Community Creators: Furphy

My name is Artem, more commonly known as furphy online, and I am 20 years old. I’ve been living in America for the past 15 or so years, but I was born in Ukraine. Along with learning 3D + graphic design, I have an interest in photography and videography.

I believe the first time I heard about Rocket League was back when it came to Steam as a pre-order deal in 2015, if I remember correctly. I was heavily into CS:GO, Team Fortress 2 and other games like that at the time, but hitting a ball with a car caught my interest as it was something I hadn’t seen anywhere else before that.

I started learning motion graphics, 3D, and general graphic design well before Rocket League, primarily for those cheesy 3D name intros, and minecraft animation stuff back in those days. I was heavily trying to become a youtuber, but eventually found it wasn’t working out. I started learning it for Rocket League when I joined a team, which led me to finding the league now known as Minor League Esports, but it was Minor League Doubles at the time. I saw they needed help designer-wise, as it was one guy doing everything. Eventually, the skills I learned there helped me get opportunities in other places, such as Nexus Gaming (RIP), CollegeCarBall and other projects alongside that, that I never thought I’d work on.

Many different places and people. The biggest thing I think of when creating projects is trying to find things that aren’t being done yet, or are heavily limited. The biggest in Rocket League right now being the lack of 3D content. If you compare the amount of 3D content used in Rocket League, to say a game like Valorant or League of Legends, the difference is massive. The Blender Starter Set I created was inspired by the increasing community of decal designers, and I wanted people to have an entry point to showing them off well, without it being a massive hassle to do so. (I also heavily dislike how aliased everything is in Rocket League, which can lead it to being very dirty and just not looking as good as a quality render.)

My primary tools are Photoshop and Blender, but I am learning After Effects, Cinema 4D, Illustrator, amongst other programs as I go. There are many programs out there to learn, and I’ve found it’s best not to limit yourself to just a select few, if you can.

It’s organized, in a disorganized way, I feel. I’m frequently jumping between researching, gathering inspiration, to creating various concepts, or even completely starting over from scratch. It’s not a linear process for many things I make. The biggest thing I try to keep in mind, especially when I am working with projects that others will use, is to keep things organized, and templatized (is that even a word?) just in case others need to use it.

Ah, that’s a good question. I’ve learned quite a few things over time, but the biggest thing that stood out to me was “patience.” Sometimes you just want things to explode, but it’s also important to make sure you are ready for that, or you will just crash and burn. I started designing Rocket League stuff about 5 years ago, but I’ve been on and off learning motion design, graphic design, 3D in general for 6-8 years at this point. If I had started getting client work and so on back then, I’d frankly be overwhelmed and crash because I wasn’t ready for it. Over the years, I’ve been making sure to learn time management, and just prepare myself for when things start rolling. Another aspect of it, is that it is super easy to compare yourself to someone who's been in the scene/game longer than you, and lower your self confidence because you think you can’t match up. A friend of mine told me that more often than not, they aren’t better than you but more experienced. Someone who started one month ago, will most likely not be at the same level of experience as someone who has been working on it for the past 5 years. It’s very easy to beat yourself up, especially as a perfectionist, but being patient brings results down the line.

I think my most favorite one, that kind of sprung my interest into 3D heavily, was recreating the Season 9 RLCS trailer. It’s very rough around the edges, but it kind of got me interested in what 3D can do. Before that, I had worked on a small project, but at the time it felt like a one-off.
Along with that was my Minor League Esports intermission scene, which I worked on along with Jac, and I was excited for it because I started working on it before the RLCS one was shown. It helped me feel like I was on the right path with what I was working on and doing.

I think the biggest one that challenged me the most was my Overtime Intro recreation, as I had to learn quite a few different things to get it as close to the real thing as I wanted. It was more of a practice project, but helped me learn a lot.

I challenged myself to 2021 being a year of growth for myself, and so far it definitely has been. If I were to compare to where I started in January, to where I am now, it still amazes me, and I feel it’ll only keep going up. In terms of things I’m focused on, it’s primarily mastering photoshop, Blender and just increasing my skills. There are still so many things to learn, and I’m excited for that.

My main goal is being financially stable. Other than that, I honestly don’t know. I’d rather take one step at a time, and see where life takes me.

If you are new to design in general, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the program you want to use first, whether that is photoshop, gimp, paint.net, photo pea etc. Take the extra time to learn the program you use, and that’ll make it easier when you get to decal creation.
If you aren’t new to design, as in you have experience with photoshop, or whatever other program, I HEAVILY recommend starting with the fennec as your first car. It is by far the most streamlined/easy to work with car decal wise, so it helps you get a basic understanding of how the decals themselves work. Other than that, feel free to join the RLSkinsWiki discord, and there are plenty of us there to help if you have any questions. Plus, there are tutorials and a database with stuff you need to get started (so you don’t have to scour for stuff on Google for hours).

To be honest, I’d say I am a casual fan of RLCS X. I watch it from time to time, but I don’t keep up that much. Or at least as much as I used to. My favorite NA team I’d say would be NRG, because I’ve been following GarretG, and it's always exciting to see how they do. In regards to my favorite EU team, I’m rooting for Dignitas because of Virge and ViolentPanda, plus I love their branding in general. I don’t really have any deep ties to any specific teams beyond that though.

GarretG has always been a favorite player of mine, and NRG winning RLCS in Season 8 has always been my favorite series (alongside game 6 of Dignitas vs Vitality that same season).

I am still working on getting to know about more content creators in Rocket League, but Sleegi, Jayski, Aspect, Sunless, Kogut_r, Woody, PaintMePastel, and DangerTaco are a few that come to mind in regards to inspiring me, and just producing content I personally enjoy seeing.

yes :p

Best way would be reaching out to me on discord, as I’d most likely respond there faster, but twitter DM’s are fine as well :p

:p