Sam King: art director & character artist interview

Hello! I am a character artist, sculptor of collectables, and art director. During the day I work as an art director for a Cape Town-based games company, Balisti Studios, working with clients such as Electronic Arts and Unity Technologies. After hours I design miniatures and figurines for collectors. I am also developing my own line of collectables to print, paint, and collect.

Technically this was a fairly simple piece to produce, in design and the visual look though I tried a couple of methods and we can talk about those further as an answer to the next question, as some interesting things where found there. This piece was a request by a client to work off a concept. I was required to further design it as needed, sculpt, and then engineer for 3D printing.

The main challenge here would always be the fabrics. I have been investing some time recently in learning Marvelous Designer, so thought I may be able to use that in this project, since, well, it's all fabric work! I did use Marvelous first, but found that I was struggling to art direct the flow of the folds as needed. Technically I was getting good results, but I was fighting the program in placing each fold shape exactly as I wanted.

Also, my figure was in heavy motion, and it is hard to represent this in simulation. I ended up using a few parts of the Marvelous sim as a base, but then reverted to sculpting all of the fabric. This was a big lesson for me in fabric sculpting and dynamics. I needed to control every fold shape for this project, so it was easier to just sculpt it as needed in ZBrush and not rely on simulation too much.

I think just sculpting it leads to a much more sculpted, artistic look, which was needed here. If you need realism though, simulation is still the way to go!

I am happy to try anything out if it helps me get to a new visual result. I have recently been digging deeper into Marvelous Designer, map baking in Marmoset Toolbag, and rendering in Redshift and KeyShot, for example. I have also been digging into 3D printing tech so I can get better prints from my work.

It's fairly straightforward; just keep producing work that you love! If you do work in your spare time that reflects your passion and what you love making, you will be surprised how many people with similar tastes connect with you and push you to make more, sometimes even commissioning you to make more of that work you love.

For me, I just make what I love, no matter how weird it is. I don't make it for other people. If you make what you love, then you will really never tire of producing artwork, it will be a constant flow, and you will never really struggle to sit down and create something fresh. Just have fun.

I am probably not the most social media savvy person, but I do check Instagram and ArtStation regularly. I am enjoying 3D printing, so often look at any hashtags to do with that to see what cool stuff is being made. Also anything to do with game art, art direction, art theory, and character art.

My ambition is to progress happily down the road that I am already on. Working in games, to develop as an art director and leader. Working on my communication skills and relations with clients.

As a designer and sculptor I would really like to take on some really large and complex sculpts in the future; anywhere from 30cm real world physical scale or bigger! I would love to produce some very large, complex and detailed physical figurines and collectables.

Recently I have been looking a lot at what I consider my core influences. When I can, I do studies of these works or something inspired by them to help define my own style further. Artists and art movements I have been diving more into recently would be Baroque, classical art, specifically artists such as Caravagio, Reubens, and Bernini. Classic 70s and 80s pulp comic book art made by publications such as 2000AD and artists such as Simon Bisley and Brom. Also early board game art such as first edition DND and early Games Workshop manuals. Stylized game art is always lovely to see, so stuff that is being created by artists at places such as Blizzard Entertainment, are usually a visual feast.

I am concentrating a lot on producing figures and collectables for 3D print. I have started working with various collectable companies, so there will just be more of that to come for sure. I also want to keep my game art skills sharp, so I will continue to work in the game art space creating content and leading teams as needed there. For game art I feel more comfortable working on stylized projects, so will be focusing on producing more of that in the future. Thank you so much for this opportunity!