Jolyon Webb
MMO Game Artists

MMO Game Artists

^{Jolyon Webb, Principal Artist for Dragon Empires}

Welcome to our MMO Game Artists series. This is a series of Interviews with some of the best Artists working in the massively multiplayer game industry.

For this first portrait, I had the chance to Interview Jolyon Webb, working at Codemasters. When he is not eating pizza, teaching crabs to walk, or watching asteroid animations he works as Principal Artist for Dragon Empires, CodemastersÆ upcoming fantasy MMOG.

Note: The images in this article have been slightly changed to fit into the layout. Also most of these pictures are personal work of Jolyon Webb, and have no connection to Dragon Empires and none of these images is to be considered Production Art.


MMOG Hell: Why did you become an Artist in the first place?
Jolyon: I loved drawing as a kid. ItÆs as simple as that.

MMOG Hell: How did you acquire your artistic skills, or are you just talented by nature?
Jolyon: I don't know. ItÆs hard to be specific about where things come from. There was always drawing stuff and big books with colourful images around the house when I was a kid. I'd draw rather than kick a ball about.
It's pretty hard work though. I still go life drawing once a week and get frustrated when I do a bad drawing. ThereÆs a little bit natural talent I guess, but itÆs mostly hard work.
Generally I think you get to be good by in the first place just being really visually curious, you like looking at things. I think that ælooking partÆ is innate not taught.

MMOG Hell: Why did you join the Game Industry rather than for example doing art for movies?
Jolyon: IÆd worked as an illustrator for ten years. I began to think it was time to move into the digital world and games seemed a much more immediate and real possibility than films, especially as I didnÆt want to move to London
Also I had always played games, I was teaching myself 3D studio (old Dos version) and I just wanted to get out there and build worlds. I reckoned this was possible with games, I had a feeling with film you would be a much smaller cog in much larger machine.
I think you have much more control in games. At least this was a gut feeling I had before joining games the games industry and after working in games for nearly six years now I'm convinced itÆs true.

(c) Jolyon Webb

MMOG Hell: What's your favorite style of Art?
Jolyon: IÆve real soft spot for 50s pulp paperback covers, such strong colours, dynamic compositions and lurid emotions, all good stuff for games :)
Also keen on Victorian pen illustration. Love the quality of draftsmanship in a lot of this stuff, itÆs from an age when reporting the world didn't always rely on cameras.
IÆm keen on good drawing I guess, mostly IÆm interested in figurative stuff, Egon Schiele, Edward Hopper, Klimt, and Gwen John.
I love Jaimie HernandezÆs work in the Love and Rockets comic books, great characters, super clean lines and real emotion.

MMOG Hell: What do you utilize mainly to create your Art?
Jolyon: Pencils :)
It's true, after that Photoshop and 3D studio Max. I love After Effects too.

MMOG Hell: What is the main influence on your art? Your main source of inspiration?
Jolyon: I don't really think itÆs a good idea to have a 'main source of inspiration' you need many. I often see portfolios at interview where the 'main inspiration' is way too obvious. There is so much interesting stuff in the world. People shouldnÆt pigeon hole what they look at. I buy a lot of second hand art books. These act as a great grab bag of ideas and inspiration
For example in the last few weeks IÆve bought a book on Indian Brocade fabric and another on photos of frogs. ThereÆs no real link beyond them both being visually fascinating. Feed you head and eyes, thatÆs whatÆs important
Any one being an artist needs to draw as much interesting stuff to themselves as possible. Be open to new visual sources. DonÆt, for example, just say 'I only love Manga'.

MMOG Hell: Do you feel that you have artistic freedom in a restricted environment like Computer Games, regarding limitations like polygon count?
Jolyon: Poly count is not nearly the restriction it is sometimes made out to be. The technical limitations, Polycount, Texture Size etc. can be frustrating but I don't really believe they hold back the thrust of the idea for a particular in game object. The restrictions may modify it a bit but if the vision is clear it can still be gotten across.
The real restrictions are commercial pressures. This is no surprise, making games is an expensive and difficult commercial process with no guarantees of success. This is what prevents people for example saying ôLets do a game in a fantasy jellyfish world!ö. This could be a fascinating art project but commercial death
I worked freelance as an illustrator for ten years so that was a good training in satisfying the customer and still having 'fun with art'. Games is a lot like that.

Next Page (About Pizza and Asteroid Animations) >>