Being a successful artist in the
games industry means having
expert knowledge in one or more
specific areas of art development
such as animation, concept art,
lighting or character modeling
to name a few and in order to
reach that level you need to have
professional level knowledge of
some high-end and complex
software programs. It also helps
to have a technical approach to
art as well as a visual one. Being
an Art Director for so many years
meant that I had to have that
level of knowledge in all areas.
It was my knowledge of those
various software packages that
allowed me to develop my own
art style and process after I left
the games industry.
With game development it is
all about technical limitations
but once those restrictions were
removed I was able to create
a process that uses several
different software programs that
are traditionally used for highend
games and movie effects in
unique ways to create my fine art
pieces.
Q7. You have worked with
some of the high-profiled
companies such as Lucas
Film, Dreamworks, Tolkien, and
Marvel Entertainment. Working
with these companies - what
did you learn from them and
how did you apply it to your
art?
That is an interesting question.
The projects that I did with them
involved working on existing
IP’s with established visual
requirements so for the most part,
artistically I was already bound
to an existing art direction. You
would probably never see a giant
2-headed flying dragon with a
Scottish accent in the Star Wars
Universe.
Those projects presented their
own challenges which I really
enjoyed but in the context of my
personal art, what I really got out
of those experiences was more
on the technical side of things.
When working on game art you
are always in a mode of finding
ways of pushing technology so
you can in turn develop more
complex art. It was finding ways
of pushing the technology that I
found applies to my fine art.
Q8. You took a year to
contemplate your artist
direction. Why did it take so
long? And when it comes
to your art - what were you
originally thinking?
It took quite a while to develop
my process. The main reason is
that ultimately I just needed it to
evolve on its own into whatever it
was going to be. When I started
I knew that I wanted to develop
a process that involved the
software that I had used for so
many years. I knew there was
untapped potential to combine
the programs in ways that no one
else was really doing, but I didn’t
know exactly how I was going
to do that. There was a lot of
trial and error in discovering how
certain elements complimented
each other or not. There were
a lot of instances where I tried
various methods only to find out
that from a technical standpoint
the programs would not work
together in that way. There
July 2020
Polo De’Marco