The Phenomenal Work of 3D Artists in the Game Industry

If you’re an avid gamer, the title of the article probably already evoked images from your favourite video game. Beautiful characters and expansive detailed sceneries, created out of thin air, come to mind.

These creations are the result of hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of hard work. People like discussing the impressive graphics of certain video games and they collectively thank the studio for them, but they were not created by the abstract notion that is “the studio”, no, they were created by talented individuals who gave their everything to bring them to life.

This is why this article will concentrate on these often-forgotten 3D artists without whom the best games would be simply ideas in someone’s head. We’ll put emphasis on artists who worked on video games based on movies and vice versa, because this is a very popular genre. Each section will discuss specific 3D artists and their contribution to the field.

Toby Gard & Yann Regnier

Tomb Raider (1996) was one of the first adventure video games to use 3D-grid based level design. The creator of the game, Toby Gard, also served as the lead 3D artist. He not only created a great hit, but he also broke barriers by insisting that the sole protagonist is female; something unseen before then.

The game went on to inspire a successful movie franchise as well, starring no other but Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. Video games movies don’t generally score very high with the critics, but fans absolutely loved it.

It’s been many years since Lara Croft had triangular breasts, but the Tomb Raider game franchise is far from retiring. Yann Regnier, the Montreal-based artist, makes sure of it. Regnier has worked as a 3D artist for Eidos Montreal, helping create Tomb Raider (2013), Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015), Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018).

Regnier created some of the gorgeous graphics and he also worked on the game puzzles, the signature Tomb Raider feature. He put a lot of detail into the puzzles by studying the civilizations that they are supposed to represent, even going as far as to only include materials that were available at the time.

Sam Didier & Kenny McBride

Sam “Samwise” Didier is among the most beloved artists in the game industry. He started working for Blizzard in 1991 and was one of the main creative talents behind the mega-successful franchise Warcraft whose first game, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, came out in 1994.

Samwise said that Blizzard wanted to make a classic good vs evil story that uses familiar fantasy archetypes, drawn in a hyper-fantastical, kind of cartoonish bright art style. The first Warcraft game was a simple pixelated game, but this changed with Warcraft 2, and the third instalment added 3D graphics.

The franchise completely changed the industry with World of Warcraft (2004). The world and the lore grew bigger, while the characters looked distinctive and real; a sandbox 3D heaven for players. Samwise has since stopped drawing and now acts as the senior art director for Blizzard.

Enter Kenny McBride. He’s part of the new generation of Blizzard artists. While Samwise and his fellow artists worked on every aspect of the game when Blizzard was still a small indie company, McBride is only providing the character design. He’s worked on the last four Warcraft instalments, drawing iconic characters like the naga Azshara.

Warcraft (2016) is the video game movie, which failed to win either the critics or the fans. Although it became one of the highest grossing films based on video games, it didn’t break even, meaning it cost the studio money. It showed us that it’s actually hard to film video games and garner support.

Markus Tessmann & Dave Garrison

We can bet that your first racing game was Need for Speed; at least that’s how we got into racing games. You can thank Markus Tessmann for that as he was the main artist behind the first game The Need for Speed (1994).

The game became an instant hit for its realism and of course, because it’s fun to race with sports cars. The Need for Speed franchise kept growing and growing as it was another video game that changed the industry. Tessmann, unfortunately, left Electronic Arts and didn’t work on the other instalments. Dave Garrison did.

Garrison first worked on Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (2000), as well as on the Underground, Most Wanted, and Carbon series. He notes that some gaming platforms like DS required much more work than expected and that most of the code had to be rewritten for the Porsche game. He became more confident later and supervised the game artwork for some of the instalments.

The successful franchise got its film Need for Speed in 2014, starring no other but the fans’ favorite Aaron Paul. The film did well in the box office, but it was no Fast & Furious. Another interesting thing to note is that video game movies always perform better on the Chinese market. This is true for both Need for Speed and Warcraft.