What does an Art Director do? Game artists are fundimentally the brain behind everyone working on a single project. their job requires them to solve problems related to everything and anything that a currnet game could and most definatly would face, weather that be photoshop or the 3Dgame engine specified to such things as what a characters shoe is going to look like, thus an art director will inherintly have to keep all his team in check and all on the same path or a so called game could end up looking some what, messy - in terms of visual style. as an art director i would personaly put forward my own ideas rather sneakily and maybe ad a few things into a game that would take my personal art style or cheaky ideas, not all that disimilar to John Romaro's coligues oddly placeing johns face in teh game, on the first Doom game.

Who are they responsible to? Art director - although quite a high status and resposible part of the games chain that it is, is below the first link in the chain, the Games designer, as in film the art director would be directly below the production designer or below editor in publishing. the art director can and most likly is a person brought from outside to express the ideas from the games designers to all the artists and creators of the games practical side. he would control the workings of all these and report back the games progress to the designers to make sure everything is going the correct way.

Do you think it's a creative role? Art director dips his paw in every part of the games pipline, from art to 3D engines, it is only as creative as the art director would like but there are limitations to an art directors use of creative expression as they are far removed from conscept design and art in general but they do over see these things and have their input just the same.


What qualities do you think youd need to develop if you want to become an Art Director in the future? To develope myself in the form of an art director i beleive experience is key to being able to handle the pressure of all the tasks that can quite easily be split in to several well payed jobs. people skills and maybe a million years in the industry will almost bring me up to scratch with the trials and tribulations of an art directors Daily! tasks. being able to keep an entire team - of up to more than 100 people on next gen games - on track and all following a specific style. making a game look feel and sound well would have to come a close second.