What is the role of an Art Director in a small indie company?
I have gotten to the point in my research where I believe that I understand what I want to be and do with in the games industry. I have decided that I want to be an Art director of a small indie company that consists of myself and James. Now I need to break down what an art director actually does and what this entails.
Art director definition:
"The art director at a game studio is responsible for reviewing all art assets for quality and continuity with the creative director’s vision. This person supervises teams of artists, animators, and designers from concept to ship date. He or she is ultimately responsible for the aesthetics of the finished game." [1] Get In Media (2016, para 1)
However I believe this definition mainly applies to AAA development or a company with a fair sized team. Therefore this is only a basis of what I would be doing and to prove that I needed to look at some Art directors (also known as lead artists) from small indie companies.
Heather Gross Lead Artist at Night School Studios
Heather worked on Oxenfree [9] as the lead artist; "My job basically consist of figuring out what we all want everything to look like" [2] Skybound (2016, 0:22). When talking about her processes of making the art for the game she said "Starting from the concept and then basically finishing it until what you see when you play it." [3] Skybound (2016, 0:28). This would include concepting, 3D character modelling, environment painting and possibly animation and UI. Heather worked on the art by herself she didn't have a team; "This was a really cool opportunity for her to not only just do a portion of the game, do all the art in a game and create her own kind of whole world." [4] Skybound (2016, 0:33). This is what I want to do; I want to create all of the artwork for a game and when our company becomes sustainable or if we have a larger project I would take a more leader ship role and direct other artists or if it was a project inspired by another persons work we would try and get them on board and have them lead the art on the project.
An example of Heather Gross' concept work for Oxenfree [9] [7]
Ben Jane
Art director at Penny Black Studios
Ben is currently working on How we soar [10] and is in charge of all of the art for that project. He has worked on all of the visuals himself but has also directed some outsourced artists.
In a series of instant messages on 3rd November 2016 Jane, B. stated...
"I've spent my time concepting, modelling, texturing and generally making assets and materials, creating particle effects, animation work, creating levels and setup for those, lighting, post effects, UI, marketing material and General running of a company." ...when asked how the teams are split up with in their company.
From that statement we can deduce that Ben has taken on multiple job roles including but not limited to:
Concept artist
3D Artist
VFX Artist
Animator
Lighting Artist
UI Artist
Studio Head
How we soar [10] world [8]
Looking into job applications:
To truly understand what an Art Director is I needed to look at job applications titled Art Director. Here's a small section of a job application at Double fine (an indie company) [6]:
Requirements:
1) MUST HAVE 6+ years of video game industry AND at least 1 shipped AAA title in the role of Art Director. 2) Excellent leadership, communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills. 3) Ability to envision and lead the creation of inspired game visuals. 4) Ability to work with all disciplines to find efficient pathways for implementing the artistic vision within the limitations of the console hardware. 5) Strong foundational art skills in color, composition, and form. 6) Demonstrable art ability in 2D or 3D mediums. 7) Convey visual direction, communicating effectively and proactively with all disciplines. 8) Demonstrated successful history of well-executed pre-production periods. 9) Ability to lead by example to set the studio’s visual quality bar ever higher, directing a team of artists to realize a unified conceptual vision onscreen. 10) Familiarity with game development and the interrelation between game design and game art. 11) Able to build, evaluate and revise art schedules and manage a team’s project execution within them. Able to schedule dependencies with other project leaders. Ability to define deadlines and task time estimates, work well under pressure, and able to multitask effectively. 12) Demonstrated experience as a proactive motivator, confidently working with people to achieve buy-in and results. 13) Industry visionary who helps set the standards for his/her craft within the real-time industries. 14) Broad experience across art disciplines including modeling, lighting and shading. Sound understanding of design elements, color theory, anatomy, drawing and painting. Intimate knowledge of asset creation in modern DCC tools. Traditional art skills a plus. 15) Well versed in a variety of technologies and production techniques, and should be current in the latest trends in computer graphics, production methodologies and resource management. 16) Considerable knowledge of the hardware and software requirements of game development. 17) Experienced at pitching visual and gameplay designs and able to adapt visual design goals to the strengths of the various consoles. 18) Self-motivated, with a strong work ethic.
[6]
Everything in GREEN are things that I already I believe I can do and have shown I can do through previous project.
Everything in YELLOW are skills that I either think I have but need to show I can do through experience or skills that I am looking to gain through the MA.
REDEverything in are things that I cannot do or don't need to do because I am going to be starting my own company, for example its not important for me to 6 years experience because I am making this my entry role, where as an Art director role is not normally an entry level role.
I also needed to look at how much I am worth and were to budget myself when looking for funding. I found one estimate of how much an art director at a AAA company would be given: $63,000 = £50,519.23 annual [5]. However this wage is ridiculous at this stage; as stated before this would be an entry level job for me so I would be looking for a pay rate similar to a normal environment artist but slightly higher because I would be doing multiple job roles. The estimated wage also doesn't apply to me either because I would be working at an indie company rather than AAA and I do not have the 6+ years experience needed to be an Art Director at such a place.
Conclusion:
Its obvious to see that people work to their disciplines, so I will do the same; myself and James are splitting up our team as art and tech and whatever we both need to have input in is something that we will work on together. An Art Director for a small indie company is different to one for a AAA company; a smaller company might use the term lead artist as they will not be directing anyone but themselves. I believe that the term Art Director and lead artist are pretty much the same thing and in indie development they are a generalised term as you can't have a list of job roles you can only have one. However I will be taking a full art lead role where I will be directing myself as I will have no other artist. So from looking at Ben Jane and Heather Gross its clear to see that in a smaller company the artist does everything that is art related and for me this means that to be an Art Director for a small company I need to do the same things as these two artist; myself and James will split up some art/tech elements such as lighting and VFX; therefore my main roles will be:
Concept artist
3D Artist
Animator
UI Artist
Studio Head
my next step of my research will be to practice these skills and try and translate them into art direction.
Bibliography:
[1] GET IN MEDIA (2016, para 1) ART DIRECTOR. [Online] Available from: http://getinmedia.com/careers/art-director-games [Accessed 29/11/16]
[2] SKYBOUND (2016, 0:22) OXENFREE | Part 2: The Art. [Online film] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv-cvp9oYfE [Accessed 29/11/16]
[3] SKYBOUND (2016, 0:28) OXENFREE | Part 2: The Art. [Online film] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv-cvp9oYfE [Accessed 29/11/16]
[4] SKYBOUND (2016, 0:33) OXENFREE | Part 2: The Art. [Online film] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv-cvp9oYfE [Accessed 29/11/16]
[5] CAREER MASH (2015) Art director (video games). [Online] Available from: http://careermash.ca/careers/career-profiles/art-director-video-games [Accessed 29/11/16]
[6] DOUBLE FINE (n.d.) Art Director. [Online] Available from: http://www.doublefine.com/jobs/#art_director [Accessed 29/11/16]
[7] NIGHT SCHOOL (2015) Early color studies of Alex. [Online image] Available from: https://twitter.com/nightschoolers/status/637754831726231552 [Accessed 29/11/16]
[8] PENNY BLACK STUDIOS (n.d.) How we soar world. [Online image] Available from: http://www.pennyblackstudios.com/media.html [Accessed 29/11/16]
[9] NIGHT SCHOOL STUDIO (2016) Oxenfree. [Online] Microsoft Windows, OS X, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Linux. California: Night School Studio.
[10] PENNY BLACK STUDIOS (2016) How We Soar. [Online] PlayStation VR.