Video Game Art Appreciation 101
Artist Interview Exploring Digital Painting at the Fine Art Level
Dec 13, 2008
Richard, you graduated with a B.F.A. from UCD, with emphasis in painting. You worked with the animation students creating concept art for their thesis project. Did you take any digital art classes?
I did take one independent study with Bryan Leister for illustration. At that particular time I was pretty knowledgeable with Photoshop so we focused more on formal and technical issues of illustration. Because a lot of illustration work is about painting things that don't exist in real life, a lot of the discussion went into how to effectively use reference and create compelling compositions that sell to the public.
Please describe the contract arrangement between you and Sony, basically, how they commission you with projects, etc.
Well, I actually freelance for Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). As part of their artist pool, whenever they have a new project they will write up a short e-mail offering a commission with a set number of images. After the number of images are confirmed a contract is written up by their legal department with a schedule and work goes from there. I work with the art director who writes up each card's description, detailing the action and mood that he wants us to illustrate. The hard part is getting into their artist pool.
Please describe the current project you are working on.
The illustrations that I actually do for SOE are card illustrations for an online trading card game (TCG). A TCG is a game where you collect cards and create decks that you play against other players. The TCG I'm doing work for is called Legends of Norrath and is unique because its strictly online. Every card has a unique illustration and there are hundreds of cards in every released card set, that’s where I come in. Its worth mentioning that Legends of Norrath is based off of Everquest and Everquest II so all the world and lore bounce back and forth, which makes it easier for me because there’s such a wealth of information to go to when I need to root the illustration to something.
Could you mention a few of your artist influences/ artists you admire (contemporary and historical)?
A lot of my influences are other contemporary illustrators and professionals in the concept art industry. Justin Sweet has been a source of inspiration for me lately. You might know Justin Sweet's work through the recent Narnia movies, he did concept art for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as well as the new movie Prince Caspian. Justin Sweet also brings in a lot of influence from Frank Frazetta, particularly in his characters and compositions. As a group, I also enjoy the work that comes from Massive Black, an outsource company that provides visualizations for movies and games.
Can you describe the video game art that you made for your friend’s game?
When I was taking the independent study with Bryan Leister, I remember him telling me that every image that you work on should be done in a way that you could showcase in your portfolio. Unfortunately, this was not what happened in this case. I used to be fairly active on a forum, gamingw.net/forums, which was a community for indie game developers. It has since become much more of a general community with a strong creative foundation. I was moderator of the Graphical Arts section of the forum at the time and a friend approached me, asking me if I would create the cover art for their project, Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, a vidcon made in a program called Game Maker. I was actually very interested in creating the cover art. The game became a runaway hit and became something of phenomenon, becoming published on several websites and gaming magazines. I won't say that I was careless in doing the art for it, but it was miserably unprofessional so when I found out that my cover was suddenly published, I felt an odd mixture of horror and awe.
What projects are you working on besides the cards?
I'll probably try to get into my old high school passion of concept art for videogames. I'm totally an escapist. If I could play god in a world of my making and invite people into it to come play for a day, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Videogames are the next best thing.
What would you like see happen with your art and digital art in general?
I'd really like to create a sense of lore with my work, creating something that people can experience.
Richard Tran graduated with a B.F.A. from University of Colorado at Denver in May 2008. He currently lives outside of Denver and creates digital paintings as well as oil paintings. This Interview with continues in The Marriage of Video Games and Painting.
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