Artist Spotlight - Wellington Franzao

We caught up with Franzao Wellington, CG artist and the Head of Franzao Academy, to talk about his creative process, his approach to teaching, and how Pulze tools fit into his everyday workflow. He shared how he stays creative while traveling the world, what makes his workshops tick, and why Scene Manager and Project Dream have become essential parts of how he works.

A laptop, a cafe, and zero excuses

Franzao’s usual setup

Franzao’s setup would make most archviz artists nervous. He doesn’t have a permanent studio or a fixed address. Since last year, he’s been traveling the world, working from cafes, Airbnb’s, and wherever he happens to land. His laptop handles the creative thinking, his PC back home handles the heavy lifting, and somehow it all works.

People ask him all the time: how do you do archviz like this? His answer is refreshingly simple. You connect remotely, you keep moving, and you let your surroundings feed your creativity. The constantly changing environment isn’t a limitation for him. It’s fuel.

The artist who doesn’t care about pixels

One of Franzao’s sketches

Here’s the thing about Franzao that makes him stand out: he genuinely doesn’t care about technical perfection, at least not in the early stages. While a lot of artists get lost in mesh quality and render resolution from day one, he’s chasing something else entirely.

Every project starts with inspiration. That could mean browsing images, watching films, or just absorbing whatever the project is asking for. Only when the creative direction clicks does he open 3ds Max. And even then, he’s sketching, not polishing.

“I’m not picky with the mesh, I’m not picky with the resolution. I’m picky only with my ideas. Once I have an idea, once I have a sketch, it doesn’t matter if it’s a 400 pixel one or a 2K. I’m always hunting and my goal is always the ideas, the sketches.”

His personal projects follow the same philosophy. They’re fast, raw, and idea-driven. A personal project can be done in two days because he strips away everything that doesn’t serve the concept. Just the idea, as clearly as possible.

It’s this mindset that shapes everything he does, from client work at Elephant Skin to his workshops to how he uses tools. If it helps him explore ideas faster, he’s in. If it slows him down with unnecessary complexity, he’s out.

Scene Manager: where exploration becomes effortless

Snapshot of Franzao’s workflow on Scene Manager

This is exactly why Scene Manager clicked for Franzao from the very first time he used it. He remembers the moment clearly, and his reaction was instant: this was built by CG artists who actually understand the problems.

“When I met the founders, I was like, yeah, that makes sense. Because this is perfect for a CG artist. All the struggles that we have, Scene Manager is there to solve. That was a CG artist who walked in and actually created a tool to solve all the problems that we have.”

Scene Manager enters his workflow right at the beginning, during the exploration phase he cares so much about. As he experiments with different angles, lighting setups, and compositions in 3ds Max, he saves every variation into a single file. No more saving separate files for every camera. No more losing track of that one lighting setup you liked three hours ago.

For someone whose entire process is built around generating and capturing ideas quickly, this is a game changer. He can explore freely, save as he goes, then scroll through all his ideas in Scene Manager and decide which ones to push forward. After that, he takes them into Photoshop and starts refining.

“When I’m creating sketches, I’m saving all the lights, all different cameras, all different settings in one single file. I save lots of space, keep getting new ideas, and just save them. After that, I go through all of them in Scene Manager, I can see what I’m creating, and start playing in Photoshop. This is the best workflow for me now.”*

On larger projects and master plans, Scene Manager becomes even more critical. When Franzao is working with a team, everyone starts from a shared base file. Each artist explores their own area of the project independently, and when someone needs to pick up where another artist left off, it’s just a click. No confusion, no file chaos, no wasted time trying to figure out what someone else was doing.

Even when he’s working solo, it’s just as essential. He laughed when he told us he doesn’t even remember what he ate today, so having Scene Manager keep track of all his ideas is a lifesaver.

When we asked him what it would feel like to go back to working without it, his answer was perfect:

“You know when you have two screens and then you have to work with only one? That’s the feeling of not having Scene Manager. Because once you go there, you can’t go back.”

Project Dream: from sketch to something shareable

A sketch example he shared with us from his work out of Project Dream

If Scene Manager is where Franzao captures his ideas, Project Dream is where he pushes them further.

It fits right after Scene Manager in his workflow, during the concept stage. Once he has his sketches and variations saved, he moves into Photoshop and brings Project Dream into the mix. The process is simple: drag and drop, tweak the settings, play around, and pull the results back into Photoshop for masking and compositing.

The feature he keeps coming back to is image to image.

Franzao creates the initial sketch himself, with his own angles, his own lighting, his own creative choices. Then he uses Project Dream’s image-to-image to generate slight variations and discover new elements he might not have thought of. He stays in control of the creative direction while the tool opens up new possibilities around it.

“I am the one creating. I am the one trying different angles and light. And from that image, from that sketch, I can find reference and get slightly different variations, elements on that scene, and then I implement that on my own sketch. The image to image to me is stunning.”

He also uses the upscale feature to sharpen his output and get concepts client-ready or competition-ready fast, without jumping back into 3ds Max for every small change. For an artist who values speed and creative flow above all else, that’s a big deal.

Franzao first discovered Project Dream through a training session at Brick Academy and was immediately hooked by how intuitive it was. Now it’s a permanent part of his process.

“It’s so helpful and so simple. You just drag and drop, change the settings, play. Copy and paste into Photoshop, mask in, mask out. Absolutely easy and fun to do. And the upscale feature as well, of course.”

Teaching artists to feel free again

Franzao running his online workshops

Beyond his own work, Franzao has been running workshops since last year. But if you’re expecting technical tutorials, you’re in the wrong room. His workshops are about something bigger: learning how to think creatively and explore without fear.

He teaches his students a way of thinking. How to approach a project with curiosity, how to explore a file and actually find ideas instead of just executing someone else’s brief. It’s not about which button to press. It’s about what to do once you’ve pressed it.

Scene Manager and Project Dream naturally come up during these sessions, and the reactions are always strong. When students see that they can save all their explorations in a single file with Scene Manager, it’s a genuine “whoa” moment. And when they see how quickly Project Dream can enhance a rough sketch into something presentable, it changes how they think about their own speed and potential.

But the feedback that hits Franzao the hardest has nothing to do with tools.

“When they come to me saying they now feel the passion they had when they started as a CG artist, that’s the most powerful feedback. Because when we start as a CG artist, you start in this field because you love it. And then with time you lose that passion. When I hear from them that they are passionate about creating images again, for me that’s the most powerful feedback of all.”

He sees a pattern: people get into archviz because they love creating. Over time, the grind wears that passion down. His workshops help them reconnect with why they started in the first place. That, to him, is worth more than any technical lesson.

On AI: keep creating, the rest will follow

One of Franzao’s sketches

With AI being the hottest topic in archviz right now, Franzao’s take is refreshingly grounded. He doesn’t see it as a threat. He sees it as another tool in the box, just like Project Dream.

His advice to artists, especially those just starting out, is simple: develop your artistic eye, learn how to think creatively, and keep making things. The tools will keep evolving, but the ability to come up with ideas and solve problems visually will always be what sets you apart.

“If you develop your skills as an artist, as a problem solver, you have nothing to worry about. AI is just a tool, like Project Dream. It’s just a tool and you use it to create ideas. If you are always trying things, getting new ideas, exploring and actually doing this, you have nothing to worry about.”

Franzao Wellington is the Head of Franzao Academy and a 3D Awards, AHA, and ASAI award winner. He’s currently traveling the world while creating archviz work for top studios. Follow him on Instagram @franzao.f to stay tuned for his next workshop, and check out his podcast, Talk to Franzao, where he chats with artists, architects, and other creatives from the archviz world.