Meet the Team —Amy
Much work goes into transforming an idea into a virtual object, be it a character, building, environment, or any other complex item, really. Concept artists are key figures in this process: when someone goes to them asking for something like “a prehistoric-looking tower with a mystical aura”, they are the ones drawing sketches with multiple versions of them, then re-drawing the desired version from multiple perspectives, then creating reference boards to make 3D artists understand the materials of each component of said tower. It’s truly a work of materializing thoughts.
This is why is a pleasure to introduce you Amy Riches, one of the most prolific Concept Artists of Civitas!
— Giorgio ‘Error 404’ Crosali
Hi Amy, can you briefly tell our community about yourself and your professional experience?
Hey lovely community! I’m one of the concept artists working on Civitas. I work closely with the art director designing concepts for the game, in particular I’m more focussed on environments, props and colour design.
I come from a more traditional art background having studied fine art and art history at university but evolved with the change in tech to the exciting digital world. Over the last decade I have worked for multiple clients in a variety of industries as a concept artist, illustrator and lead designer, involving work from more product focused campaigns and brand development to 2D TV animation. I’m excited to delve into the gaming industry, being a big fan of the entertainment world, (both movies and games), it’s a passion of mine to bring worlds and stories to life, and endeavour to make every design, choice of colour and paint stroke help to communicate the narrative and immerse the viewer in the experience.
I am of course first and foremost an art nerd! I love painting both digitally and traditionally and if I’m not painting at work, or at my home set up you can most likely find me outside in the wild painting ‘en plein air’. I love hiking and being inspired by the natural landscape and often take this inspiration into my personal concepts and illustrations. Oh and of course I love drinking tea and listening to heavy metal or movie soundtracks — ideally whilst painting.
You worked in several different industries before joining the gaming one. How do you compare your experience in gaming to the other ones? And how have they influenced your style as a game concept artist?
Working in other industries has influenced my work not so much in style but in process, in being able to adapt well to the different needs of different projects, at the core you always have a brief, and problem to solve. I would say the biggest difference to previous industries is the highly collaborative environment of the gaming industry and seeing your work as part of a larger pipeline. This is especially so in production where you are no longer necessarily completing just a single ‘cool’ illustration but generating and communicating ideas, and solving problems for 3D artists and game designers.
What is your favourite aspect of working on Civitas?
I really love the unique 2D style the art director has envisioned for Civitas, as a creative I find this particularly exciting to be working in as you have way more scope for creative interpretation, to push colours and to design something truly different that’s also a visual treat for the eyes! It’s also fun to be working on a game that involves multiple time periods — meaning I get to visually explore designs and shape language from different places and cultures with different technology and resources which makes it super interesting. I’ve been working on tower concepts for example and how you evolve the design and look from the pre-historic era onwards is a lot of fun to explore!
What would be your recommendation for juniors who want to put their artistic skills to work for the entertainment industry?
Don’t skip the fundamentals — form, perspective, composition, value, colour & light. Work hard and practice, practice, practice! A key aspect is having good core design skills and visual communication, as mentioned earlier there is more work going on than just the pretty final concepts you see in most art books, so being able to generate ideas and problem solve is crucial — going beyond surface level images and thinking about function and storytelling. Also, I can’t remember now who said this to me but basically the mantra of “do great work and be great to work with” — the gaming and entertainment industry is very collaborative — you need to be able to work with other concept artists, people from other departments in the pipeline, art directors, directors etc. you will always have notes and feedback that needs to be addressed and changed!
Lastly, as you have many different artistic skill sets, can you tell us more about the creations you are most proud of and where can our users find more of that?
Sure, well some of the work I’m proud of is still under NDA but personal work wise I do like working traditionally and have been doing that a lot more recently — especially as it gives me a nice break from the screen! I particularly like working in charcoal or painting with oils. I love storytelling and one of my pieces that I’m quite proud of is of the Icelandic Ice Giants — I had a lot of fun re-imagining old mythical beings from Icelandic lore. I’m also proud of, well not a single piece, but completing the challenge I set myself last year to paint 100 paintings of the volcanic eruption we had in Iceland — this was… difficult.. but a lot of fun and I learnt a lot in the process! This is what I love about art, continuing to learn and push yourself to create new images, and bring places and worlds to life. You can find me on instagram https://www.instagram.com/amyrichesart and I do have an artstation account but I’m reaaally behind on updating it — need to get on that but it’s here: https://www.artstation.com/amyriches
Want to know more about the Civitas team? Check our previous Meet the Team issues on our publication page: https://medium.com/playcivitas/tagged/meet-the-team
