It’s been two weeks already! Today I am happy to receive Nina Klos, Technical Artist at Sumo Digital Leamington. From what her work is all about to her passion for fish, she gives great tips for all the artists working in our industry.
I personally did not know what was a Technical Artist before meeting Nina. Sure, I read some stuff on the Internet to get the main idea, but it seemed more complicated in real life as they seem to do quite a lot of different things when working on projects. I learned a lot thanks to her, and it is your turn now!
Great to have you here Nina! Could you please introduce yourself to those who may not know you?
Hi everyone! My name is Nina, I’m a Technical Artist currently working at Sumo Digital Leamington! I have been working in the game industry for almost two years now. There’s different types of Technical artists out there, personally I do a lot of the art side such as shaders & lighting, but there’s many areas that I end up touching. Unfortunately I still can’t talk about either of the games I’ve worked on, but there’s plenty of personal projects I enjoy sharing!
How has your journey into the video game industry been so far?
I studied Game art BA (Hons) at De Montfort University in Leicester, initially wanting to become an environment artist. In my final year of studies I started experimenting with shaders & technical art, which suited me well from previous coding experience. I learnt Python and Java in school and although I didn’t want to be a full coder, that knowledge helped me out later.
After graduating, I started as an associate (Junior) at an indie studio called DR Studios back in May 2021, and after a year and a bit I moved to Sumo as a Mid. I was lucky enough to find work pretty quickly! There’s not a lot of technical artists out there and thus studios are quick to pick us out. Although I came very close to starting in environment art also, I ended up choosing technical art as it was closer to what I liked doing.
Johanna: To be honest, you are the first Technical Artist I meet! So I would say that you are definitely rare gems in our industry. I suppose you will have more chance to get hired from bigger studios as they tend to have bigger teams as well, with artists being working on more specific tasks.
What attracted you to become a Technical Artist?
There’s a lot of fun aspects to it. Unlike environment or character art, there is no linear path your work will take. You will be constantly finding solutions & figuring out new problems, trying to put out fires, and inventing new techniques.
Johanna: I guess this is similar to what coding is all about. Finding what is wrong and why it is not working the way you want it to! In the end, it must be very rewarding to see you found solutions that changed your approach to the project you are working on.
Every game will require a different approach. It’s definitely a role that’s only suited to certain types of people: you have to be good at 2 things at once, while also maintaining good soft skills like communication. The last point being especially important: you have to communicate with pretty much the entire team to fix various issues or implement new ideas. Don’t get me wrong – it can get tiring! But that challenge is super fun.
What are your role and main missions when working on a project?
As I mentioned above, I’m more of an art technical artist. You’ll even catch me making some environment pieces! But I’d say my main areas are shaders, lighting, tooling, and optimization. Plus anything that falls my way that needs taking care of! I can’t talk about my professional work, but in my personal work I always try to strive for quality & a sense of awe. I’ve been a 2D artist much longer than I have been a technical artist, so that artistic input is something I hold strongly onto.
Which qualities and skills do you have that make you good at what you are doing?
The artistic skill in combination with the programming knowledge helps a lot in general! It’s pulling things from one discipline and applying them to another which helped me get here today – all the technical art skills are built upon years of prior art practice. And although this is not always helpful, I like to work pretty quickly. I’m super focused when I work.
Are there other creative aspects you like about making a game?
I didn’t expect to enjoy the collaboration as much as I did when I first started. Pulling something together in a team, seeing it all combined in a final product is SO rewarding. There’s no better feeling. You don’t really get to experience that until you start in the industry. Even during university, the most you’ll have is a 5 person team for a month – it just doesn’t compare to a 100+ person team spanning years of production.
Johanna: That feeling is different for sure! This must be nice to see your work being enjoyed by thousands of people as well, especially as these games are real products that will remain in our world whatever happens. Though that might be stressful at first…
You seem to enjoy working on sea & water environments, but especially fish! Where does this come from?
I’m actually autistic! ASD people tend to get interested in one particular subject for a long amount of time. One day in 2018 my brain decided to latch onto fish, and it has been fish ever since. I get to combine my love of art with my random knowledge of all the fish I know. It gets me pumped to create personal art, and I think it comes across a lot more fun than generic game assets.
Are there personal or professional projects you have been especially proud to work on?
I’m super proud of a lot of the stuff I can’t share sadly. But from personal art, I loved creating the jelly fish in the shrine I made! It combined a lot of previous WPO techniques in a way that hasn’t been done before. In my latest project I’m making a playable fish character, which gives me a lot of fun, new things to learn around animation & movement systems.
Johanna: I loooove everything fish-related that you share on Twitter… Seeing these small creatures swimming and enjoying the gorgeous water environments you made for them…
Do you have any tips to stay creative?
Just focus on what you really like doing, don’t bother making stuff just because it’s popular. I guarantee people have seen the same fire hydrant, or stylised building with grass a 100 times. (I know I’ve done this too!) You’ll enjoy doing something you like more, and you’ll stand out from the crowd of other projects out there.
Is there something you would like to see our industry change?
Although there’s been improvements, there is still work to be done around gender gap and marginalised folks getting into the industry. That’s one big change I’d love to see going into the future. In addition, we have a higher than average percentage of neurodiverse folks in the game industry – yet still only 22% of all autistic people have any sort of employment. (Data from ONS 2020) I’d love to be a part of this change going forward: I want people like me to succeed in their dreams, and not let the system fail them.
Any last words?
Remember to optimise your meshes. And thank you for having me! 🐟
Nina Klos – Technical Artist
ArtStation / Twitter / LinkedIn
You heard her! Thank you Nina for answering these questions, it has been a pleasure learning more about technical art, but most importantly about you and your work! I see you guys in two weeks, in the meantime take care!
