The Wacom Deep Dive interview with Shorsh, archived from 2021

Back in October 2021, I took part in the Wacom Deep Dive interview series, a segment on their blog where working artists talked about tools, process, and career. At the time it was a written Q&A, not the video series it is today. That original post is no longer online, Wacom’s blog moved on from that format years ago. What follows is a rescued and lightly edited version of it, the questionnaire and the answers that still hold up.

Wacom Deep Dive: How did you get started?

Shorsh: I’ve drawn and painted since I was a kid. That led me early into studying illustration and photography. When I finished school, advertising caught my interest, mostly the creativity behind it. Buenos Aires had a genuinely strong ad scene back then. It showed in the work plastered all over the city. I liked the idea of using image-making to solve problems for brands. So from 2000 to 2005 I studied marketing and advertising. After university, I landed a job at a major international ad agency as a Junior Planner.

I never stopped drawing or taking photos in the meantime, that part of me needed to stay active. I learned a lot in advertising, but I wasn’t doing the artistic side of the job. So I worked hard to change that, sharpening my art direction and copywriting until my portfolio was strong enough. In 2007, a small boutique agency hired me as an art director. The strategic background meant I was soon in client meetings too, not just doing creative work. I made real friendships there, with senior art directors, photographers, and producers I learned a lot from.

Some of the work was genuinely fun. A lot of it was heavy and demanding, entire nights at the office finishing campaigns against tight deadlines. I did that for years, across different agencies, until I decided I wanted a different life. One built more fully around making art. I left to start my own studio, focused entirely on illustration and image creation. Today I have real control over my time, and I spend most of it doing work I enjoy. There’s still a boring part, there always is, but it’s manageable now. It’s been almost ten years since I started the studio, still the best decision I’ve made.

WDD: When did you discover Wacom, and how did it improve your workflow?

Shorsh: Back in 2006, while I was in ad school working on my portfolio, I used a borrowed Wacom for the first time. I saw the potential immediately. It let me work on screen the way I already worked with traditional media, which brought my own hand into digital work. It made complex tasks like masking or painting easier. More than that, it let me leave an actual fingerprint on anything I made digitally. Later, when I started learning 3D and modeling, the Wacom came with me there too. It was a complete game changer.

My first one was a small blue Wacom with a cable, no wireless. It had a clear acrylic surface you could trace a paper over. This was before Wacom named that line Bamboo. I carried it between home and the office for years. After that came an Intuos 5, and eventually an Intuos Pro. Three tablets total since that first borrowed one, which says something about how long these things last.

WDD: Which software do you use? Why, and any tips?

Shorsh: I don’t believe in relying on just one piece of software for everything. My kit back then was Cinema 4D, ZBrush, Substance Designer, Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects, plus whatever smaller tools or plugins helped for specific effects.

Cinema 4D handled scene setup, materials, lighting, and static or animated 3D renders. ZBrush came in for more complex sculpting. Substance Designer handled procedural PBR materials I could reuse across any 3D software. Static renders got their post-production in Photoshop, animation in After Effects. Illustrator stayed reserved for more design-driven work. Sometimes I’d build line art there, export it as an Illustrator 8 file, and bring it into Cinema 4D as splines to extrude into 3D objects.

Update: some of this has shifted since 2021. I’m in the middle of moving from Cinema 4D to Blender and Unreal Engine. I’ve also added Nomad Sculpt for 3D modeling and Procreate for 2D painting and texturing, mostly for how portable that workflow is now and how capable Procreate has gotten. After Effects got a lot more use too. I’ll also reach for AI to generate certain assets these days, but I don’t delegate the whole process to it, more on where I draw that line here.

WDD: How much of your workflow happens analog?

Shorsh: I like to think of my images as a synthesis of traditional and digital technique. Traditional media gives me accident, digital gives me control. Two opposite things that make something more personal when combined. In the end, everything I make passes through a machine at some point, which makes it digital art by definition.

But there’s traditional material inside a lot of it too. A wash of watercolor or ink on very wet paper can become the texture of a sky. A photo of a stone floor or a crack in a wall can be the start of an abstraction, or just the grain on a specific material. I’ve been building my own collection of resources this way, things made by hand and then digitized for later use.

Plenty of what I use is purely digital too, but I’m specifically interested in what happens when the two worlds meet. I wrote more about how I shoot and prep that kind of reference and texture material here.

WDD: How do you overcome creative block? Any recommendations?

Shorsh: Put everything down and take a walk, alone or with company. Tidying up the workspace can shake something loose too. If none of that appeals, a short nap sometimes does the job. A creative block is really just your mind asking for a break from something heavy. Downtime matters as much as uptime. Coming back to work after real time away gives you a different perspective, usually better connections than you’d have found by pushing through. It’s a hard mindset to hold onto sometimes. But when I manage it, it pays off, in a way that still feels a little backwards. I’ve gone deeper into why stepping away works here.

WDD: How do you keep yourself motivated each day?

Shorsh: Every day I try to make real time for something of my own, giving my personal projects an actual slot in the schedule, the same as any client project. Sitting down to work on those is when I feel best. It’s also when I experiment and learn things I end up using later, sometimes even on commissioned work.

Most days come with pressure to finish urgent things for other people, because that’s what pays the bills. But the work that actually fulfills you deserves real space too. It’s part of what gets you closer to where you want to be as a creative. The reward isn’t always visible right away. Over time, though, you notice what you’ve absorbed. You end up with a stack of finished personal projects that make you better at the job, just from spending time building your own way of doing things. I keep that time protected the same way I’d protect any client deadline.

WDD: What’s your favorite music? Your favorite musician or band?

Shorsh: I’m open to a wide range of styles and eras. Music has always mattered to me, and I feel genuinely moved by sound. I have a soft spot for the 80s and 90s, especially guitar tones with layers of hypnotic sound behind them. As a kid I was obsessed with Soda Stereo and its frontman, Gustavo Cerati, who went on to have a great solo career. There was no internet here back then. Local artists like that were my bridge into a lot of music I still love today: David Bowie, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Cocteau Twins, Pet Shop Boys, My Bloody Valentine, Sting and The Police, among others.

These days I’ve been listening to Ratatat, Air, Tycho, and Hatchie, all artists I found through streaming platforms in the last few years.

WDD: Any last words for aspiring artists in your field?

Shorsh: Don’t be scared of making mistakes, be scared of giving up. Most of the time, an “error” turns out to be something worth keeping. Find a way to use it.

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This is what’s left of the Wacom Deep Dive interview before it became a video series, October 2021, for the record. If you want a more recent, more career-focused conversation, the interview with Think Art Director covers the book covers, the client side, and how it all started. Between the two, there’s a fuller picture than either one gives on its own.