MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1420529
Q: You are currently the art director at “The Odd Gentlemen” game studio, how did your career path lead to this point? At first, it was an unpaid gig that Evan offered me (laughs), a passion project of his. It was a time of finding myself as an artist, and it gave me an opportunity to apply myself in a professional setting. I fell in love with the production process, being in a team with multiple people and working towards a larger goal. Around 2008 or 2009, Evan had moved to California to work as a senior concept artist for a game studio, which he got me connected with. At that point, I got my first Cintiq LCD-tablet, which I basically used for everything from 2010 to 2020, and all these small steps got me to where I am today. After that studio shuttered, Evan then became the art director at my current studio, “The Odd Gentlemen”, and he brought me on to do animation, textures, and concept art. At that time, I was still working full-time at a restaurant as a manager, but I was able to keep up with what they wanted and based on that, I joined the studio full time. Now he has moved and I have become the art director, which was a cool and challenging transition. Q: How was it for you to take over this kind of responsibility, compared to what you had done until that point? It was rough at first. I thought I had an idea, because I had managed people before at the restaurant. We were a small studio, so there weren’t a whole lot of people to manage. Instead, the hardest part was trying to stay strongly focused in my area vs being overly worried about the areas that didn’t really affect me. I’m the art director, not the creative director or any other of the main leads. I needed to focus on that and give my creative input, while trusting the other directors in their roles. Q: Do you have any advice for people aiming to be artists in the game industry? Something that I hold strongly is that you should do what you are passionate about. People can tell if it is something that comes from your heart or something that you just put out for attention. Focus on what you love and stay open to suggestions, because you have to be pretty versatile in video game or animation production. If you are only able to draw in one style, then that is the only job you will get. I applied for so many jobs which I didn’t get because I only had anime in my portfolio. Also, there is nothing wrong with networking on social media, but people can tell when you are genuine. (laughs) Every tiny interaction online is like a seed that you pluck away for a later time. When someone needs that one artist for that one thing, they will remember you. It goes both ways for you and for others. Q: On social media you are especially popular for your 90’s retro Anime style, what is the most fascinating aspect of that style for you? One thing I particularly like is the use of blacks and lines. There is a lot of texture in it, and I believe it was a cost saving measure for animation. Instead of, for example, having to draw neck details, they would add a dark shadow there and just paint it as part of the line art. I also like the grit of the ink on cels, which is quite hard to emulate in digital art. There are certain tool sets that you can use to fake that. Back in the day, Japan had really mastered cel animation and they wanted to push it. Japan was always in the race to push things further, so you have a movie like AKIRA, which has scenes where a building is crumbling down, with smoke and debris scattering, and 50 individually animated people which were all animated on 3 seconds-worth of cels. All that is kind of ridiculous for a shot that short. Nowadays, you can do that in CGI. I liked the approach of people creating such a “ridiculous”