He started his career in commercial and design studios but spent all his free time working on his portfolio to work in his dream industry: gaming.
Ruan has now over 10 years of experience as a character artist but still feels like he has a lot to learn and do at Gameloft Brisbane!
Learn more about life as a character artist and his great advice for fellow creatives below!
Hi, Ruan! Tell us about yourself.
My name is Ruan, and I am currently a senior character artist at Gameloft Brisbane where I have been for almost seven years. I studied and completed my degree in visual communication in South Africa 15 or so years ago, which gave me a good foundation in all things media, 3D, and the theoretical side of visual culture.
I was working as a freelance 3D artist for the first few years for a number of commercial and design studios, but my goal was always to get into gaming. I spent my free time working on my portfolio that eventually landed me a job as a freelance character artist at a small mobile studio in San Francisco.
This freelance job turned into a long-term contract that allowed me to live abroad with my wife in the US and then in Germany for a few years. During this time, I could focus on my art and really build out my portfolio, which opened up an opportunity at Gameloft Brisbane.
I have always been a huge gamer and enjoy challenging games. This includes fighting games, platformers, and just about anything SoulsBorne. After starting a family, my free time has gone down significantly, and leisure time now consists of hiking, biking, and beaching with the family. Living so close to the Sunshine Coast makes this way too easy.
Even though I have been a character artist for over 10 years now, it still feels like I'm only just getting started. I still have so much to learn and different things I want to work on and explore. The next few things I want to focus on is pushing character stylization further, better renders, dynamic poses, and 3D printing.
Gameloft Brisbane worked with Indigenous historians for better representation of Native Americans in The Oregon Trail.What is your role, and what do you enjoy most about your job?
My role as a character artist is to take full responsibility for the entire character creation pipeline. I have a lot of creative freedom to take the characters where I want to, and I am so grateful to have that level of trust from my team. My day-to-day will depend on which phase of the project we are in.
During preproduction, this will involve character style and look development with the concept artists and art director, technical budgets, topology, character customization systems with the tech artist, and creating materials and assets that would be used by myself and other artists throughout the rest of the project.
Then during production, it's a matter of pushing all the characters through the pipeline, which involves all the sculpting, low poly modeling, and texturing.
Then towards the end of the project, we move on to key art and marketing, which has become one of my favorite parts of the process. Here I get to pose and render the characters, add facial expressions, and just polish everything so they look amazing and can be used in marketing shots, websites, massive art prints, etc.
What I love about doing characters for mobile is that I get to work on so many different styles and genres of characters. Mobile technology has reached a point where the fidelity is good enough that we can make really beautiful characters, but the turnover is still quick and satisfying so that it never becomes boring.
For our last project, The Oregon Trail, I had to do over 50 complete characters in just over a year. After a while, the workflow is so smooth it almost becomes invisible—it feels like I'm just sketching new characters.
What are some of your most memorable moments at Gameloft?
There are so many memorable moments, like office Olympics, table tennis, and lunchtime Tekken tournaments. However, most memorable events would be work-related.
I just love the comradery towards the end of projects where all rules and routines fly out the window, and everyone just does what needs to be done to get the project out the door. It's this weird mix of exhaustion and excitement that occurs when we put the final touches on months of work.
I find this time requires extensive creative problem solving and effective teamwork. As a team, you grow together during these times and you come out on the other side with stronger friendships and experience that is so valuable for your next project.
What advice do you have for people who want to work in gaming in a similar role?
Usually in this line of work, passion is not hard to come by, so the challenge is usually to pick what to focus on to improve your skill. There are so many different aspects/skills/software/techniques to work on, and it can be overwhelming.
I believe the most important thing is to show that you can take a concept and create a good looking usable game character. This character is the culmination of an entire pipeline where each part of the process builds on the previous part. Ultimately you'll need to get good at the process and not only focus on certain parts of it. Try to get to the endpoint of this process as often and efficiently as possible.
You’ll also need to learn that your art is not for you—it's in service of the bigger picture. You are there to help the creative director achieve their vision. Once you realize that, it becomes easy to make big changes to the work you've done and easier to take criticism while becoming a valued team member who is easy to work with.
Also find the art and magic in what you have in front of you. As an artist, it's easy to daydream about working some superhero or orc warlord, but there is just as much beauty, challenge, and charm in creating an 18th-century pioneer girl with a basic pink dress walking next to an ox.
Gameloft Brisbane is currently hiring for multiple positions, and we have many jobs open for artists in our studios around the world. Find and apply for them here, and stay tuned for another edition of Humans Behind the Game!
