In your opinion: Integrated or separated?

I would opt for integration. Though I have no problem right now with two separate programs, I see more benefits if LightWave is integrated. For instance, we could do away with skelegons and the hub. Though I don't see it happening in next version - perhaps version 9? :)

Do you always work in such a highly detailed Layout?

Actually I pumped up the display sub-patch level just for the rollover. :)

What is the inspiration behind the alien-looking boy and girl — NaNa and TaRo? They kind of remind me of the baby squid in Men in Black...

Really? The two cuties started off with LuLu — the adult version. She was my first cartoon character. I was then merely fooling around with magic bevel to create something fun to amuse my little niece. My niece didn't really like LuLu. So I created a kiddy version of LuLu and showed it again to her. She finally grinned and asked "Who is it??" and I replied "NaNa!" She giggled and so NaNa was born and named after my niece. My niece has a "boyfriend" named Ethan in the pre-nursery child care centre. Every time she returned from there, she would claim "Today Ethan bullies me. I beat Ethan. Ethan cries." I would roll up my eyes and said "You bully your boyfriend again??" She would cover her mouth and giggle. TaRo was then created to keep NaNa company. My niece plays an important part in all my kiddy characters, if she looks at it and says "Not nice!", it is not approved and has to be amended. LOL

How about the characters AnJi and Angel?

AnJi was created first after one of my night stops in Sydney. I saw this 2D strange and moody girl character poster along Oxford Street one evening. A few months after "Girrrl Power" featuring AnJi was done, I was in New York Times Square Virgin Record Store basement and saw this illustration book and realized the moody girl I saw in Sydney was called Emily the Strange. Angel was later created to complement AnJi like the good and evil twins...

The texturing on the bunny gloves is great! How did you achieve that sheen?

That is what I call the simplicity of LightWave shaders to create beautiful textures LOL. It consists of only a single gradient layer on incidence angle. Doesn't sound too complex does it? :)

Who is Empress Nadaliyah?

Well she is my first human fantasy character built two months after I bought LightWave for the CGTalk challenge in Feb 2002. I was glad my transition from another package to LightWave was pretty smooth especially the modeling concept was very different. I guess it is the ease of use of LightWave which is one of its main strengths.

Are your characters just in stills or do you have them rigged for animation as well?

Currently none of my characters is actually IK rigged for animation. I am more on the artistic side and rigging seems technical to me. However I see that going to change soon after LightWave [8] is out! Watching Proton rigging a character during Siggraph video stream demonstration in under a minute or so seems so easy and effortless. If Proton can do it, so can I LOL... I can't wait to progress to the next level as an animator and bring all my characters to life!