An Artist with a Passion | Nico Mack
Developer Interview with Nico Mack, aka Nyra
Have you ever wondered who is responsible for the concept art of Renegade Line? If not I’m at least sure that you have already seen some of his artwork on our social media pages! Nico is our very talented concept artist, who‘s spending his personal time for our game development!
Age: 25
Position: Concept Artist
Nationality: Germany
Joined RV: in August 2016
When did you realize that you wanted to be a concept artist?
I was doing traditional art for some years and once I realized that people are able to draw digitally. I also realized that there are people designing all the stuff I love in video games. As a result, I instantly knew that that’s the thing I needed to do as a living.
When did your start with art? At what age did you experience your
first well-made drawing?
That is a tough one. I’ve been drawing my whole life, but the time that I got into it was around 14 years when I bought my first book about “How to draw a Manga” or something along those lines. That was probably the starting point of getting more serious about drawing. I’m very critical of my own art since I’m never really happy with my artworks. I still feel like I’ve not experienced my first well-made drawing yet laughs.
Who inspired you to pursue drawing? Have you ever been taught by a mentor?
I am a self taught artist so I have no mentor. There are so many people who I admire and who helped me along the way so I can’t really pick one of them.
If you weren’t doing art, what do you think you would be doing?
I’ve always wanted to do something with games. I also know some programming and enjoy it so that’s probably something I’d do if I weren’t doing art.
What do you think is the greatest drawing that you have made so far?
Well, it’s probably the newest one I made for my portfolio and spent a lot of time on it. I think my biggest weakness is designing characters whereas I’m most comfortable working on natural environments and scenery.
How did you hear about Raw Vengeance? Why did you apply? Did you work on other games before?
I worked on another game as part of an internship before. The funny thing is that RV contacted me. I think they saw some old fan art of mine on Deviantart. They asked me if I was interested on working on this game and I was instantly hooked. It’s already about 1,5 years and I’ve been doing concept art for Raw Vengeance ever since.
When you would start making a new concept for Renegade Line, would you discuss an idea first, and tell Paul (our art director)what you wanted to include in it?
Most of the time Paul tells me the idea and what it’s all about. We talk a little about it and maybe change the idea around a bit. After that, I’ll do some rough sketches and show him the basic ideas. He then chooses the ones he likes the most and I’ll work them out. Sometimes there need to be multiple iterations of one idea until we have that one design we like.
Tell me about the relationships that you have with the people you are working with at Raw Vengeance Games. How would you describe it as a company?
Unfortunately I don’t have close contact with everyone on the RV Team. The team grew a lot lately and I’m not working fulltime as concept artist for them so there’s a lot of other work for me to do. As a result I’m mostly in contact with the Art Director. I’m looking forward to meeting as many of the team as possible on the next Gamescom in person!
Is there anything you are currently working on?
I’m working on the look of Roland and Edward, the main characters of the story of Renegade Line. I just started so it’s all about finding some good ideas to make them unique and fit the visuals to their character.
As always who would you choose Wickeds or Residents? Which faction, suits you the most?
Wickeds all the way! They are the best!
Do you feel sometimes like there’s nothing to do? Are you always hard working as an artist? How does a day in a life of a developer look like?
I never feel like there’s nothing to do. On the contrary, I feel like there’s too little time to work on stuff. I’m not as hard working as other artists and that’s something I hate about myself. Not being able to focus more on single tasks. Most of the day I’m working on either commissioned work or private project to improve my skills. Regarding RV there is a list of tasks sorted by priority and I work on that stuff. If I have something to show, I’ll send it to Paul and talk to him about what to change and what to keep. After that, I’m changing or finishing the concepts and then go on to the next task. The list always gets updated as well so there’s always something to do afterwards.
You've spent a really long time making concept art. Have you ever tried doing digital designs and were you good at it?
Yes, I am doing graphics design as well. Part of my job is doing graphics design for advertising agencies. I also studied “Digital Media” which was focused on design. I think I’m decent at it but I don’t enjoy it as much as concept art.
What are your future plans regarding your hobby?
I’m trying to improve as much as possible in order to be able to work on all sorts of games and movies. Also looking forward to working closer with other artists on big titles.
Thank you Nico for sharing a bit of your time to us. Is there anything you’d like to mention for the end?
Thank you. This is something for the struggling artists reading our interview. Every artist struggles with art aspects, so just keep working and don’t give up. Find some like-minded people, they all know how hard it is. They know the pain and it’s nice to talk with them, getting feedback and getting advice. Just keep pushing your skills to the next level and never give up! Anyone can get professional!
That’s it for today’s interview! Thank you for reading our little article, we hope you enjoyed it. Please don’t forget to give us your feedback. If you would like to know a bit more about Nico, feel free to share everything on our community forums, via Discord or as a comment here! You can also discuss this interview and ask additional questions. ❤
