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 What's your secret to your apparent success? Background in art? Playing lots of games? In touch with your inner selves? If you can define it, what is it? |
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 Tully: Doing lots of art. I love illustration in addition to concept art, and I almost always have some piece or another on the go. It doesn't matter to me that much whether or not it ever sees the light of day, but constantly doing art is an important part of being good at it. You have to love it and it has to be a huge part of your life.
MoP: I think I'm just lucky when I hit on a good design. Most of my ideas come from reading a ton of books, I find for me, it's often more inspirational than looking at art, because the descriptions can create entirely new imagery in my imagination, rather than being influenced more heavily by the way other people have portrayed characters and settings in their own artwork. |
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| Do you both like being game artists? Why? |
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Tully: Of course! There aren't many other professions where you can work with the crazy and interesting stuff that games do. It's got its boring and tough bits like everything else, but that's why they have to pay you. The job I had before this one was at a Staples in Calgary, so it's a considerable step up.
MoP: Yeah, it's really good fun. I enjoy the challenge of finding new ways to work effectively within constraints, and come up with solutions to workflow issues. And of course it means I get to make models and textures nearly every day... practise makes perfect! |
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| Why did you enter the Dominance War? And if you could, would you recommend similar 3d game contests to friends/aspiring artists? Why or why not? |
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Tully: I entered to have fun and make something cool. The prizes were an incentive, but with all the fantastic artists entering I'd be satisfied to simply make something I could be proud of. I'd absolutely recommend doing these competitions... it's impetus to actually finish something and even if you don't place you'll still learn a lot and get your work out there. If you finish, worst case is you'll have another portfolio piece and tons of exposure, and that's never a bad thing!
MoP: I entered for the glory of Polycount! ...and because I hadn't done a character model in a while. |
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| What would be your advice for aspiring game artists out there? What type of training do you think would be helpful in becoming a successful game artist? |
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Tully: Put the artist part first and the game second. If you have solid academic art skills, you should have everything you need to draw from in order to do good game art. Software can be picked up fairly easily if you already know anatomy, colour, light, perspective, form, line, composition and the rest. Make that the main focus, but also get on sites like those participating in the domwar.. there are tons of great individuals who will help you learn how to apply the art to games.
MoP: What she said. I wish I'd known that when I was starting out!
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| Besides finishing another fantastic entry for dominance war II, do either of you have any other accomplishments you would like to share? |
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Tully: The most recent accomplishment was actually landing a job as a concept artist at Splash Damage almost right out of school. I graduated from university last August. Things have been going well and I can only hope there's more to come.
MoP: Yep, and Splash Damage will be releasing Enemy Territory: Quake Wars soon! It's fun and everyone should buy it. Buy it now. I SAID BUY IT NOW! |
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