3D ART DIRECTION · REAL-TIME · PIPELINES

High-end visuals,
interactive 3D
and the systems behind them.

I create photoreal imagery, lead 3D teams and build scalable production workflows for product, entertainment and digital environments.

Valencia, Spain Blender · Cycles · Unreal · Three.js · GLTF Available for selected projects

What I do

I work between art direction, visual quality and technical production — from a single image to repeatable systems designed to scale.

Selected clients & collaborations

Selected work across entertainment, automotive, luxury, visualization and real-time production.

Selected work

Selected work.

Product visualization, hard-surface assets, real-time cinematics and architectural imagery.

01 / PRODUCT VISUALIZATION

Product
Visualization.

Photoreal product imagery built around material response, lighting and controlled composition.

Blender · Cycles · Lookdev · Lighting · Materials

Clay render of the lamp scene
Final photoreal product visualization of the lamp scene
Clay
Final
Photoreal visualization of an upholstered armchair
Close product visualization of a metal faucet and wood countertop
Material study / 01

Commercial imagery, material studies and atmospheric product lighting.

Concrete cinematic still with a child approaching a monumental concrete structure at golden hour
Atmospheric interior product visualization with shelves and practical lighting

02 / HARD SURFACE

Hard Surface
Character.

Mechanical asset work combining modeling, material breakup, wear and close-up surface detail.

Modeling · Texturing · Lookdev · Hard Surface

Full-body hard-surface mechanical robot character
Mechanical detail of the robot torso and cabling
Close material and cable detail on the mechanical robot

03 / REAL-TIME CINEMATIC

Strange Planet.

Real-time cinematic created in Unreal Engine, focused on environment, lighting and visual atmosphere.

Unreal Engine · Real-time · Cinematic · Lighting · Lookdev

04 / ARCHITECTURAL VISUALIZATION

Architectural
Visualization.

Interior imagery focused on daylight, material readability and photographic composition.

ArchViz · Blender · Lighting · Materials · Composition

Photoreal architectural visualization of a contemporary living room

Interactive 3D

Interactive product
experiences.

Real GLB assets rendered directly in the browser — with material variants, doors and drawers controlled in real time.

PRODUCT / 01

TONSTAD

THREE.JS · GLB
Loading model
Material
Drag to orbit · Pinch to zoom · Tap parts · Double tap to focus TONSTAD

PRODUCT / 02

HAUGA

THREE.JS · GLB
Loading model
Material
Drag to orbit · Pinch to zoom · Tap parts · Double tap to focus HAUGA
Viewer note

TONSTAD uses its WOOD / WHITE PBR texture sets. HAUGA switches between its wood setup and the embedded white material definition. Glass is kept subtle and transparent while preserving stable depth behavior.

01

Material variants

Real-time finish changes using the product's PBR material structure.

02

Object interaction

Doors and drawers can be inspected open, closed or anywhere in between.

03

Glass handling

Transparent materials are patched for stable alpha and depth behavior.

04

Production scale

Built around reusable GLB assets rather than one-off presentation scenes.

Scale & direction

Built for projects
that need volume.

I work hands-on when needed, but I also lead teams of artists and build the production structure required for large deliveries.

01

Art Direction
& Team Leadership

I define the visual target, organize ownership across a team, review work, unblock artists and keep parallel production streams moving toward one consistent quality bar.

02

High-volume
3D Production

For projects that require large numbers of assets, renders or deliverables, I design the naming, review, QA and export systems that keep quality repeatable as production scales.

03

AI Training
Datasets

I can structure teams and 3D pipelines for high-volume datasets used in AI training, where consistency, metadata, repeatability and throughput matter as much as individual asset quality.

Tools & systems

Tools built from
production bottlenecks.

Most of these tools started the same way: a repetitive manual task became slow, inconsistent or difficult to review at scale. Instead of adding more process around the problem, I built a tool to remove the bottleneck.

01 Blender · Review

Texture Reviewer

The blocker

Large material families were slow to validate manually. Wrong color spaces, inconsistent map ratios and subtle differences between versions were easy to miss.

What I built

A controlled review scene with original/remaster comparison, HDRI switching, family navigation, non-color validation and aspect-ratio checks.

02 Blender · Pipeline

Asset Organizer & Exporter

The blocker

Versions, collections and export states were being managed by hand. That made naming drift, duplicate objects and inconsistent deliveries too easy.

What I built

A standardized original/remaster collection structure with controlled instancing, predictable naming and repeatable export of production-ready props.

03 Blender · QA

Prop Reviewer

The blocker

A remastered asset can look convincing in isolation while still drifting from the source in silhouette, proportion or placement.

What I built

A fast review setup for original-versus-remaster comparison, focused on silhouette, scale, orientation and high-level shape before detail review.

04 Web · QA

Render Compare

The blocker

Small lighting, material and exposure changes are difficult to judge from memory, especially across many iterations or reviewers.

What I built

A lightweight A/B comparison tool for instant visual validation of render versions, making differences obvious without switching files or applications.

05 Three.js · GLTF

Interactive Product Viewer

The blocker

Static renders do not expose how a configurable product behaves: material states, moving parts, hidden surfaces and browser performance all matter.

What I built

A browser-based GLTF viewer with material variants, doors and drawers, camera controls, product states, wall visibility logic and web-oriented asset handling.

06 Python · Optimization

Batch Texture Processor

The blocker

Oversized source textures, mixed formats and inconsistent map resolutions created unnecessary memory use and repeated manual cleanup.

What I built

Batch conversion and relinking scripts with map-specific resolution rules, consistent formats and predictable texture budgets for production delivery.

Showreel

Moving image.

Watch on YouTube ↗

About

Jonatan Mercado

I’m a 3D Art Director and CG Lead based in Valencia, working across photoreal visualization, real-time graphics and scalable production.

My focus is where artistic direction and technical execution meet: defining the visual target, leading the people producing it, and building workflows that keep quality repeatable at scale.

CORE Art Direction
Team Leadership
Production Systems
TOOLS Blender
Cycles / Unreal
Three.js / GLTF
LOCATION Valencia
Spain
Remote worldwide

Contact

Available for selected
direction & production work.