Jamie McNulty, Videogame Artist by Astrid Ayora

Interview with Jamie McNulty Videogame Artist

First, tell us a bit about yourself.

Well lets see.. I started doing computer graphics when I was 17 at a local cable company. From there I quickly learned that I hated working on advertising imagery so I went to school and studied some 3d and classical animation. I did some freelance work for a while then got hired full time by Ubisoft Montreal as a modeler/illustrator. Then, in Boston at Irrational games (aka 2k Boston) and now here at Propaganda games.

I think I could be described as.. hyper. Maybe even a little eccentric. I blame caffeine personally.

Whats your position in Propaganda Games?

I work for Propaganda Games as the Lighting Lead.

How long have you been an artist?

I have been drawing and such since I can remember, but I started working professionally in advertising when I was a teen. So roughly 14 years professionally.

What was the first professional project you worked on?

I worked on some advertisement graphics for cheap commercials on TV for a local cable company. My first game project though, was a canned shooter game that I worked on with Monolith Productions.

How long have you been working on video games?

I have been doing video game work since 2000.

How did you get started?

In college, I was lucky enough to be 1 of 10 people chosen to be part of some low cost gaming projects by Monolith productions. One of their vice presidents came and saw our student work and got us working with them.

so what's your professional school training?

I did 3 years of college. One year in classical animation, which was honestly the best of the three, and two years in game area.

What do you feel you are best known for?

Drinking too much caffeine and being very, very wired. Half of the time I work and all of a sudden ,I get the urge to make people laugh. Generally, I do weird voices and joke around. Like I will do an old man voice and talk about the old days or pretend I am Arnold Schwarzenegger and tell everyone to ¨get to da choppaa¨ or something silly.

What software do you use for your creations?

I use mainly Photoshop and Max at home. At the office though, I am using Maya instead of Max.

What inspired you to do work in the industry?

Way back when I was a kid, my cousin and I used to play games on our old commodore 64. There were these little books you could get with sample games in them. You could use the game code from the book, input it, and then play some crazy little game. It was loads of fun.

When we got a little older we upgraded to an Amiga and graphics started getting 1000% better. This was when I knew I wanted to be an artist doing computer graphics.

What are you working on now, or what are some projects that you have worked on recently?

I am working on an unannounced title. Previously I was a Senior level artist on Bioshock, Open Season, and a pile of small Xbox live Konami conversions.

When you are starting a new piece what are you looking for and what methods do you take to create it?

If it is for work, I generally gather as much reference as possible. I pick the shots where the player will get the most impact from the composition, i.e. the entrance to an area, mid point in a path where I can create a nice vista, things like that.

If it is for my own personal art and more of an illustration, I usually have some weird idea in my head. Sometimes I will thumbnail it out, but generally I just start blocking in shapes in shades of grey on the canvas. This helps me get my composition right and figure out if my idea will actually work properly on paper.

How long would you say it normally takes you to complete a piece from beginning to end?

If it is a character, usually a couple days for a full illustrative piece. For a background, maybe a week. I would generally sketch things out for something like this and then scan in a large version. Usually 2-3 times the size of the final image. Then paint it.

Tell us about your color schemes, how do you go about choosing colors for an image?

Well, up until recently I never really thought about it. Now though, I am generally trying to figure out what colors my light sources are and the types of materials I want things to be. This helps me decide color palettes.

Whats the next step, where would you like to see yourself in 5 years time?

In 5 years, I think I would like to be on the way to being an art director. Either that, or get out of games and into something more illustrative like comics or graphic novels.

Do you think about using your digital knowledge on them?

I do. I do any real ¨inking¨ and coloring all on my PC. I used to ink with pens, but those are the days of the past. Heck most of the time lately I paint directly on the pencil sketch and just crank up the contrast of the original sketch. But that is just me being lazy.