There is no ‘classic’ path to get into the gaming industry, and Lisa is a great example of this. Following her intuition and her love for art, she ended up sharpening her modeling skills at Iron Gate Studio while working on their well-known survival game.
Lisa fully shifted to what she wanted to do in the first place, and though there were some challenges at first, she is slowly expanding her portfolio with personal and professional projects of quality. Today, she shares with us her unusual and inspiring journey as a 3D Artist on Valheim.
Hi Lisa! Could you please introduce yourself for those who may not know you?
My full name is Lisa Kolfjord, I was born in Oslo, Norway, raised in Malmö, Sweden, and now I live and work in Skövde (still Sweden). I started out as a community manager at Iron Gate, but have as of May 2022 worked full time as a 3D-artist. At Iron Gate we are developing the survival game Valheim. When I am not working I’m hanging out with my cat, and trying my hardest to keep my plants alive.
How was your journey in our industry, until where you are now?
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the journey started, but I’m choosing the fall of the same year I graduated high school, 2016, and on an impulse traveled to a game conference in Skövde. I saw on Twitter that David Gaider, who at the time was a game writer for Bioware, was going there to have a talk there, and as a big Dragon Age fan I decided I had to meet him, and ordered the tickets. A few days later I went to the conference and met a couple of students from the University of Skövde who introduced me to the town and the school. They had a lot of game development programs, and I decided that I was going to apply. I was accepted into their game animation-program, and during that time my interest for 3D-modeling grew.
During my last year of uni, me and two friends applied to an incubator-program that was available in Skövde, where they would help game company start-ups to, well start up. We were going to make a point-and-click & mystery game á la Nancy Drew for mobile. One of the friends and I even wrote our thesis project on it. When we graduated (2020) I had to get a part-time job as I no longer could rely on student loans. I mostly applied for customer service jobs, but my partner found that Iron Gate was looking for a part time-community manager at 50%. I hadn’t really considered being a community manager before but applied, got an interview, and was offered a position as 50% community manager and 50% 3D-artist. Accepting the offer meant that I’d have to leave the incubator program, but it wasn’t a chance that I wanted to miss out on.
I dualed the roles as community manager and 3D-artist for a little over 1.5 years before I asked to go over to 3D fulltime. While there were many parts about community management that I loved (interacting with the community, seeing how creative our player base is & being there whenever we released fun news), I felt that it was with art that my passion lays.
Johanna: This is actually so cool to see someone having this double experience, especially since knowing how to make art can definitely help for social media posts! I feel like this is why knowing what your team does can also generate lots of ideas as you know what can be created for communication purposes.
I’ve been doing art fulltime for almost a year now, and I’m very happy with where I am!
What attracted you to community management and 3D Art?
I’ve always loved painting and drawing. When I was a child I had a long standing dream where I would become an artist when I grew up, and I would live on the beach where I would sell my paintings and shells. It wasn’t until high school that I’d really thought about the possibility of working in games, and even later when I actually thought about becoming a game artist.
Johanna: Selling paintings and shells on the beach?! Sounds like a cozy game I want to play.
When I applied for university they had three game art programs, 2D-art, 3D-art, and animation. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do so I applied to the animation program. During my time there I got more and more interested in doing 3D, so that’s what I’ve been focusing on since graduation.
It’s hard to say exactly what attracted me to 3D-art, I think that in the beginning I just thought it was cool that it was possible to make art that could be viewed from all directions, and now I’m really enjoying how versatile it is. It’s a perfect mix of creativity and problem solving, with the modeling, retopologizing and texturing etc.
Community management was a job that I had never thought of having, but had the luck to get to try out. It was a very creative job, I made a lot of videos and fun posts for social media, and since base building is one of the most important mechanics in Valheim I had a really good outlet for my creativity. I’d had different customer service jobs before Iron Gate, and the customer interaction was something I thrived on. I’ve always liked joking around with and helping people and that was a big part of the community manager role. It was a lot of fun, tough, and an amazing learning experience! My appreciation for all of the community managers out there is so big that it cannot be measured.
How was the transition when you decided to focus on 3D art? Did you learn by yourself?
I think 3D-art came more naturally to me than animation, so I never really thought of it as a transition. We did have one introductory course to 3D in Maya during our first year of uni, so except for that I’d say I’m mostly self taught. It was during my third year that I started experimenting in blender and watching a lot of tutorials on 3D-modeling on youtube. I got my job at Iron Gate pretty early on during my learning stage, so actually having to work with 3D and create everyday definitely helped.
The transition from community management & art to only art was a bit clearer. I was the sole community manager when Valheim was released, and the community grew an immense amount just overnight, and it quickly became a bit too overwhelming for just one person, and so two more community managers were brought onto the team, Jens Hellström and Josefin Berntsson. Over time they would take over more of the community management as I got more time to spend on my role as 3D-artist.
What are the current main challenges you are facing, but also the most exciting moments?
Well, a challenge I’m always facing is to keep improving and growing in my skill. I find it easy to feel inadequate when I see all of the amazing art others create, but I find security and confidence in comparing my old projects to new ones. It’s generally only reasonable to compete with oneself, and today-Lisa has definitely improved past last year-Lisa, and I would say that that is also what is most exciting! I love taking on new personal projects, and pushing myself a little further than the last time.
Johanna: Glad to hear that you are not comparing yourself too much with others. I feel like this is definitely a trap that can be hard to escape after a while, especially in art where tons of talented artists share their work every single day. Reflecting on how YOU improved is the way to go!
I’m also excited about my work at Iron Gate. We have an update in the works that I’ve had the chance to make a lot of 3D-models for (including a bunch of viking clothing and hats!), so I’m really looking forward to that being released into the wild. We’re also working on a new biome, and I get to try out making a lot of things I haven’t made before, so that is a lot of fun!
What makes you stay creative when making art?
It really depends! Some periods my creativity feels like an infinite well that’ll never dry up, and then suddenly it does, then it’ll be like that for a while until it fills up again. I find that it helps to always have some sort of project going on, because I’ll always have some motivation to reach the end product. Oftentimes it also helps to just step aside for a little while, whether it’s for a couple of hours or even a couple of days to be able to look at the work with fresh eyes.
Consuming other people’s art and media also helps! I’m very inspired by cute and cozy games, films and tv-shows, like for example Star Stable Online, Stardew Valley, and ghibli-movies.
Any past projects you have been proud to work on?
In our latest update that was released for Valheim I took the chance to make some more hairstyles and beards for the character creation. We already had quite a lot, but the range wasn’t very inclusive. I added more new hairstyles and hair textures, including curls, afros and different types of braided hairstyles, and I hope to add even more in the future as we have room for more. Related to hair, me and my colleague Jonathan Smårs have just recently cooperated in making it so that hairstyles will be visible when wearing helmets, it’s a small thing but still something I’m proud of and an update I’m looking forward to being released into the public.
Johanna: There are no small things in games, I am sure the community is more than happy to be able to get this new range of hairstyles and have these little details when playing!
And as for personal projects, last year (2022) I had the opportunity to sign up for Ashleigh Warner’s CGMA class in stylized game assets, and one of my pieces from that class is probably still my favorite piece of all that I’ve made. It was inspired by little medieval cottages that can be found in a park, Brekkeparken, in Norway. Me and my father have visited there many times together, and when we got the assignment to make a small scene I knew I wanted to base it on those memories. I hadn’t made seamless textures in a long time and now I had to do a lot of them. The grass was a challenge but I’m really happy with how it turned out!
Very recently I’ve been working on remaking a witch-character that I made a couple of years ago, I think 2020? She was the first character that I made and I remember being very pleased with the end result. I enjoy remaking old artworks because the improvements become very apparent, and this time was no exception! (I’m still quite fond of the old witch though, she has some charm).
Do you have anything else to share with our readers?
I strongly believe that there’s a place for everyone in this industry, and there are as many ways in as there are people working with games! One may have to take unexpected roads to reach their destination, but that does not mean that it is unreachable. I was lucky to get a foot in so soon after I graduated, but would not have done so had I not taken the chance to work in community management, and while I have now switched over completely to only doing art, I do not regret a single day on that road!
Thank you so much for having me!
Lisa Kolfjord – 3D Artist
Artstation / Twitter
Lisa was definitely someone I am happy I stumbled upon on Twitter. Remember that life is always full of surprises. You may not take the road others are taking, but you may end up at the same place in the end, or at least a place where you are happy to be.
