Oyvind Steensen
MMO Game Artists

Intro

MMO Game Artists

^{Ïyvind Steensen, Art Director for Anarchy Online}

Our second artist in this series is Ïyvind Steensen, Art Director at Funcom and responsible for the Science Fiction smash hit Anarchy Online. Prior to this he was working as World Designer for 3 years, also for Anarchy Online. He started drawing He-Man characters in kinder garden and worked his way up to one of the best known artists for massively multiplayer games.

Whether you are an upcoming or established artist in the MMO business, or just a fan of Anarchy Online or Ïyvind, we hope you will like reading this Interview as much as i enjoyed doing it.

Note: Not all of the art in this article is related to Anarchy Online, and none of it is to be considered production art (except the ingame screenshots of course).


MMOG Hell: Why did you decide to do Art in any form at first?

Ïyvind: I guess at kinder garden when I started drawing He-Man characters and such. I was handing out Skeletors and He-Mans to my friends. I think some of them have those drawings still. I was early fascinated by human muscular anatomy. Years of super-hero comic-style drawings followed. Doing art never felt like a concious choice. It has always been more of an urge. Something I have to do kinda. And I've never based my work around with the goal of creating art. I have just been making what I've wanted to make.

MMOG Hell: So you trained yourself from the early childhood? How did you acquire your artistic skills, or were you born gifted?

Ïyvind: I guess I was born with that mindset. I started very early before any theoretical tutoring could be done. I spent hours on hours in the kitchen of my grandparents.And although my granddad isn't quite an artist, for me he was back then. I guess it was my first meeting with something I felt like a tutor. Around when I was 14 I started doing classes at the National Gallery here in Oslo. I think I had drawn almost all the sculptures there by my last class.

MMOG Hell: If you started so classical, then why the Game Industry? Why not movies or illustrations?

Soldier

Ïyvind: I don't look at that as so much different paths, really. I've always been an eager comics drawer, and have over the years evolved a style that could fit well into something like illustrating a book. But I like to evolve and try new things. I think the game industry and movie industry can be pretty similar when it comes to concept art. I want to create and tell stuff, and Games area a very fitting medium to do so. Anyway, I'd love to work on movies sometime as well. As for the classical start, I guess you can say I've gone in that direction. I've always wanted to make things that looked realistically. At some point, that became an obsession though. I remember I got these pens that were increasingly thinner. I wanted to draw stuff that didn't look like it was hand drawn. That mentality has changed though. I think it's a decent sub-goal when creating stuff, but if it takes over the whole purpose of the drawing you have to ask yourself: "What was it I actually wanted to make? What is it I really want to express?"
Anyway, drawing comics aren't regarded as very classical, although the execution of the drawings can very much seem like the true legacy the naturalistic style. Not many gallery-artists make very naturalistic pictures anymore. I think it has been split in illustration (concept art, story boards, comics), and art (tend to put more weight on the expression or the message), but I see no contradiction in it. I think too many gallery-artists knows all too little basic drawing and colour-use to be interesting aesthetically.

Adonis City

MMOG Hell: So what is your favorite type of Art?

Ïyvind: Difficult question... I get exited by lots of stuff. I'd say anything within any medium that looks like it has had lots of thought, love and skill put into it. I'm very impressed when I come over something that are more than a sum of its parts. That is how I recognize really good stuff. It has to bring something to my senses that I haven't quite experienced before. I greatly look up to any artist (not limited to a pure graphical medium) that are able to push the limits of creativity. You have all these new generations of styles and new artists, but someone started that trend. Someone did something unexpected and new (while of course others may have refined and evolved it later). Take for instance aliens, pre- and post-Giger. The good thing in that regard is that we humans will never run out of ideas, but not everyone have the ability to evolve beyond the established ideas. I guess reaching that point is my goal as an artist. If I were to name one favourite art-type. I'd say comics. Not because I read and rejoice as frequently over them as I used to but simply because it has been my longest lasting source of inspiration.

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