Antoine Dupuis – 3D Character Artist

It is time to discover another talent from the industry! Character Artist at Blizzard Entertainment on World of Warcraft, Antoine shares his experience in games while explaining what his work is all about.

I have known Antoine for a few years now as we were both working on Othercide. Our time with the team was filled with lunch breaks full of jokes and laughs, beers almost every Friday nights and cool ideas that were coming to our minds while making the communication strategy. Over the months, I was able to understand how crucial his work was in the development of the game. He is someone very talented and too humble, so I am very excited to be sharing his story with you.

Antoine! Could you please introduce yourself to those who may not know you?

Hi there! I am Antoine and I am an artist in the video game industry. I was born in France, studied in Belgium, and am now living in Canada. I specialize in characters and I am currently working for Blizzard Entertainment on World of Warcraft. I am happy to be talking with you here Johanna, it’s been quite some time already since we worked together on Othercide.

How did you grow in the industry these past few years?

It’s been a lot of personal projects, taking part in international game art contests, teaching in a game art school… Each of these allowed me to hone my creative and technical skills, like modeling and painting, but also brought me followers on different social media platforms, which tells me that some people/peers know my name and what I do in the industry. This is sometimes nice to remind myself of that, since I was so bad at 3D in game art school that I almost chose another path at some point.

Johanna: No way! I didn’t know that this was not a strength of yours at the time. This is a nice reminder than hard work and practice is necessary if you want to improve and excel in what you are doing. Of course some people are born with specific skills, but I believe that we all can improve our own to some degree if we are passionate enough.

Professionally, I have worked on different projects in different studio configurations and team sizes. Since I made friends along the way, it’s also a matter of growing as a person (insert anime J-rock song here). I am quite proud and grateful of being able to do what I do for a living. Landing a job in the World of Warcraft team last year was a dream come true, a dream I had been chasing since I started studying game art almost 10 years ago!

Which projects – personal and professional – are you the most proud of?

My proudest personal project would be my Firekeeper Zelda project I did for the Retrogasm Art Competition back in 2018. I loved working on it since it’s a mix of two of my favorite games, and it brought me so much in everyway, improving on art and technical stuff, improving at designing and making the right choices to convey the right emotion through it. At this time, Alexandre Chaudret was mentoring me, I learned so much I really felt a difference before and after this project. I think it’s also one of the (if not THE one) projects that people remember from me.

Professionally I am super proud of what we did with Othercide. Alex’s art and creative direction was so inspiring to work on, and because of the small team size, I was able to bring way more to the project than I could ever do in a bigger project. For example, the name Othercide was a word I made up and suggested to the team, and I am pretty proud that it ended up being the final name of the game. In addition to characters, I worked on cinematics, credits, title screen, and even created a PS4 dynamic theme! I loved my time with the team during this project and some are still good friends today.

Johanna: Antoine was such a huge help for our social media strategy. He was always creative, even though this was not always related to 3D Art. He even designed a PlayStation 1 case of the game for April’s Fool and printed the whole thing so we could have it as a physical item at the office. That was gold.

What is the role of a Character Artist in the production of video games?

Well, on most productions, the 3D character artist is a role that has two sides to it, as any 3D game artist. These two sides, to me, are based on the two words in Game Art. Of course you have to create the art part, beautiful models and textures, that convey the intent and feel of a character, it has to look awesome.

But the game part is even more important than that, it implies optimizing your assets so that they are not heavy on the platform’s CPU/GPU and make the game struggle with rendering them, causing framerate drops and other slowdowns, and also keeping gameplay design questions in mind while creating the assets. I think both are equally important, I would rather enjoy play a game that runs as it should but looks not that great, rather than putting the controller down 30 seconds into a gorgeous game that runs at 10fps!

How is your work linked to other people working on the project?

In most productions, character artists get concept art from concept artists, and have to communicate with them while working to make sure every element visually works within the game’s universe and characters roster. Both character artists and concept artists should talk with the game designers to make sure that the design of the characters serve, or at least doesn’t work against, their function. Working with animators is also very important especially while creating the game models to ensure that the topology allows for good deformation during animation. Communication is key to success!

You are currently working on World of Warcraft. How is it to be working on such a huge scale project?

I’ll be honest lol. After chasing this dream for so many years, I somehow ended up thinking that getting there was the end of some journey, and it kinda is in a sense, that things would be easier cause it would mean that I deserve to be working there with some of the most talented artists in the industry. The truth is it is just another step and the journey continues. It’s not easy, most days are very challenging and opportunities for learning. In the WoW team, character artists also draw most of the concept art themselves.

It’s definitely the most challenging part for me at the moment. Thankfully the team is made of very kind and talented people who don’t hesitate to help, and my lead and mentor have been awesome. There are sides I didn’t expect I would be loving, like seeing all my future tasks on Jira for the next months (lol), so different from previous indie companies going “yolo let’s redo this character for the 14th time”. Also, finally getting to see your assets in such a legendary game is so prideworthy and humbling!

Johanna: This is where having nice leads and coworkers is important, to create a safe space where it is ok to not know everything and take the time to learn while improving your own art. World of Warcraft is a big deal for sure, and it’s always nice to leave some bits of your creativity in the game you are working on.

Where do your inspirations come from when creating characters? Any artists you are looking up to?

It really depends on what project this is for, but generally I get inspired by my favorite games, anime and movies, and of course favorite artists! Music is also really inspiring to me but it is mostly feelings and moods rather than direct lyrics-to-character design stuff. I also love tattoo art, I think it definitely inspires me too.

I love so many different artists, it’s hard to choose names. I think some game artists that have had a big impact on my work definitely include Leslie Van Den Broeck, Marc Brunet and Katia Bourykina. Outside of 3D, just to name a few, I love Loish’s stylized girls sketches, Jasmin Darnell’s pinup art, Andrew Mar’s inktober sketches, Stjepan Seijic’s comics. And of course… Alexandre Chaudret 🙂

Do you have a routine that makes you stay creative?

Nope, I’ll be honest again – I’ve been dealing with art block for some time. Sometimes it goes and I can do stuff, but most of the time it’s here and I just struggle to create any personal art at all. Sometimes it’s depressing to think that I won’t have this hunger for creating personal stuff like I did before, but I think it’s just adding pressure to it. Working 40 hours a week on something, it’s quite logical to not want to do more of that on your time off when you think about it. I’m trying to find ways to stay creative like playing music, cooking,… but I wish I had the energy to make 3D art and game dev stuff.

So yeah, sorry but no creative routine so far, just trying to relax and enjoy other stuff in life and trying to get more into a “no worries, it will come back at some point soon enough” state of mind.

Johanna: This is the same as the blank page syndrom writers face sometimes. I have never felt that way, but I guess this is important to be kind to yourself. Not being productive is completely fine, and forcing ourselves into something only to get it done is not the best thing we could do. Drinking tea or spending our time with loved ones and pets seem way nicer than beating ourselves up.

Anything else to share with our readers?

Completely unrelated to game art (or is it?) but mental health is so important. If you struggle with anything in your head, talk to your friends about it and/or go and see a therapist, it’s less difficult than it seems and it’s very helpful. The game art industry is a very competitive place and it is easy to base your self-worth on social media numbers or what your current job or status is. Just keep in mind that you are way more than your job or your art! Don’t be too hard on yourself and try to enjoy the journey! (insert naruto shittyflute here)

Antoine Dupuis – 3D Character Artist
ArtStation / Twitter

And it’s a wrap! I hope you enjoyed this mini interview of Antoine. Reconnecting with my fellow friends from Othercide has been a blast so far. I couldn’t agree more with what he said at the end. This was actually something he and I talked about when we were working together as we shared our own experiences with each other.

Taking care of yourself should be your number one priority, it’s ok to not always be in a good place. Knowing your own struggles is one of the first steps, and there is no shame in asking for the help of friends or professionals to get better. Be kind, life always has something in store for you.