GAMEDEV INSIGHTS #4 – Game Art – Artem Solop

Welcome to the fourth episode of GAMEDEV INSIGHTS – this time all about Game Art!

Gamedev Insights is our regular series of interviews with experts from various fields of game development. Today, let’s talk about growing professionally as a Game Artist. 

What is GAMEDEV INSIGHTS about? 

We invite professionals from a wide range of game development jobs.
 

We are hoping that they will tell us all about their experiences working in the gaming industry. 

Our mission is to give you resources to grow in your current position and to address difficult
problems that a web search may not readily answer.

Please welcome our guest – Artem Solop – Game Art pro – GFX Artist from Nolimit City

Here is our guest’s short BIO:

Artem has been a graphic designer for over 17 years, with more than a decade spent in the gaming industry. His primary expertise lies in mobile casino games.

Before we start, remember that if you’re looking for new job opportunities in Game Art, we’ve got you covered. Check out our jobs for Game Artists

Ljubica Garic – Senior Recruiter – 8Bit 

Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Game Dev Insights. I’m really happy to host Artem Solop today. Artem is a versatile artist who has been making an impact in the games industry for over a decade. His love for art has driven him to excel in many trades, making him a go-to person for all things creative. So Artem, welcome to our podcast. How are you?

Artem Solop – GFX Artist – Nolimit City

Hi Ljubica. I’m fine. Great, I would say.

Ljubica

Okay, awesome. Glad to hear that. So let’s dive into our talk about all things art and games. So can you tell us a bit about your career path so far and what actually led you to pursue a career in the games industry?

Artem

Since I was a kid, Video games were the only medium I was very impressed with. Of course, it was the early and mid-’90s and I thought, wow, “it’s connected to video, it’s connected to drawing and graphics”. I have drawn since childhood. So then I thought, “oh, it might be a dream job to make video games”, but when I was growing up and learning how to draw and think more professionally, I thought of it as a way to make money.

I decided to pursue an education in that field. I started working as a graphic designer in 2005, I guess, and making vector graphics, Flash. There was technology back then, web content with Flash and motion graphics combined.

I really liked it and enjoyed it a lot. And then after five years, I think it was around 2010, I just saw the game company announcement like a job proposition. So it was time for me to change a job anyway because I felt it was a bit boring and I’m not learning anything, so I decided to apply.

And back then games were made on Flash, so those were video slot games companies and it was just very seamless transition for me because I already knew that technology just needed some adjustment and since then it’s a job.

I’m not that dreamer anymore. So job sounds interesting until you start working.

Ljubica

Saying that after being in the industry for more than like ten years that you are no longer a dreamer. So walk us through what has changed.

Artem

When you make video games (because I’m not considering myself like an artist). We are not artists in video games. We don’t make art, we make graphic assets. So this is not painting or something super impressive.

This is logos, buttons, icons, textures, 3D models. It’s not really an art and it’s usually a team effort. So you can say, “yeah, I made this character there and yeah, I painted hair texture for it or something”. You cannot say, “oh, I created the whole thing”. As you cannot be an artist. You are just a graphic guy in a team. And when you make games, you approach them from very different angles than when you play them.

Now I hear from young, aspiring, let’s say, artists, they are like, “oh, I want to make video game. It’s so amazing because I like to play games”. Look, if you like to play games, play and enjoy them. A lot of people in game industry, they don’t play video games, especially those who work in bigger companies. Like they don’t have time for that. And you don’t need to really enjoy and love the product you work on because the success of it doesn’t depend on you.

Your contribution is supposed to be on a high level and you need to do a quality effort. But there are a lot of factors and other people who work with your team who will affect the result. I would say game development is a job. Sometimes it’s fun, but it’s a job. It’s work. 

I like when it comes to life, everything you make, because I do a lot of things. I work in a small team where I am responsible for all the visuals, concepts, special effects, animations, UI, icons and things. All visuals except coding. And when everything is coming together, it feels so great. It’s like sandbox. Like you playing when you’ve been a kid and you assemble something, I don’t know from sand sculptures or I don’t know brick playing and everything with the help of a code and math. It works.

You can play and interact with it. It’s like very primal, raw enjoyment. I still like this aspect a lot. That’s what keeps me excited about making games. In most cases, it’s surprising because, you know, it’s made very quickly, sometimes not very accurate, and with not much effort because it just needed to be done.

But you drop, commit assets and the game is built and wow, you’re surprised that it works.

Ljubica

It’s working, it’s alive!

Artem

This is awesome to feel that.

Ljubica

You’ve mentioned that as an artist, because this is your job, you don’t have to love everything that you do.

Artem

Yes.

Ljubica

So how do you actually get that inspiration, motivation to create something. To create something even though you’re not feeling excited or good about it at all. So, for example, when you get like a brief and somebody says, I want this, it will be ideal if this looks like this, this. And without feeling that, you’re like rush. Yeah. How do you manage? How do you help yourself? Then you stay on track and deliver the best.

Artem

Because I’m a professional who got paid to do certain quality job in certain amount of time and perform. That’s not always something you would like to do. That’s something that’s needed. And I think this is easier to do when you’re not very excited. I think those projects are easier to make because the only thing you need to concentrate on is just like a quality level. And I think that’s easier when you do something that you don’t feel “oh, this belongs to me, I put so much effort in it”. It’s not that you making bad graphics or something. Some projects, some games, they are just needed to be done and with certain quality level and meet the deadlines.

Ljubica

Have you managed situations where the graphics of the game, the quality of the game and your sense of what a quality game should be are mismatched?

Artem

It always will be mismatched because the imagination in our head is not very precise. You don’t imagine it as 100% finished picture. And quality level is very easy to measure because you see what competitors are doing, what are trends now and you compare. Also it depends on a deadline. For example, if you need to deliver something in two months when competitors are doing it in six months with bigger team, you should be realistic. You cannot achieve that goal. So you need to cut corners somewhere.

And regarding inspiration, getting back to your previous question, it does not always need to be very inspirational and motivational because we have active and passive thinking phase. So usually a lot of time you don’t spend 8 hours in front of your computer. When you are in your active thinking phase, you concentrate on work more than when you just go outside, breathe fresh air or grab a coffee or talk to a coworker and then you come up with something. So you don’t need to always sit in front of a computer and keep your brain busy. You will feel more tired, to be honest.

Ljubica

Actually, one of the issues that I meet with artists is that because they are fully employed somewhere, they actually do not have that much time to dedicate to their personal portfolios to further developing their personal styles. So I just wanted to check with you how do you manage that actually? How much time do you have left to work on the things that you are really sincerely, deep down excited about?

Artem

No. Yeah, all the time. I have a lot of time to do that because my personal art is separated from my work like job and I’m trying to dedicate as much time as I can to drawing, painting, sketches. Recently I got into 3D sculpting and blender to try some things that sometimes are helpful. I can take those skills and bring to work and use them there.

A lot of artists, probably face burnout, they have a lot of workload at their work, so working overtime, maybe something with family or relationships or it depends on personality, I guess. You need to have energy to be honest, to be an artist that constantly evolves and grows. It takes a lot of time and energy, I would say.

Ljubica

Okay, and what actually inspires your personal style? Are there some recurring themes or subjects that you’re passionate about?

Artem

I don’t know death, sculpts, robots mostly. All my art concentrated around man-machine thing. I think it goes from the childhood when I enjoyed watching Terminator and RoboCop thing. Like aliens and horrors I like that darker side and some technology like cars or some mechanical things. I studied a bit of two years of technical drawing at university both with hands and AutoCAD so I think it influenced me a lot to depict things more technical with more details. And I like a lot of different techniques also I’m not concentrated on only drawing or only painting. It’s boring so sometimes I can, I don’t know make collages a lot of digital things now there are a lot of instruments and things to learn. I just have an interest in it.

Ljubica

Yeah you do illustrations, you do graphic design, you also do UI and animations. How is it that you actually approach your learning and development?

Artem

I think it’s it’s because I’ve been working long time almost alone my first five years. I’ve been the only designer probably around and I’ve been making like a flash advertisement banners and different interaction, motion graphics things as well as, let’s say, posters for concerts and events and even package design. So I just learned to do a bit of everything. And it’s not like I’m good at everything. I’m not good at everything. I’m good at most of. The things but I’m not the best in any of those fields so if I need to apply for an animator job, I can’t do it because I’m not an animator. I’m into motion design. That’s what I do. I don’t have much skill to have very good animations and stuff. So I can make like impactful presentation and transition, or something like that, with moving pictures and objects.

I think I do all this because when I started, there was this Flash and you had everything with this tool you could operate images, then you could tweak the animation and timeline and then export it.

One tool for everything. So even if you need to have an interactive element you need to write some code or buttons. That helped me a lot so I brought a lot of paradigms into other technologies I’ve been involved with and new workplaces.

Ljubica

So you have been working in a smaller team for quite some time now, but also you have had a chance to work in bigger teams. And throughout our conversations you really have been highlighting the pros of working in a small team. But I wanted to ask, are there any downsides? And actually, how does working in a small team compare to working in a bigger team? Can you give us some parallels regarding smaller team? Communication, ownership, creativity, crunching.

Artem

Smaller teams win. The only problem of a small team: there will be bottlenecks. A small team has only advantages. Communication is faster, skills of people are usually broader and people are more talented. You don’t spend time on meetings, emails and all this corporate BS thing. You have by 50% more time you can dedicate to work and making things. So the only downside is when someone is sick.

I worked in big companies. A lot of things keep you busy but it doesn’t affect work and it doesn’t help. It’s a lot of communication and communication in a very like a corporate way, you don’t talk to people from human perspective. The company treats you like a resource. I’ve been an art lead responsible for hiring people for a team. I needed also to bring them bad news that we need to fire them and that’s difficult for me because I like people but I don’t like this idea that company treats them and you like a resource. And then you write email. “Okay, we decided to part ways with this person” and yeah, we didn’t decide that. They just told me to bring this news.

Ljubica

The messenger of bad news.

Artem

That happens often when they see oh, one artist is kind of above average and let’s give him more tasks and then you ending up not doing your art, graphics assignment and the longer you do it, for example, you write emails, you communicate and think but you don’t do anything related to graphics.

Then you lose your skills, you lose everything that makes you an artist. And what made you a good candidate for that job in the first place. I wasn’t a good manager, I wasn’t a good art lead, I was kind of someone who needed to do that job, so I did.

It was difficult for me to explain to the next person. I thought “okay, I’m leaving, I found another job. You will be a substitute for me, until maybe you burn out. But I think you are the person that fits in. And then I started to explain what this person needs to do. But when I’m going to draw, when I’m going to make games?

Ljubica

I mean, there has got to be some upside to it. Why are artists then still deciding to join big games studios? Is there anything good that you have learned from the experience? About your art, about yourself?

Artem

No I could not. I see myself from the side. Like some guy, almost like me. He hates managers and hates me now because I’m manager and things like that. Big company is good when you are extremely proficient at certain skill. Are you a logo, gradient, embossed 3D special effect designer? Big company is for you. You’re great character animator? Big company is for you because you’re going to do it for the rest of your life.

You are concept artist? You will draw it for the next 30 years or less until you burn out. That’s it. In small companies, there will be no job for you. Concept art will be like five minutes and it’s done.

I think the whole picture of the game industry, it’s usually promoted from the sides of the big companies that it’s prestigious, that it’s good to make Triple A product and thing and stuff. But that’s not really true because there are a lot of games, like video games now. It’s not console games and PC games anymore. When you commute, there are a lot of grandmas and older people playing on their phone. This are also video games.

Someone needs to do that. There’s a lot of jobs there, like video slots. It’s a huge market. There are a lot of games. There’s plenty of stuff to do. But people usually think of video games as God of War, GTA. Yeah, this is it. It’s again, coming back to that question that people who play video games, they think they can make video games, which is not true.

Ljubica

What is waiting for us in the future?

Artem

Yeah, AI will take over your job and mine. Working from home changed a lot. The whole concept of even office real estate thing. Processes inside the companies, they will also change. Younger people coming, they don’t want to work like that. It’s systems built by boomers. Even for me, difficult to understand this unnecessary approach and complications. Young people, they better give up. They will not work. They would work at McDonald’s than at the company with all these complications, hierarchy, managers.

Ljubica

A big argument for companies that are still hiring on site and want people to come into the office every day is that bouncing off ideas with each other in person is way better than when they are working remotely.

Artem

Yes, it’s good. Bouncing off ideas, I would say, in a small team is great. But if it’s big company, there’s not much bouncing of ideas anyway. Your idea is sent by email from your product owner or product manager or manager of a manager, middle manager.

You’re not bouncing that many ideas, to be honest. I like to work from office. For me, it’s difficult to concentrate at home. But good people, work from home, divided in half, I think. People with strong skill sets, they’re working even better when you don’t touch them. People who didn’t perform in the office, they don’t work at all. So I think the balance shifted to one of the sides, obviously.

Ljubica

How many days do you spend at the office per week?

Artem

Five days. I’ve been working at the office during Corona times. I’ve been commuting and I’ve been working there even if there were only two or three people.

Ljubica

Okay, cool. I don’t get it. I am perfectly fine with working from home. But on the other hand, I understand how it actually helps your work life balance. Once you leave the office, your work is done.

Artem

I really divide. That’s what also helps me to divide personal life and drawing in a job. I have surrounding, like office, I feel like this is my job, I work there. After office, I’m free, I can do whatever. It’s very strict in my head, these categories.

Ljubica

Awesome. Awesome. I’d like to actually discuss more your experience working as an art lead because you were very honest and you said “I wasn’t a good lead”. Besides being uncomfortable with being the messenger of bad news, why do you think that you were a bad lead? What is it that you missed to do?

Artem

I didn’t really understand the idea of art lead as a job. It can be an assignment. You can be a go-to person. People, when they have some troubles, they can contact you. But having it as a job, I’ve been involved mostly in writing emails and bouncing them to game manager or product manager and taking comments from the team. It’s not like working with people. I like people, but working with them, for me, it’s easier when you work. Making graphics, that’s what I really enjoy. But all this evaluations every year, like salary reviews and stuff I’ve been involved in?

You see people from other side, you see the talented artist, that’s not very motivated and he doesn’t really want to work more. But from the company’s side, you need to bring some encouragement and things. You sit there and think “leave the guy alone. He just want to draw and that’s it. He has no ambition. Not everybody needs to have it. He’s good at it, that’s it. Don’t bother him”. Or some other people where, let’s say, “Oh, I want to be an art director”. But for example, they don’t know English for communication, they don’t have the strong knowledge of, let’s say, game engine and things they do.

You need to explain that to them in a polite way, which I’m not good at. It’s formal, corporate thing. And a lot of time you’ve been just spending on meetings for no reason. This is what I hated the most. There were discussions, I don’t even know, when there’s no problem, you don’t need to fix it, you don’t need to talk about it. Game works. Don’t touch it, just don’t improve. Team works. Don’t bother them. Let them do their assignment until they’re done. That’s it. But yeah, there are constantly some improvements, something here that is not needed.

Also, artists, as soon as you’re responsible for that, they consider you their mom. “Oh, my Photoshop doesn’t work. Can you fix it?” “Oh, where’s my license code?” “Dude, it’s in your email. Just search in your email. There’s your license code been sent by admin some, I don’t know, some year ago or something.” It’s not that difficult. They feel like, “Oh, you are going to fix this for me.” Okay. That’s what I didn’t enjoy at all. That’s what I think. My place is in a smaller team, smaller company where I just use everything I know and make game graphics.

Ljubica

Still, in smaller companies, you still will be sharing knowledge and helping each other.

Artem

But it’s fast. I think it’s more natural way. You don’t need a manager to have this. In many companies, they have knowledge sharing sessions in this special meeting room or something, or some professional from other industry, basically competitor from your other company will come and explain what everybody knows already. So it’s a bit questionable. We are like five different game teams and each of them has one artist or two. So, we are like seven people, we can just literally talk, sit all around the office. We can just literally talk to each other, joke and you don’t need to be formal about it.

Ljubica

What advice would you actually give to artists that are now looking to start their career in the games industry? How should they build their portfolio? How should they prepare for the interview? Can you share something from your perspective?

Artem

Don’t lie in your resume. It’s very easy to check. It doesn’t matter what company you work with, is it big or small. There are chances I know people who work with you and it’s very easy to check. For example, in video slots industry? I know pretty much all the competitors and who works with who. And if a person applies from company, a person that’s not very good, that they treat people like shit or something like that. I can really check. Was that person bad or didn’t fit in?

Because I know guys from different companies, same in the bigger companies. Everyone knows each other. It’s a small world. You cannot really lie because your reputation is important. But you can lie in your portfolio a lot. For artist, I think it’s easy because a lot of times we are involved in NDA projects. If you don’t have the experience, but you want to make logos or you want to make icons or you want to make characters, just draw a lot of them, pick the most interesting ones and you can show them.

Even if you not made it for games, you can just tell, “Oh, this is for undisclosed project.” There’s no way to check. That’s the thing for sure. This thing you cannot check. You need to be a nice person to a certain extent. Sometimes it’s more important to be a nice team member than a great genius anImator, or an amazing artist.

Ljubica

Especially in smaller teams.

Artem

If you treat other people like shit and you’re a jerk and you’re rude, even if you’re very talented, nobody will want to work with you.

Ljubica

As you mentioned, your reputation will pursue you.

Artem

Beginner artists might not understand this, but with years, after so many years in games, I really feel the reputation is very important because when I found my current job, I didn’t have any test task to do. I had maybe 20 minutes long interview and that’s it!

Ljubica

How do you actually become a better human, a better professional?

Artem

Better professional doesn’t mean better human, to be honest. Evolve and do your stuff. Don’t forget to have fun. I might sound like, “Yeah, drawing is boring and things”, but there are a lot of things to enjoy there.

Evolve. I’m interested in what I’m doing, so I don’t think I cannot evolve. It’s like growing your skills with your personality, learning new things, approaching the same problem from different perspectives.Try to bring something new, try to approach it from another angle if your deadlines allow it.

Ljubica

Speaking of interviews, what are your, let’s put it this way, favorite questions to get or your favorite topics to discuss? And on the other hand, what questions do you believe are so outdated and unnecessary?

Artem

That’s a good question because I haven’t been on a very strict serious interviews. In 12 years, I changed job only twice. I don’t know. Maybe questions about personal life, they are a bit cringy. I would say the same as people who answer those questions, they are those who have their picture on their CV. That category of people.

Ljubica

This is an advice for all people out there, do not put your picture on your CV.

Artem

But it’s weird. I think it’s weird to have a picture on a CV. It’s a bit, I don’t know. I can see your picture on social network.

Ljubica

You mentioned that you were responsible for hiring artists before. Are there any other things that you really hate when people put in their CV?

Artem

Personal achievements that are not connected to work. When you study at school, there are certain category of people like activists. They are running the marathon, biking around the world. They’re hiking naked in the woods of Amazonia for 34 days or something like that. They cross La Manche or they’ve been three times winner of some golden horse dancing, whatever, cup. Certain categories of people never grow up because it’s not really a thing to be proud to be hired as an artist. This is not what I’m interested in. I’d like to see what you do (in terms of work). Do you have your personal (art) stuff? For me, it’s great to see what people do for themselves because a lot of artists are shy or something to show their personal side of art. I was working with one girl. She had a sketchbook and I asked her, “Hey, what do you draw here?” And she closed the sketchbook. “Oh, that’s some crap” she said. “But can I check it out?” And I looked and she had amazing sketches. It’s like a small sketchbook and she’s been drawing people during the morning commute in the subway.

They were awesome. I asked you ” why don’t you show it? This is so cool!” That’s what interesting for me. The personal art side of the person. Because those, activists and achievements-chasing people, they usually don’t grow professionally in their spare, free time which is quite disappointing.

I’m not judging, but I tend to categorize people unfortunately. But yeah, we all do that.

Ljubica

I have to like, agree with you. What you draw in your personal time? I think tells a lot about who you are as a person, what you are interested in. Much more than a couple of lines in your cv and also what other things you’re capable of.

Artem 

Yeah. And also it says a lot about dedication and passion because many times when someone leaves and find another job a person takes people with him. You see in a company there are like, three, four people left. You expect, they bring more people to their new place with them.

So if I know someone who is dedicated and passionate I will recommend that person. Spread a word that this is a good coworker for the next workplace. Definitely. 

Ljubica

Artem, thank you so much for being our guest today. It was really refreshing to hear about the games industry and what it’s like to be an artist in the games industry from your perspective.

And again, thank you so much for sharing your opinions with us today. 

Artem 

Yeah, thanks Ljubica. Thanks indeed. Glad you like it.

————-
We’ve now wrapped up the fourth episode of GAMEDEV INSIGHTS.

For all you Game Artists out there and Game Art aficionados, or those simply intrigued by the industry, we trust this convo has sparked some thinking about your career trajectory.

We can’t go without giving a huge nod to Ljubica Garic, our Senior Recruiter.
She’s been an outstanding host and champion for our team and unquestionably deserves a huge shout-out!

Should you have any questions about jobs in gamedev or wish to discuss anything related to GAMEDEV INSIGHTS, she’s your go-to contact.

We’re all ears for your questions, feedback, or suggestions, or if there’s a particular topic you’d like us to delve into.

Interested in joining us as a guest speaker? Don’t hesitate to reach out.