really good company. I stayed over a year over there. After that, I received an offer from Rocksteady in London, the studio who made the Batman Arkham series. When I received that offer, I was like, "Okay, wow." I always wanted to be in Canada, but I was like, "Rocksteady, maybe it's--"

[00:09:07] Jasmin: [unintelligible 00:09:08] [crosstalk]

[00:09:09] Jeryce: Yes, "Maybe I'm going to go back in Canada after that, but I need to go there." Now, it's been one year and eight months, I would say that I'm working at Rocksteady as a 3D environment artist.

[00:09:27] Ashley: Yes, that's really rad. I remember looking through your stuff and seeing that you worked at Rocksteady. I definitely have a lot of memories of watching my older brother, because at the time, he was like, "You can't touch my video games," watching my brother play the Arkham Asylum game. I definitely made that connection seeing where you work at currently. I also noticed before you worked on Assassin's Creed, you worked at Pretty Simple, which is interesting because I had a friend. By the time you left, I was [inaudible 00:10:09] graduate in college so you wouldn't have met him because he was in my same class. I wanted to know, just now it popped into my head, what was that transition like? Because, from the little that I know, I feel like Pretty Simple can't be as big as Ubisoft.

[00:10:29] Jeryce: No. I would say, no, it's not that big. It's not big as Ubisoft. Ubisoft got so many companies all over the world. Pretty Simple was basically a mobile game studio. They might get a Criminal Case on Facebook and mobile, even on PC we had Criminal Case. Yes, actually that wasn't my first. It's not a AAA studio, but it was my first video game studio. It's still a video game studio. I started by doing mobile games.

[00:11:06] Ashley: Yes. Was that transition from there to somewhere like Ubisoft really shocking for you? Or did you just mellow and fit in pretty easily?

[00:11:19] Jeryce: I'm fitting pretty easily, actually. Even if Pretty Simple game is way more smaller than Ubisoft, because Ubisoft we are like 500 or whatever, and at Pretty Simple, we were maybe 100. A big change. I think I was more impressed by the number of employees than working on the big game like this. At the end, it's still the same pipeline, I would say, but with more organization since there is more people.

I was more impressed by the number of people in the office and that I was in Canada. In a new country. My mind was like, "All those people. Oh, Canada. Oh, all those people. Yes, I need to make a game."

[laughter]

[00:12:21] Jeryce: Making the game came last because it's 3D. At this point, I was pretty confident with my 3D skill and I was like, "Okay, I just need to follow this task and this task, and that's it." The hardest part was maybe- and that's a good game. It's a big AAA game, big name, big stuff, so I need to step up my game. Maybe that was the biggest point. The pressure from the AAA, the name and stuff. That was the scariest part, maybe, yes.

[00:13:13] Ashley: For sure. Another thing that I have noticed in a couple of your tweets is that you talk about students, how you have them, and how you're a teacher. That is so awesome to me that you're giving back in that way. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that teaching gig that you do, and how you [unintelligible 00:13:38]

[00:13:39] Jeryce: Basically, after I finished my degree at the ICAN School in Paris, it's maybe two years after, they asked me if I wanted to teach, to give classes. I was like, "What?"

[laughter]

[00:14:00] Jeryce: If my teacher listen this podcast, I wasn't the best student. [laughs] I wasn't the best student. I was always the guy dancing in the class. I was that kind of student. I still had some good grade in 3D, because we had a lot of different classes. We have level design, audio design, game design, it wasn't a 3D school. The game design section was like, "How to make a game." You had to learn a lot of things.

When they asked me, "Jeryce, would you want to give a 3D class, or Unity lighting, or whatever? You can choose." I was like, "Are you sure?"

[Laughter]

[00:14:54] Jeryce: "Are you sure that I'm the right one for you guys?" They were like, "Yes, we really like what you did." I'm like, "Okay?" I never thought about teaching, so I jumped into it. I get a good relationship with the school, the student there, so it was pretty easy. It was pretty easy, but scary because you're teaching. The stuff that you're going to teach, they're going to keep that not forever but that's going to be their luggages for when they're going to start in the company.

Like, "I learned this from Jeryce. Now I need to apply those things." It's really important, so I felt that pressure, so it was a bit hard mentally, but when I started, everything went really good. I was even surprised. I was like, "I can be serious for more than an hour."

[laughter]

[00:16:09] Jeryce: Yes, people were calling me "Sir," I was like, "No, don't do that." When I started, I was still young in a way. I was maybe 23 or 24 when I started to give classes so, "Sir, please--" Like, “No, don't do that, please. I'm still young." I had the choice to choose the thing that I wanted to teach them, so I was teaching lighting in Unity, the basic of environments, like making a block out, perhaps the composition, perspective, whatever. The basic stuff for an environment job.

Everything went good and I stopped when I moved to Canada because I had to go onsite to teach. I was in Canada, it was a bit harder to do that, but when I came back in Europe for a work-study in London, I was able to take just a train and go back in France and teach again. I really missed that part of my life, to teach, so that made me really happy to be able to do that again.

[00:17:44] Ashley: Awesome. Something that you were mentioning earlier about, like feeling that pressure and being really worried about it. I think it's good that you felt that pressure in a way because if you didn't really feel the pressure, I think it could be easy to be like, "This isn't really that big of a deal." You realized the weight of what you were doing and knowing how far--

[00:18:08] Jeryce: So much weight.

[00:18:10] Ashley: Yes, like the impact. Your impact that you can have on these students as they go forth in their professional careers and things like that, so I think that is just a testament to you as a person. You want to do the right thing. You want to do right by the students and that's just good. That's just a good person.

[00:18:32] Jeryce: Even right now, it feels still weird to say that I'm a teacher. I got some students in France who now are working in Ubisoft and they are like saying, "Yes, maybe you know my teacher Jeryce." I was like, "What? You introduced me by saying that I was your teacher?" It's weird. Just tell them that I'm your friend, or whatever. But I'm very proud of seeing them in different companies all over the world.

Some people are in Canada now, some of them are in Paris, in different cities in France. It's making me happy. That's one part of my life that I'm very proud of.

[00:19:26] Jasmin: You can give yourself a big pat on the shoulder for that, because teaching people and then seeing them also succeed, that must be such a great feeling. To see how all the fruits that you planted basically you can now see how they're doing well. It's really awesome.

[00:19:41] Jeryce: Yes, and I wish that one day some of them can be my co-workers. That would be really nice and weird.

[laughter]

[00:19:54] Jeryce: That would be really nice, but the industry is pretty small, so at some point, we will work together, I think.

[00:20:04] Jasmin: Moving onto the next topic since we both really love your environments that you create, and I'm sure many others do as well, it's something that's really sparked an interest, and we're wondering what your main inspirations were when you create your personal art specifically because they're so innovative and something I personally haven't seen done in 3D before. I would like to know what your main drive behind this is.

[00:20:36] Jeryce: My main inspiration, that would be Africa. Just Africa. My main inspiration is Africa and the different countries, cities that you can find in Africa, cultures, tribes. Everything in Africa is my inspiration. It's been now eight years that I'm been doing 3D. I just started to mainly focus on that maybe four years ago, I think. I wanted to do a lot of research is to be confident with my skills before starting to do that because when I do that kind of art, basically, it's a tribute. It's a tribute to my parents because my parents are from Congo-Brazzaville. Basically, when I did the first African environment, I was like, "I need to make mommy proud."

[laughter]

[00:21:50] Jeryce: I want to make something that she can be very proud of. I want her to send that art to the family, to everyone. I want them to connect with it. I think I started because of family, I would say. I started because of family and also because I never saw African 3D art basically. I tried to find a lot of inspiration and reference before I started this. I found maybe two, three, or four maybe piece but not that much. I was a bit sad. That made me sad basically a little bit because we have so much stuff, so much art. You always see statutes, masks or patterns. We can have a lot of colors, a lot of things. I never saw that basically. I don't see that a lot. I was, "Maybe I think I need to do it. I need to stop getting angry about why and why I don't see this. Maybe I need to do this."

[00:23:12] Jasmin: I'm sure you will inspire a lot of other artists to do the same because, personally, I have exactly that same problems looking at art, or even going on ArtStation, or seeing environment designs. They're very much going into one direction. That's very much inspired by medieval art especially western architecture and not seeing anywhere else being represented is very disheartening at times. When I discovered your art, I was just like, "Wow, this is so amazing. Somebody is embracing their heritage and pouring that into their art." Even though I'm not African, I'm from Iran, I was feeling inspired to do something like that myself with Iranian architecture at some point. I think you're doing a really amazing job there being that person doing that change basically and being like, "Okay, I'm going to do this art now if nobody else is doing it."

[00:24:03] Jeryce: Thank you.

[laughter]

[00:24:06] Jasmin: It's really true.

[00:24:08] Jeryce: It's very important for me. I think for most of my families and friends that I have in Congo also, just to see something that they can, not rely, that they can be connected.

[00:24:32] Jasmin: To connect.

[00:24:33] Jeryce: Yes, connected to. Like I said, we don't have a lot of things like that. Just to see, for example, "I remember this kind of building. Is it this building in Congo? Did you take the aspiration from this building in Congo?" I'm like, "Yes." Just that kind of thing. Like when cousin sent me a text I was like, "This mask. I know this mask. We have a lot of them in--" At first, he thought it was a real mask. [laughs] He thought that was a real mask. I was like, "No [unintelligible 00:25:08]."

[laughter]

[00:25:09] Ashley: You cannot [unintelligible 00:25:10]

[00:25:12] Jeryce: Yes, he told me, "Yes, you should sell it. It's very expensive in Congo. You know that." I was like, "Yes, it's 3D." Oh my God.

[laughter]

[00:25:23] Jasmin: In 3D printer then he's not wrong.

[00:25:26] Ashley: That's true. [crosstalk] Sorry, go ahead.

[00:25:33] Jeryce: There's a lot of reasons why I started this. Also because like I said, I grew up in France. I didn't grow up with things that I feel connected to. That I can connect with in France. I always ask some questions to my mom or talk about Africa with friends. For example, "Yes, it's a bit of shame that we don't see this on TV, or the media." I started to make my first scene by asking myself, "What if? What if in Congo or the city we had this? What if we had this hotel but with a lot of African stuff, African art in it like a full African hotel embracing the culture?" Or, "What if we had a city like this?" Just with a couple of question like that because I didn't see that in my experience. I never saw that kind of stuff. I have a lot of question and I want to reply to those questions by doing those things.

[00:27:00] Ashley: For sure. I think something also that you touched on a little bit earlier that I think a lot of people can feel when not only when they're doing something for the first time, but doing something that they know is needed. It takes a lot of courage to take that on yourself because now I'm sure lots of people associate you with your African-inspired work. When I think of your work, I think a lot about-- The first piece that I ever came across after I followed you on Twitter, your Teranga piece, Taranga piece, that was impressed into my brain. Would you have people who will make something that striking and that different because as Jasmin said earlier, it is so different from a lot of the work that we see right now? You become attached to it and you can't really divorce yourself from it even if you wanted to. This is part of who you are as an artist brand right now and for you to just take it on completely and embrace it and be like, "This is a part of who I am and this is what I want to show everyone else." That's scary because it's very personal.

[00:28:30] Jeryce: Yes, this piece is really, really personal.

[00:28:33] Ashley: Yes. It's like you're really letting people see you on a level that you probably couldn't see if you're making anything else. A lot of artists feel that way when it comes to anything that they make that's a magnum opus or just something that they've had in the back of their head for a while that they wait off on it until they're "good enough" to do it because you want to do it justice. It's heavy but it looks awesome.

[00:29:06] Jeryce: Thank you.

[00:29:07] Ashley: You should, and I'm sure you are, as a lot of people are, and I'm sure a lot of people as you said back home are very proud of the work that you've done so far.

[00:29:20] Jeryce: Yes, they are telling me every day.

[laughter]

[00:29:22] Jeryce: Then I have sometime to tell them that, "No, it's not real." That, "Look at this polygon that I missed."

[laughter]

[00:29:32] Jeryce: Like, "There is a hole here. I did a mistake over here."

[00:29:38] Ashley: Let's zoom into this corner.

[00:29:40] Jeryce: "Yes, look at closely to this point in this part of the image. It's wrong." Actually the Teranga, basically the word Teranga, it's a Senegalese word for basically saying- it means hospitality. Senegalese people are known for their hospitality and they have a word for it and it's called the Teranga. Back in France, I grew up with Senegalese people like the best friend of my mom is from Senegal, we have a lot of neighbors, Senegalese neighbors. I wanted to do something that they can connect to with Senegalese music and that they can be happy to see like, "Oh, you put Senegalese music. Oh, I know this place." Was basically like a love letter, like, "Thank you for all those years for the thing that you teach me about Senegal." It was a love letter and a tribute for them.

If you look closely in the videos and renders, I put some names all over the walls. I put some decals of their names on the wall, and I had to put my mom, of course, because she's going to kill me if I don't put her name. [laughter]

She'll be like, "What? You put the name of this person, this person, and not me." When they saw their name because I didn't tell them but when they saw their name, they were so happy and that's made me really happy. I was like, "Okay, I did good."

I don't even need to have [unintelligible 00:31:38] or whatever. I just wanted them to be happy basically with this scene.

[00:31:46] Jasmin: I think that's the most important motivation drive that you should have when doing something so personal too. Nothing else should matter, and I think that's amazing how you get to express that and also touch other people that are not necessarily in the industry. I think that's really important and aspiring. We're going to stop right here for now and take a short break and we'll be right back.

[music]

[00:32:32] Jasmin: Welcome back to the All Inclusive podcast. Before the break, we talked about all the inspirations that Jeryce has in his work and how he got into 3D art, how he did some teaching even on the side. Now we just want to jump back in into his personal art. When looking at your portfolio, you have such a wide range but you can clearly see that at some point you made the jump from doing all these various environments to a more personal art that is related to Africa. We wanted to know more about your first piece that was more extensive and how deep you went with that and what the inspirations were, the reasoning.

We want to know everything basically [laughs] so please let us know because we want to know.

[00:33:17] Jeryce: The story behind what Congo with, basically, it was during the ArtStation challenge, the ArtStation beyond human challenge. The theme of this challenge was to create an environment about next step in humanity, basically the future. You can choose concept art and other things, and a lot of people were going into this dark, cyberpunk, Asian, or whatever direction. I was seeing a lot of Asian stuff, Japanese cyberpunk, and like Akira and Cyberpunk the movie.

At first, I was pretty scared. That was the first time I was participating to a challenge, African challenge. I was scared. I was, "Maybe I need to just take a concept art and do my stuff, safety." At some point after seeing all of this Asian stuff, I was, "What if? What if instead of Asia and seeing a lot of Japanese [unintelligible 00:34:36] and stuff, Africa?" I was still in Canada at this point. I was talking about this with some colleagues and they were, "Huh, interesting. I never saw that before. That would be hard to do. Are you really sure that you want to try that?"

I'm like, "No. Maybe. I don't know. Yes." I was like, okay, let's go, let's go with it. I'm going to make an African city, the next step of the-- maybe next step of Congo that would be they're going to take advantage of all those natural resources in Africa and they will make basically a Wakanda, a big futuristic city, not war, like peace." That was the first world in my mind when I started to find some inspiration for the city, "I want the city to just feel rich and peaceful." I started by trying to find a lot of inspiration on the internet. I always start a project by making the mood board and everything and it was hard.

The hardest part in that project was to find references and inspiration. When I was looking for African concept art or futuristic concept art with African stuff, I was just seeing Africa but represented in a poor way, grunge, grungy lot of [unintelligible 00:36:24]. It was a bit dark and a bit sad, like future Africa, guns, AKAs, weapons everywhere, cyber, hyenas, cyber lion with a guy with a gun and stuff. It was like, "I'm a bit tired of seeing that Africa." Even in the future you still see Africa as the wild place with a lot of guns and cyber hyenas. [laughs]

I was like, for once, I just want a peaceful concept and peaceful thing.

Instead of trying to find some references on internet, I said I'm going to make everything by myself. That was the first time I was trying to make everything by myself. I started first to find a good location. In Congo, I remember the first time I went to Congo when I was 12 maybe I visited the Congo River. The Congo River, it's the second biggest river in the world. It's impressive. The river is so large with the sunset that it's really impressive. I was so impressed.

I think I was more impressed by the crocodile, I think, I would say. I was like, "Whoa, that's beautiful. That's dangerous." By the river you have a nice view on the Congo skyline, you have a really beautiful view of Congo by the river. I was like, "Hmm, maybe I can do something with that." That was my starting point, Congo, the Congo River because that was the most striking memory in my mind. I was, "Now I need some architecture." I tried to find some Congolese architecture and to find some photos of my holidays.

I was young, so I didn't take a lot of photos of there. [laughter] There's no photos of me playing in the sand and then running everywhere and enjoying my time. I have a lot of cousins still in Congo so I asked my cousin to take photos of his house because his house is beautiful. It's like, out of his house there is sculptures everywhere, some pillars, some carves, some pillars are carved in wood with trees and it's really animals. His house is a piece of art. It's really beautiful. I was like, "Take pictures, please." Take many-- How much? Yes. [laughter] "How many photos do you want cousin?" "Yes."

He sent me a lot of pictures. This piece is all thanks to my cousin. He sent me so many photos. After I made my mood board with all of these photos, I started to make the environment. I was like, "Okay, okay, it's getting there. It's getting there." Oh, damn, I forgot the

deadline. There is a deadline in those [unintelligible 00:40:01]. The deadline, I felt the pressure and stuff so I started to mix wrong stuff [chuckles]. It was looking bad. I took a break. I was talking to my cousins, like a lot of people in Congo like, "Yes, give me more reference. Talk to me about this stuff, this stuff." That's the time someone said to me, that would be nice, by the skyline, by the river to see, you know, a big statement.

I was like, "Oh, I didn't think about that." I just wanted to make just a city, like a city with a lot of lights and neons but I never thought about having a big statement. I was still pretty bad at this point with environment and composition. Basically, it was just talking to me about having a focus point in my environment. I was like, "Yes, that would be nice." You're sitting on the sand near the river, looking at the city and seeing this, but what's this? I need to think about something nice to see sitting down by the river.

What's the most African thing that we have in Congo? Mask? Yes, why not having a giant mask on some building or whatever. A giant mask or like this sculpture that you have on your living room but giant, like really big. I was like, "Yes." I was like, "Yes, yes." [inaudible 00:41:40] I was like, "Yes," trying drawing very badly. On paper, I'm very bad. [inaudible 00:41:50] Giant stickman on my [laughs] book. Basically, the city is just African art, but bigger. It's just big African. I wanted just to represent the stuff that we have in Congo. That was the best idea, to make giant mask on buildings.

We're making a lot of statues but they are tiny, so, why not having, for example, the Statue of Liberty in New York, but instead of having this, like having a big African statue of a woman with a vase on her head. I was like, "Yes." Basically a New York African. [laughs] I mean taking New York and transform that city into an African. This statement, this, this, this, but turning them into African art. Basically, I made that environment with my family.

[00:42:55] Jasmin: That's so beautiful because now that you say the reference to New York, I just saw that now in hindsight. After seeing this piece now for two years, I've never connected it to New York. I think it's amazing because it stands by itself and it's just such a new place to me. I look at it and I'm just like I've never seen something like this before, but I want to go there.

I think that's so nice to see how you just took all these references and made something that's out of this world, really. That's how I think new spaces should be created. Just like you said, collaborating with people who are living in that country, getting their inspirations, and building them all into a new space so beautifully. It's fantastic, and just getting a glimpse into how you approached this. I could listen to that forever really [laughs].

[00:43:44] Jeryce: Thank you.

[00:43:46] Ashley: Looking at it again as well, I think probably my favorite kind of little piece of it is definitely over on the right side with the torch. I love that and like how it's overlooking this river. That's probably my favorite part for sure. I sent it off the break, for everyone listening right now, but I said that I would send this to my brother because my brother is very interested in worlds like this and predictively, he's very excited that it exists. He's responding to be about this. My brother's kind of like, he's kind of solemn, he's a lot different than I am. He can be very stoic and stuff and his response to me was quote, "I have bookmarked this person. I will remember them."

[laughter]

[00:44:45] Ashley: I think you deciding to go down this path with the challenge also, just kind of skimming through your little interview about it afterwards. I think going down this direction was definitely the right call to make because it stands out so much. I think you and your art and your story are definitely going to inspire other people to be like, "You know, maybe we should take another look at Africa. Maybe we should reexamine the things that we think we know about Africa and the things we think we understand about Africa. Maybe we can look a lot more into the cultures, the language, the mythologies, the lore that is present in that huge continent."

It's so diverse 100%. It's like places can be so different from each other. I think that you making this really just opens the door and say like, "Hey guys, it's okay. You can come in. You can [unintelligible 00:45:50]."

[00:45:52] Jasmin: Don't be shy.

[00:45:54] Ashley: Don't be shy. [laughs]

[00:45:58] Jasmin: What I also love that you have such a positive look on the future because as you said, most of the time when you see cyberpunk or anything that's futuristic, it's always so negative and dark and dirty and it just doesn't want me to be in the future, to be honest [laughs].

[00:46:13] Jeryce: Yes, the future is scary when you see some art stuff on African or whatever.

[00:46:19] Jasmin: Exactly. This is like, yes, I want to be there, I'm ready for the next hundred years. Bring that on [laughs].

[00:46:26] Ashley: It could be full of hope, it could be full of light, it could be full of warmth. It doesn't have to be like some guy in the corner shooting up drugs again. You don't have to have that. It can be a positive sort of future. I think that's another reason why it's so powerful that you utilized African things for this because I think that a lot of people ignorantly can't see how that feeling exists. It doesn't have to be a guy with an AK and a lion.

[laughter]

[00:47:11] Jeryce: This environment, now, when I'm looking at it, I made a lot of mistakes in that environment. Art mistake, the composition, and whatever, but it's not the best piece I think. Personally, I don't think it's the best piece that I made, but I like the statements. I think this is my favorite piece as a statement, as Africa could be like this. I received a lot of messages from a lot of people in Africa and Black people from over America, Europe and everywhere, like wow, that's sending me some-- I almost cried sometimes [laughs].

I remember one day, I think that's pretty recent. It was an architect, like a student in architecture in Kenya, who sent me a DM on Instagram, a long one. I was like, "Oh, what is this phishing? Is that a spam or whatever?" I read this message is like, "Basically, I'm an African student working in Kenya. Architecture working with SketchUp and all of those software. It's the first time I'm seeing something like this in Africa or whereas other places they always showing us New York, modern Italian or French stuff, but never something from our country."

He was basically saying, thank you, I'm more motivated now than ever. I was reading that message I was like, "Oh my God." [laughs]. I was like, "3D can do stuff." [laughs]. I just wanted to do video games. I never thought that I would motivate a Kenyan student working in architecture. I never thought about that. I was just, I'm going to make some games, boop bada beep, and that's it [laughs].

When I received this message, I was like wow, maybe I got something. Maybe I need to dig deeper with this theme. Maybe that's my thing. Maybe it's the thing that I really need to push. I want to say thanks to all of the people who sent me those messages because it pushed me towards this direction. To my mom, also, I love you, Mom.

[laughter]

[00:50:11] Ashley: We have to.

[00:50:13] Jeryce: Yes, we have to. We have to do. Now, we can continue.

[00:50:17] Ashley: For sure. Otherwise, some of us are going to get an angry email.

[laughter]

[00:50:23] Jeryce: By the way, when I finished the Congo River, I print it. I made it into a frame. I print the final render for the birthday of my mom. I sent her the print. She didn't know about it. She received like a big thing. She was like, "Oh, maybe that's a dress. My son from Canada is always sending me some stuff." When she saw this, she was like, "Oh, my God. Living room." She removed other print and stuff. She put that in the living room and called all of her friends and like, "You see this? It's my son. My son made this. What your son do?"

[laughter]

[00:51:18] Jeryce: I was so happy that she was really proud of me. That brought me so much joy. That's also why I want to continue with this. My mom likes talking about me to her friends about my 3D skills and stuff. She's talking more about my personal thing that my video games, for example. I'm sure she don't care about Assassin's Creed or the games. "What's your son doing?" "Yes, he's doing African stuff, African art. He's not interested in playing video games anymore." I like that. I love that, actually.

[laughter]

[00:52:00] Ashley: That's awesome. Moving on to our, I guess it's our final topic for this podcast right now, just talking a little bit about finding a balance between your work-life and your personal life, which I think might be a little bit harder. right now because of working remotely or something like that. Do you think that you've gotten into a good balance with that sort of thing, or do you still struggle with that? Do you find that working on your personal art, does it help you get that balance, it's still, you're working on 3D art most hours? What's up with that?

[00:52:49] Jeryce: I was really struggling a few years ago. For example, when I made the Wacongo piece, I wasn't sleeping. I was maybe sleeping at 6:00 AM and go to work at 10:00 AM. I didn't have a good balance before, but I worked on it. Now, my balance is really good. The things that I do like the African stuff, it's part of me. It's difficult for me to split that. I see those two things, my life and the work-life, as one thing.

I can't live without thinking about 3D art or African art even when I'm outside. That maybe a bit toxic, I know. I'm outside but like, "That would make a good scene." I think every artist can relate to that being outside, being at this place and just looking at somewhere and be like, "Huh?"

[laughter]

[00:54:07] Ashley: Getting really close to this wall.

[laughter]

[00:54:09] Jeryce: Yes. I learned how to take breaks. I learned how to take breaks, especially currently with the COVID situation and stuff because I'm working from home, so I can easily finish work and just close the thing that I'm doing for work and just jump into my 3D stuff, my 3D personal stuff and not taking any break, not going out or whatever. I learned how to take breaks. It's very hard to do. I think I learned that by buying a lot of books. I'm buying a lot of books about African art, actually, African culture, celebrations and mask, and statue. I got 10, 11 books about that in my house.

Sometime when I'm done with work, I go to the park, I go wherever, I'm bringing my book and I'm just reading. Basically, I'm still learning about African culture and our future scene and taking a break. That's my balance now. Taking break and still working in a way but I'm enjoying that. That's making me really happy, to be sitting in a park and reading African stuff.

[00:55:43] Ashley: For sure. I think, a little bit with that, it's still you working on it and it's still you working towards it, but it's a little bit more passive than active, like actively working on something like you're sitting at your computer maybe a little bit too hunched over than you should be versus going outside with this book. The gears in your mind are still cranking. You're still taking in that information. You're still making those connections. It's just a lot. You can breathe. I think that's important, for sure.

[00:56:16] Jeryce: Especially taking a break from the screens, from your phone, from your computer, from your TV, just a book. I don't know, there is something about reading a book. There is some magic. Even with the references, I prefer having a book over a PDF, Google image, or whatever. My secret is a book.

[laughter]

[00:56:56] Ashley: I think, especially right now, I know I've seen a lot of people struggle on Twitter, people who are absolutely good at what they do, which is, in a way, nice to see that everyone from all levels is having a hard time right now getting work done and staying focused sometimes. I think still having that buffer time and that time away from your screen, it could even probably just be like laying on your floor and doing nothing for a second or like you do in going to the park with a book and just taking in information.

It's important to not do anything sometimes and just stay still, which is hard because sometimes you just want to be productive all the time, make those deadlines all the time. Sometimes you just can't do that.

[00:57:57] Jeryce: No, it's really hard, especially with all those social media. You see your friends and other artists doing art every day. You're on our station on the trending page, and you're like, "Oh, wow. I need to work." On Instagram or wherever you see all those things. You feel the need to do something. I think it's good sometime to get away from the screens.

[00:58:30] Jasmin: I think also you connecting with more traditional art maybe helps also that mindset because art traditionally and also hundreds of years ago, would take so long to actually produce and maybe taking that in a bit and looking into the techniques that people used to use and then try to get inspired by that might help to eliminate that slightly toxic mindset we might have now that we have to constantly be producing and constantly have to have an output straightaway because everyone's doing so right now. Taking the time to unwind and do something for yourself might actually help you being more productive in the end when you're doing something.

[00:59:11] Jeryce: I agree.

[00:59:14] Ashley: I agree, but sometimes I don't like it. Can I say that?

[laughter]

[00:59:20] Ashley: I can be kind of Type A. I was definitely a lot harder on myself maybe a year-ish ago when I just wanted to get things done and get better and show people what's going on. Even now, trying to fight against that constant pressure that you sometimes put on yourself, and then that just gets reinforced with social media, like the voice in your head that's like, "You have to work all the time."You can't not work all the time because if you stop working, someone's going to notice and it's going to be somebody that you really look up to and then you're going to look bad.

Sometimes, what it can possibly take is restricting yourself strictly with it. I absolutely have time restrictions on social media on my phone now, where you can only be on Twitter for an hour a day and then after that, you can't get it anymore.

I'm pretty sure you can do it on Android and Apple devices or whatever, but I initially did that for anxiety because you see a lot of bad news all the time. Also, I think it could help with, don't feel like you have to be working at stuff all the time. It's hard, I 100% agree with you but at the same time it's like, "You should be working right now."

[01:00:59] Jeryce: I know, actually it's pretty hard, it's one of our biggest defaults as an artist I would say.

[01:01:06] Jasmin: More like a constant thing.

[01:01:09] Jeryce: Thinking of work and it can be toxic even with your friends or whatever, "You should go with us," "I need to finish this thing."

[01:01:24] Ashley: For sure, for sure. I guess wrapping up here some of the things that I am impressed about by your work again is and you were talking about it with your stories about your city seeing here is how much of a-- It wasn't just you doing this, it was a communal effort and communal support that helped get this made and that's a great take away for all kinds of artists and all kinds of game developers. Is that, you can't really do, you can do everything by yourself but it'll be a lot better and richer if you reach out to your cousin, and you're like, "Hey, take pictures of your house."

[01:02:23] Jasmin: Yes.

[01:02:25] Jeryce: Yes. I love having feedback as well. I'm annoying all of my work-study co-workers, I'm like, "Hey, give me some feedback, how do you think about this, how do you think about this, and this. If I put the lights at one or one dot one." I love having feedback even on some African, sometimes they can be like, "I don't really know your culture or the subject I don't want to tell stupid stuff." I'm like, "Don't worry, that's how you learn anyway by making mistakes or you can always ask me and I can teach you and show you how it is." Even in that way, I'm basically teaching some friends and co-workers about my culture and I'm working, it's all positive.

[01:03:22] Jasmin: I think another take away I had from talking to you today was also that it's sometimes important to take that jump and do something that was totally not done before and being brave to take that step. You doing that is so important for us and it's almost something similar what we've been trying to do with this podcast too that we're doing something that we didn't see anyone doing. Thank you for being such a great idol in that regard, [unintelligible 01:03:55].

[01:03:56] Jeryce: Wow. Thank you, thank you very much.

[01:04:00] Ashley: How does it feel being a living inspiration?

[01:04:03] Jeryce: Stop it. [laughs]

[01:04:07] Jasmin: [unintelligible 01:04:07]

[01:04:09] Ashley: We have to flatter you if you're on the podcast. It's not just flattery, it's 100% true.

[01:04:16] Jeryce: I don't want to blush, I don't want to blush.

[01:04:19] Ashley: Good thing this is audio-only.

[01:04:21] Jeryce: You can't see even see me, I'm Black, you'll never that I'm going to blush anyway, that's one thing that I like.

[01:04:30] Jasmin: To anyone listening right now, you can find Jeryce's work on ArtStation, Twitter, and Instagram. We will include all the links in the description so you can check out his work which you definitely should. Thank you for taking the time to go on our first episode Jeryce, we're both so excited that we had you as our first guest and we hope to see more of your amazing work in the future.

[01:04:53] Jeryce: Such an honor, thank you for having me, it was a real pleasure, talking to you.

[01:04:59] Jasmin: Likewise.

[01:05:00] Ashley: Same to you. If anyone listening right now wants to suggest someone to join us on the podcast, anyone who you see as a great positive force within your community. Along with being great with what they do, you can send us both an email at allinclusivepdcst@gmail.com, that's all-inclusive with no spaces, and then P-D-C-S-T @gmail.com. They can be a 2D artist, a 3D artist, community manager, someone who works in QA, we're open to anyone who works within the game dev industry, so please send us your suggestions and we'll see if we can try to get them to come on and have a nice little chat with us.

[01:05:43] Jasmin: Thank you again for joining us for the first episode of All-Inclusive, we hope that you had as much as fun listening to us and we had to talk. You can find us on a couple of different social media channels and you can find the links, as I said, in the description or the main page or wherever you're listening to us right now. This is Twitter, YouTube, SoundCloud or Spotify, thanks again and we hope you'll join us for another episode of All Inclusive.

[music]

[01:06:16] [END OF AUDIO]