Working as a Character Lead in the Video Game Industry

Introduction

My name is Steven Kosanovich, and I am a Senior Character Artist at Iron Galaxy Studios.

I got my undergrad art degree at the University of Central Florida, where I focused on drawing and printmaking. I got my master’s at UCF’s video game school, Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy.

I’ve worked on many things at Iron Galaxy, but some of the more well-known projects include Batman Arkham: Origins, Killer Instinct Seasons 2+3, Borderlands 2 for the PS Vita, and Divekick. Currently, I’m a Character Lead on a new internal IP that we’re working on.

Iron Galaxy Studios is the only company I have worked for. I was hired as an intern out of FIEA, did a semester internship, and then was brought on full time. My Internship started in the fall of 2012, and I was made full-time in 2013.

How Did You Get into Character Art?

A lot of it started with The Dark Crystal, a film by Jim Henson – I first saw it when I was a little kid. After seeing that, I realized you could be creative and make whole worlds and universes, and as a kid, you get excited about making things yourself. That was kind of the seed that got me interested in characters and worlds.

Then, in high school, I saw a newspaper article about a new game development school starting in my home state – it was FIEA. I visited FIEA when I was 16 and took a tour. From age 16 until grad school, my main goal was getting into that program so I could make video games.

During all of this, the whole time I was taking figure drawing courses, drawing characters, and getting better at making things. But it wasn’t until I got closer to grad school that I understood the differences between game disciplines. For a while, I thought I'd be in concept art and character design.

But why character art specifically?  Being at FIEA and seeing what it takes to make a game work, to get a character into a game and make it feel like it's living and breathing – that was inspiring. Seeing that and how much you could bring to the table as an artist inspired me to get more involved in actual 3D work.

How Did You Land Your First Job?

I had a diverse portfolio, lots of 2D, 3D, character, environment stuff – so it showed that I could wear a lot of hats. That made me well positioned for Iron Galaxy because the art team was much smaller at that time. I think I was employee number 40. At that time, the company required people who could wear lots of hats. I think that was the main reason they took me in. My portfolio was strong, but the diversity really helped. This is pretty specific to Iron Galaxy, though. Other companies might want to see a very specific type of art in your portfolio but at that time, Iron Galaxy wanted to see diversity.

As an intern, the nature of my day-to-day tasks were the same as any full-timer. Just before I got into FIEA, I had never used Maya or Photoshop. Fast forward a year and I’m working on Batman: Arkham Origins.

I was originally hired as a concept art intern, but I started picking up more roles – environment, UI, and I also expressed interest in characters to Iron Galaxy which is where I ended up. When others at Iron Galaxy have expressed interest in areas similar to the way I did, and the company has allowed them to dip their toe in and prove themselves.

How Difficult Was It to Level Up and Become a Professional?

For the concept art position, I felt terrified with every task I got – concept art is very hard! You have to be creative all day. From there, I picked up 3D work and immediately felt like it was less stressful.

Iron Galaxy is really good at finding mentors within the company and people that can support you while you work through difficult tasks. Something that happens with lots of artists in the industry when you’re early in your career is that with each new task you have, you start to panic more. Whether you’re creating hair, a spiky piece of armor, etc. – it’s always your first time making something at the beginning of your career. You feel like you’re imcompetent, you can’t make leather look as realistic as you want. But at the end of it, you’re happy with what you made.

Later in the career, the uncertainty is still there, but the fear isn’t, because you have the confidence that you’re able to figure it out. Every artist I've talked to has a similar story of doubting themselves.

What Is It Like to Be Working as a Character Lead?

As a Senior Character Artist, my day is broken up into two distinct categories:

1. Hands on keyboard, making things, driving the look of characters. Basically, making art.
2. Lead, managerial responsibilities. Tasking, documentation, feedback, performance evaluations, all the non-flashy stuff. All those tasks have their own creative challenges, some equally as satisfying as sculpting characters.

Having to work with multiple departments to make a character come alive in a game is very difficult. Figuring out who and from what department needs to do what, in what order, who is most qualified for the task – working with all those people to make something come to life is inspiring, and it takes a lot of creative problem-solving. That’s a big part of why I like making games and I’m not an illustrator. That cooperation with others is what I like. If my day was 100% managerial – or vice versa with hands on keyboard – I’d get bored.

In some ways, that’s what I appreciate about IG. My day is diversified creatively – there’s time to help drive the look of our characters and manage people/procedures.

My favorite part of the day is when I’m in ZBrush, sculpting a stylized playful face/expressions – that is my sweet spot.

How Do You Collaborate with Other Departments?

Right now, I collaborate a lot with the concept art department to make characters for our current IP. Here’s what that looks like on any given day:

• Concept art will go through their design iterations, working with the art director, to come up with the look of the character. The style, the features, color palette, etc.
• Then, they pass it on to us, the character department. On this project, it would come to me first to help define the look of a character. I then translate the concept into 3D.
• That’s where we’ll discover what works in 2D but doesn’t always work in 3D. Certain things, once you get them in the 3D space, make you realize they are not hitting what you want them to.
• We regularly meet with AD and concept teams to talk about what is and isn’t working.
• I’ll push and pull things based on my assumptions on what I'm seeing in the concept art. We treat it like it’s a living thing. It goes back and forth while we make sure that the original spirit of the concept is translated into 3D.
• Once we’re happy with the overall look, we then take on the hard work and think of how to make the cool character work in the game.
• Once the look is defined and approved, the other members of the character art team can start working on the next character.

How Do You Work on Improving Your Skills?

I host some extra-curricular art activities with the art department. I once hosted a workgroup of artists here to work on the Character Design Masterclass, which is a bunch of character design exercises from Masters of Anatomy. We each redesigned the 6 principal characters of the Robinhood series and met regularly to give each other feedback and to show off our work.

When you’re working on a personal project like this, you have free reign to figure out what most inspires you and what your weakest points are, at your own time and own pace. When you're in a more relaxed atmosphere, you’re more open to taking critiques. When the stakes are so low, it’s easier to give and receive criticism and feedback and it gives you more room to take chances. That discomfort makes you better at things.

Anyone looking to get into character design in general, that’s an awesome exercise and I’d recommend it to anyone. The book itself collects a ton of artists' work who did the exercise. It’s just page after page of people doing the exercises and interpreting the same problem, and you can learn a lot from it.

Even if you don’t have a group to work with, this is a great exercise. But many artists in the industry are open to giving feedback, so just reach out to people and you might hear from them.

What Skills Do You Need to Successfully Work in a Team?

You need to be someone people like to work with. What that means:

• Working your hardest to not take it personally when you’re getting feedback. Whatever the character or game you’re working on, always remember that the main goal is for that thing to be the best version of itself. It’s very easy to connect your personal self worth to the thing you’re making, and it’s easy to take critical feedback as an attack on yourself. But in a team, it's very important to separate yourself from that and make the thing as best as it can be. That’s the benefit of having a team – many people from different perspectives can see things in a way you can't.
• Not just being open to getting feedback, but WANTING that critical feedback.
• Being self-motivated. We all have our set grouping of tasks for the day or week, but most often that only represents 60-70% of what we’re doing in a given week. Being able to identify the hidden ways you can make yourself useful – that takes a certain amount of imagination.
• The best collaborators I’ve worked with are the people who solve a problem that you didn’t even know needed to be solved.

What to Focus On if You Are Looking to Break into Industry?

• Know what kind of studio you want to work at. If you want to make stylized hand-painted textures, look for work at places like Riot. Interested in working with realistic characters? Focus on studios like Naughty Dog.
• From there, gear your portfolio towards this type of work that the studio is known for or what they’re currently working on. And as always, remember the age-old portfolio adage: quality over quantity.
• Explore the dearth of incredible tutorials online. What comes to my mind is Gumroad – it’s amazing. There you can find tutorials made by artists in the industry doing the things you want to do. They’re telling you the techniques, the scripts they are using, etc. It’s important to identify the right people to learn from, too. Follow a bunch of artists on social media – artists you know are good, professionals.  And when you see them post a tutorial, that should be an automatic green light. It’s very important to be clued into who is making what.

For example:

If you’re trying to design stylized hair or figure out how to best light your environment, there are people actively doing that, solving those problems, right now. Spending time finding those people on social media and looking at their work is one of the best things you can do. When Last of Us Part II came out, lots of artists were sharing “low-key” development paintovers, showing their work. In some ways, that's more insightful than seeing the finished character.

• When we’re hiring and looking at portfolios, the main thing we’re looking for is whether the person could fit into our current pipeline or not. The best way you can do that is to have high-quality, finished, and diverse pieces. That removes guesswork on our end. Can you fit into our pipeline? That question should be answered by your portfolio. One way to reduce that guesswork is to target your portfolio to the types of studios you’d want to work for. And make sure your work is on par with what they’re already doing. It’s always a risk to bring someone into a team, but if your portfolio has that quality of work in it, you’re mitigating the risk.

Additionally, highlight the fact that you can wear a lot of hats – pick up a shovel. That gives you more opportunities to prove yourself. One of our best VFX artists started in QA, working on VFX in his spare time, and now he’s one of our principal VFX artists. At Iron Galaxy, you’re given the opportunity to prove yourself and explore what it is you want to do, and that’s pretty special. 

Steven Kosanovich, Senior Character Artist at Iron Galaxy Studios

Interview conducted by Arti Sergeev