I’ve been learning SideFx Houdini for past year or so… Here is a compilation of the fun projects I’ve created. Huge shoutout,credit and thanks to all the people sharing their knowledge online so it’s possible to learn rather quickly.

After the summer of 2023, I finally mustered up some additional energy to complete a project I began over 2 years ago. It had been quite some time since I genuinely enjoyed working on my personal 3D art. With a lot happening in my life, mainly revolving around family (which is a good thing), finding time to what I’ve always been passionate about has become increasingly challenging…

After some spring cleaning up I found this lying/hiding/dying/rotting in the deep folders of my hard drive.. Thought… 3 years old stuff but still cool so decided to release it out.

Yeah, boring times during all the covid-19 days. During early 2020 (first lockdown) I spent 3 days with kids sorting out lego bricks by colors. We put together all of those beautiful transparent pieces aside and I made some pictures which inspired me to make some 3d version.

I must admit it maybe a bit inappropriate to publish such a hellish project in these rather dark times but better sooner than later than never. I was about to write an essey about it but I wont. I just want it out so I can focus on a bit more optimistic art again. Everybody stay safe!

About year ago I started to work on chess set we have at home. Just for fun to try out the Bercon maps (plugin for 3dsmax) and see what could I do and how much I can get out of it. Besides other cool things it is very nice procedural 3d wood structure generator. At first I started shading with V-ray which supports Bercon maps nicely. Later on I decided to bake the maps and switched to Redshift renderer (read more)

Phew… new piece is done! something else this time..

Here you can watch 15 minutes of Fabio trying to interview me XD!

TotalChaos2018 in Bulgaria was awesome. I met several old friends as well as amazing new people. I gave hour long talk “3d art of Marek Denko” and had a good food and few beers!. Great event! Thanks to everyone involved!

I had an opportunity to spent several days at Trojan Horse was a Unicorn 2017 in Portugal. I gave a talk called “3d art of Marek Denko”. It was unforgettable experience and amazing event.

So I did it! You did it! Thanks for all the votes and people behind the Animago award! It was very nice experience and special evening for me! THANKS!

I’m proudly announcing that my work Her Eventual Hesitation has been nominated for animago AWARD 2017: Best still category. There are 3 works in the final round. You can give your vote here (not necessarily to my work) Thank you!

Just received email that 3 of my images Souvenir, Return to Prime Even and Autumn at Relay Outpost 17 will be included in the “EXPOSÉ 12: finest digital art in the known universe”. I’ve been also nominated for an award… so call me #nominee k? Anyways… I’ve been asked to share this cgstarter project so I gladly do. If it’s not too much to ask and you really really want… pre-orded the book. It seems it will help the team behind it a lot. Thank you!

It’s finally done! Enjoy my latest artwork…

I’ve been interviewed by Cgtrader

Finally new artwork time! As Usual it’s a been a busy year but despite all work, family and lazy hours stuff I was able to steal some time and finally finish new illustration.

Some of my works will be displayed in Gnomon Gallery Hollywood. If you are in the area make sure to check it out. Big names of the industry:
Alex Alvarez, Toni Bratincevic, Francesco Corvino, Marek Denko, Devon Fay, Guilherme Henrique, Dragos Jieanu, David Lesperance, Stefan Morrell, Nicolas Pierquin and Helder Pinto

I did a 4 hours long workshop at Splash 2015 in Prague. I showed my scenes, showed and explained my techniques. Lot of fun! Great event! Pictures can be found here.

A little tribute to late 90s Audi a8. It started with a simple lighting test doodle but at some point I decided to work on it and see how far I can take it. As I needed to fill it with some cars I bought the audi a8 model from humster3d. Model was in quite a good shape but adjustments/tweaks were necessary. Original plan was no plan at all, then I wanted to fill the scene with more cares but I kind of started to like the audis only in it. Don’t take it too seriously, I was probably just lazy. Enjoy.

I received email from CG trader saying lot of people gave their vote for me in the “Most influential designer” category. Even though I don’t design much. But thank you people! Lot of things going on in my life so sadly I don’t have as much time for personal work but I promise I’ll keep it coming!

I’ve been quite busy with work during 2014 but despite all I was able to spare some time and work on my personal artwork called Return to Prime Even. It all started with quick doodling in Photoshop and turned into long weeks of modeling, texturing, rendering, figuring things out and adding details.

I spent few days in Mexico city at very cool event Renderit 2014. I had a presentation about my personal artworks and inspirations and masterclass about my workflow. It was great pleasure to have a chance to participate and to meet new friends from around the world.

My “Rooftops, rockets and Adventures beyond” image made it to the 9th volume of the Digital Art Masters book series. You can preview and buy the book here. I’m looking forward to list the amazing book.

Hello, from time to time I’m asked to sell prints so in case someone desires to have some of my works on the wall here is link:
http://www.inprnt.com/gallery/denko/

This illustration called “Souvenir” is inspired by the shelf lit by the late sunset trough the trees. I’ve seen this magical light setup last summer during family holiday in Slovakia. I was experimenting with several ideas how to make it more alive and bring a bit of story into it.

I’ve made short making of video of my latest artwork.

After long breaks I was able to finish my next personal artwork. Finally! It’s been 2 years back when I started to work on it. Originally it was planned as a christmas present for my kids. Due to heavy workload I wasn’t able to finish until now. Hope you like it.

My “Under the southern highway” image made it to the 8th volume of the Digital Art Masters book series. You can preview and buy the book here. I’m looking forward to list the amazing book.

I’ve been interviewed for Chaosgroup V-ray Artist spotlight 03 2013.

I’ve been interviewed by 3dtotal

Finally after few months of heavy workload I’ve finished new artwork. I’ve tried to capture some sort of grayness of life as a man gets older and older as he starts to burn down slowly. Tired of world and its ridiculous patethism. Looking around and see things which I’ve never noticed or needed to notice before as life goes on day after day and priorities of everyday life are changing.

You can read short interview with me on tideart.

My “Everything beautiful is far away” image made it to the 6th volume of the Digital Art Masters book series. You can preview and buy the book here. Besides usual free copy of this amazing book I also received a limited edition pack of playing cards with the images from the book. So nice!

I’ve decided to render one high res frame from the recent animation I’ve made.

Short 3d animation made as a promotional clip of my company noemotion.net.

Check out the new site of friend of mine with nice 3dmodels and textures content. http://www.10ravens.com/

3rd little miracle came into my life this morning… His name is Otakar. So welcome here … to this strange world full of strange people…

I’ve never actually planned to advertise on my personal homepage but I have to violate my rules for these guys. Always there and after years we became more. So I’ll just drop a link and say “Check them out”! I’ve tried a lot of times and always satisfied.

Have fun in 2011! I made this one really quickly and also added as a part of the Quick stuffs gallery.

After months of fun and pain, I’m honored to proudly present you my brand new dirty and shiny personal project called Marek Denko Retrospective Reel.

Feel free to read a bit about the very first parts of my CG career here.

In this part of my homepage you can find some quick personal projects/tests i did in the past and felt they weren’t that good to publish. After some time I looked at them again and they weren’t so terrible so I decided to post them just here on my site.

It’s about being far away from family, friends from everything you love and care about. Just an anonymous cold waiting areas of airports gates with strangers all around set to dime mood of cold weather and soft fogy sunset make your unwanted company. I know these days airport are quite modern and fancy… but it’s even more unpersonalised with all those duty free shops and fake Irish pubs and pizza restaurants with fake smile or without it.

My recent personal artwork Eldorado was included in 3dcreative – The gallery October 2009 issue. You can download free lite version here or buy a full version issue here.

After a while I’ve finally finished my new personal project called “Eldorado”. The soil was originally made for a commercial print but the client refused this version asking for less violent soil and so on and so on… We all know how these clients/studio stuff work. I kept the soil scene and decided to use it for my own project since I liked it pretty much. I added lots of extra features like grass strands, roots, leaves and other small bits here and there. At the beginning I wasn’t really sure what will be the hero of the shot. I was thinking about tennis ball, golf ball, pack of cigarettes, bottle etc. but at the and one little toy car won.

Folks at FocalPress and 3dtotal.com decided to make chapter I wrote for Digital Art Masters Vol.3 – Making of Hektor free to download. So I’m not really sure if it’s that good or that bad but since I’m thinking from time to time I would say it’s kind of promotional move so to be humble it has to be really amazing chapter. Well ok, end of jokes… Here is the link to download the chapter (Enjoy it!) and here you can buy Digital Art Masters vol.3 book. I have all 3 volumes of DAM in my library and I can say it’s really nice reading! Besides… my 2 years old son loves it even more.

Another little miracle came into my life this morning… Her name is Ivanka. So welcome here … to this strange world full of strange people…

May issue of the Czech and Slovakian computer graphics and digital audio magazine Pixel number 149 published my article called “Making of the buggy series” in SK language and also there is a nice poster of my Buggy series: Desert rose in it. For world wide there will be very soon much larger and detailed “making of” available in new book from 3dtotal and that one will be in English.

I’m proud to announce that I became the member of the Jury on raph.com CG gallery. It’s one of the most prestigious and respected 3d virtual gallery over the globe. I still remember happiness when my first piece Female anatomy study was accepted in there back in 2004. It’s a honor guys thanks!

I’ve finished Lost Lake project or better I should say that my HDD finished my Lost Lake project. I had this little accident with HDD and this render is the only thing left I found on my FTP from this lost project. So I called it Lost Lake. There won’t be any wireframes or any shade views this time. : o / … only thing I can show are older wip renders.

There is an interview with me on 3d Total.com.  If you are interested you can read it here

bla bla bla… you know…

Another Worthless Environmental Movie – that is how I named my recent short movie. It’s a very simple atmospherical movie made of simple shots showing wasteland, rusty shipwreck, dead bird in oil and heart touching things like that.

I’m glad to let you know that I made it into the new 3d total book Digital Art Masters :Volume 3 with my work Hektor. Book looks pretty nice and it is full of beautiful images and interesting “making of” tutorials. I’m happy to be part of it.

So after very nice weekend spent in Prague, full of great lectures, so many old friends and crazy after parties, Maxcon 2008 is over. It was really great to be there and to be part of it. You can watch my lecture online on duber.tv only in Slovak language, but some parts are easy to understand just from visual part. So what to say… See you next year!

On July 5-6th 2008 there will be 4th year of conference about 3dsmax and computer graphics called MAXCON 2008. As previous years also this year conference will be settled in Prague. I’d like to inform you that once again I’ll be one of the speakers. I’ll be talking about my recent personal project Buggy series

I’ve recently finished my latest personal project. It is one of those bigger and I started to work on it in January 2008. It was shortly after I’ve seen Mad Max trilogy again. I love those fallout vehicles in the movie and I remember like I loved them when I was just a kid so I’ve decided to make at least my own one. I spent on it parts of my free time (about two to three weeks) during 4 months.

I’ve been interviewed by 3DCreative Magazine. Here you can download ‘lite’ version of the March 2008 3DCreative Magazine issue.

So again I’m on my own… and if you are interested about my services just send me a line. Don’t forget to check my 2006 demoreel here if you haven’t seen it already.

Let me say all those boring useless and cliché words… “Happy new year”

I’m proud to present my latest personal project I called Hektor. Enjoy it!

As it was officially presented at Siggraph 2007 Autodesk user group meeting I’m happy to let you know that I’ve been chosen as one of the Autodesk 3dsmax Masters for this year. I’m really honored and I’d like to say one big ‘Thank you’ to all of the people who gave me vote. I take this as really big stimulation and responsibility for my upcoming professional and personal projects. Here is the link for video at youtube.

My firstborn… His name is Adam. Welcome here Adam… to this strange world full of strange people…

I was interviewed at raph.com. You can read a bit about me and my find some interesting information about my work.

I’m happy that after months of working on a lot of professional projects eating all of my lifetime I found some time and I started, worked and I finished next personal artwork again. I call it “What took you so long?!” and it is environment inspired by one of Pragues districts where I’m living and working now.
Name of the street on the plank is kind of ironic “Osloboditelov” which is in Slovak language and it means in English “Liberators”. Picture is dedicated to my wife and my colleagues from imagesFX.

I’m proud to announce that I’ve been nominated as an Autodesk 3ds Max Master in this year’s Autodesk Master Awards. All nominees are great artists from around the world and it’s a big honor to be there with them, to be one of them. Good luck to everyone.

I wrote short making of Sunrise of the 80’s. Tutorial is hosted on Autodesks Area and so registration is required. Here is the link.

After the end of the year 2006, I had more free time to spend than usual so I started to work on my new personal project. I call it “Sunrise of the 80’s”. It took me about 3 weeks of work, mainly during the nights and creative moments of the short winter days and long winter nights. In the beginning it was planned as night street scene but during one week of playing with lighting and testing I reached sunrise once again like in my previous work “Street of memories“. I hope that people who know these kind of housing estates sceneries will agree with me that they have a particular charm. Thanks to all folks for supporting and helping me with good critique and to my wife for patience. I hope you like it.
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So old year has gone and new one is here… “I don’t wish to anyone anything good”. Once I really said that huh. But it is not this case 😉 Happy new year to all.

I’ve just returned from Iran when I was on working holidays with my friend Peter Sanitra. After few days there I discovered that Iran is much better country then I thought and it is definitely better then media present us everyday. People are nice and friendly, youth is modern and chicken kebab rulez.
In photography section you can find several pictures from Iran.

My artwork Heritage is included in the gallery of 3dcreative mag November issue 015. There are lot of very good stuffs to read inside of it. Good work guys!

After more then one year I decided to change the look of my website and to buy new domain marekdenko.net. I’m using redesigned and edited wordpress template which is originally created by Tracy Ou aka Viitoria L.(dfCOM). After few days full of editing style sheet, preparing pictures and filling up this new homepage with meaningful holy text I’m exhausted! So welcome visitors and I hope you will spent more time here than I usually spent on other artists websites.