Artist Case Studies and Industry Research
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
In this blog, I will document all my research and theory work regarding the games industry, how roles within the industry work and can benefit and reflect onto myself and document a case study on two different artists within the industry.
Artist Case Studies - Julia Arty & Allison Yu
Allison Yu is a 2D Concept Artist for Blizzard Entertainment from the US. She mainly works on producing concept art for the game Overwatch 2, and focuses on creating character concepts for new skins and weapon designs alongside. On her ArtStation page, she has many posts of finalised designs and character sheets from the games production, as well as some induvial projects and artwork as well. Allison primarily makes character and concept art depicting the characters from the game Overwatch 2, which are 3D modelled by other members of the Blizzard Team to be implemented into the game.
character sheet via Allison Yu on ArtStation
Her rendered artwork uses a softly shaded styled, and she uses many bright colours frequently throughout her work. This can also be seen within some of her personal artworks, which all appear very soft and bright looking. Her work is easy on the eyes and her usage of colour depicts a warm feeling in most of her artworks. She tends to use thin line art in a more sketchy stye which helps further to push the soft feeling of her works. I personally love the style of her works, they feel very cosy and nice to look at even in some of her pieces which depict darker colour palettes and themes. I would like to take inspiration from her works to use within my own, such as the way she creates her character sheets and also transfers her art style to fit the briefs she works upon - such as her concept work for Overwatch, which is not drawn in her usual art style but she still manages to fit both the style of the game while also adding her own touches.
character sheet via Allison Yu on ArtStation
in-game model from Overwatch 2
Above, is the 3D modelled version of the skin Yu drew concept art and the finalised character sheet for. This is a great reference for me to use to compare how the concept art differs from the finalised 3D product. While Yu did not produce this 3D model, it is great to see how her work was transferred into a 3D format.
Julia Arty is a 3D artist from Barcelona, Spain. she mainly specialises in 3D modelling, specifically of character renders of her own designs and of other peoples. She creates an abundance of different models, usually in a more stylised and exaggerated style. Her modelling style is similar to that of Disney, as seen in animated works they have made such as Tangled, as her work reflects the faces, hair and proportions of said style evidently. Personally, I really like this style of modelling and think it looks stylised and expressive, as well as being flexible. I believe that the style of her works is highly transferable, and could easily be used to create more detailed models with many accessories or features, or it could be used to keep simplistic.
model via Julia Arty on ArtStation
model via Julia Arty on ArtStation
I would like to take inspiration from her works and style, and try to incorporate it within my own works too, while also keeping my style present. I really like the way she models hair and body proportions, so that is something I will try to closely follow and replicate within my own works. In comparison to the previous artist, both of their work and styles differ greatly. The most notable difference are their forms of work, one being a 2D artist working to create the concepts and ideas to then be modelled and the other being a 3D artist who works off of those types of 2D concepts. While both of their roles differ, they are crucial to one another as a part of the designing process. It is very interesting to see their different approaches to work and designing, and I will defiently be taking notes and inspiration from both of their works.
https://www.artstation.com/julia_arty
https://www.artstation.com/erenaibi
Job Roles in the Creative Industry
In the gaming and creative industry, a huge variety of different roles and jobs can be offered, each differing in skillsets and tasks that they must take on. These jobs can vary from things such as designing roles like concept artists, texture artists and 3d artists, to animation artists, to technical roles like VFX and programming, to production roles such as games producers and community/media managers. The industry offers a huge variety of different roles and many games departments take efforts from large groups of people to produce their work. In smaller indie companies, people tend to take on multiple roles each to achieve the same goal, but game studios and teams always work in group efforts to produce their works.
Dependant on different specific jobs, different skills and required. While a lot of these skills are dependant on roles, a lot of technical skills learnt and used within the industry can be transferable to many different roles too. For example, the jobs of a game programmer and a game level/environment designer are quite different are require different skillsets. For a programmer, their area of expertise lies in making the code, and programming certain aspects of the game to work correctly and smoothly without bugs. Where as a environment designers job is to create environments for a game whether it be by creating concepts arts, 3D modelling or finalising work of efforts of multiple different people from different areas. Both of these roles vary a lot, however they still must work alongside each other to help produce a final product. Both of these roles still require skills such as time management especially in an industry environment where things need to be completed within a certain timeframe.
Another example of roles in the industry that can link and transition into one another in terms of skillsets are roles such as a 3D modelling artist and a texture design artist. Usually, these two roles can be found working in similar departments on similar areas of game production. A 3D artist usually works on creating models and perfecting said models. These can vary from things such as characters, to weapons, to items, to even environment modelling. Usually multiple different artists will work on creating 3D assets and specialise in certain areas that they work best on and feel more confident in. a Texture artist will usually be in charge of texturing and finalising these models. In smaller production companies such as indie games development teams, These roles will sometimes be combined and models will be produced and texture by the same artist. These are just a few examples of transferable and different skills in the industry, however there are many different roles across the creative industry.
As a games student, researching into these roles can not only be very beneficial and a great source of research, but can also allow me to understand what type of roles I would be most interested in. Upon researching into the many different jobs across the industry, it can allow myself and others to understand better the variety of roles and learn the type of skillsets to practice and understand dependant on what area I would like to go into. Not only will this allow me to practice certain areas of skills, but also by looking into the industry I can learn what a workday is like and understand which type of job would work best personally for me.
References:
ScreenSkills, Careers in games [online]. ScreenSkills. Available at: https://www.screenskills.com/job-profiles/browse/games/ [Accessed 26 February 2025].
Anon, The complete list of gaming jobs [online]. Hitmarker. Available at: https://hitmarker.net/career-advice/the-complete-list-of-gaming-jobs [Accessed 26 February 2025].
Allison Yu, Artstation.com. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/erenaibi [Accessed 26 February 2025].
Julia Arty, Artstation.com. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/julia_arty [Accessed 26 February 2025].
Comments
Post a Comment