Game Character Art (Real-Time) Winners Interview — Dragon’s Rise: The Forgotten Realms
1st place Dragon’s Rise: The Forgotten Realms – Game Character Art (Real-Time) Winners: Yumi Batgerel
Jump back into our Dragon’s Rise interview series with this new conversation featuring Yumi Batgerel, Carrie Warwick, and Juras Rodionovas. These top three winners of the Dragon’s Rise: The Forgotten Realms Game Character Art (Real-Time) Challenge category offer a detailed look at their submissions, discuss their inspirations, and review their winning workflow strategies.
2nd place Dragon’s Rise: The Forgotten Realms – Game Character Art (Real-Time) Winners: Carrie Warwick
Why Did You Decide To Enter the Dragon’s Rise Challenge?
Yumi: This is my 6th ArtStation Challenge because I love it! It’s a great opportunity to learn new stuff, reunite, and discover talented and inspiring artists in the industry. The ArtStation Challenge was a perfect reason to escape reality and keep having a daily routine. Currently, I’m staying in a warzone, Eastern Ukraine, under daily shelling. I gave birth to a baby boy just 10 days before the deadline. I thought I’d keep working on the entry and if I wouldn’t finish my submission before the deadline, it would be totally ok. After all, my husband convinced me to keep going, so I decided to finish my submission.
Carrie: I enjoy using the ArtStation Challenges as an opportunity to push myself out of my comfort zone with regard to my skillset. For this one in particular, I wanted to improve my knowledge of using Lumen and post-processing materials within Unreal 5. I also really enjoy working alongside other artists and seeing their characters develop, and it’s interesting to see such a wide variety of workflows and techniques being used and how everyone tackles problems in unique ways. Finally, trying to complete personal work around a full-time job can sometimes be difficult, but working within the time constraints of the Challenge and having an external deadline can really help with goal setting and motivation to complete a piece of work.
Juras: I enjoy doing personal projects once in a while to sharpen my skills, stay up to date on new tools and workflows, and learn something new. The ArtStation Challenge provided me with a great opportunity to force myself to complete a bigger project within a fairly short timeline. It also provided the chance to explore Unreal Engine 5, and challenged me to tackle the project with a more technical approach to produce something that would look good and be within the set budget.
3rd place Dragon’s Rise: The Forgotten Realms – Game Character Art (Real-Time) Winners: Juras Rodionovas
What Was the Inspiration Behind Your Submission?
Yumi: Inspired by the storytelling, I chose one of my favorite Concept Art entries – the Silver Dragon by G.X.guoxue.
Carrie: As soon as I saw the concept of the Dragon Queen creature Eldrae by Jeanne Plounevez and the story of her raising her two sons, I knew I wanted to include this element of narrative in my final images. I enjoyed the contrast of having them in the image with her, looking a little silly and cute compared with her strong, powerful stance. I also really wanted to capture a painterly vibe with this submission, so I chose to keep the sculpt relatively simple, and instead focus on the texture work and post-processing to add detail and visual interest.
Juras: When it comes to the artistic part of my submission, the exceptionally executed concept by Artur Nakhodkin was really eye-catching, and I was inspired by the theme of the Challenge. I immersed myself in the world that Anton has created with his designs, imagining the characters he conceptualized living in a rough dystopian world, filled with layers of ancient civilizations and dragon-like creatures. Thinking about things like terrain and weather that the world would have has also pushed me to create a presentation that hopefully captures my vision.
As for the technical part of my submission, I was inspired to produce the character in a way that I would for an actual game production in Unreal Engine 5. It is always satisfying when you create something that looks good, but also is functional and could be used in an actual game.
1st place Dragon’s Rise: The Forgotten Realms – Game Character Art (Real-Time) Winners: Yumi Batgerel
What Do You Credit as Being Your Winning Strategy for the Challenge?
Yumi: I tried to address the personality and the likeness of the Silver dragon. Besides that, it was important to me to translate some kind of story. However, in my opinion, there is no ultimate strategy except preparing, planning, and especially executing the project.
Carrie: Having a strong final image that captured the attention of the audience whilst remaining true to the concept was always a key consideration for me, and I knew I wanted to allow as much time as possible to work on this. As soon as the low-poly was created, this was brought into the scene in Unreal 5 so that the lighting and composition could be worked on alongside all other tasks such as rigging and texturing, and then everything was pulled together relatively easily in the end. A huge benefit of this workflow is that it helps to focus your attention on the elements of the character that are going to be most noticeable in the final renders, so you know what needs the most work.
Juras: I would credit my experience creating a wide range of characters, and the things that I do as a game developer which helped me have a more technical edge in my submission. I see myself as a game developer first, and a character artist second. When working with games, my goal is always to create characters that can elevate the gameplay and experience that a given game project is set to achieve. That means that I am very comfortable working with various game engines, and a lot of my daily work involves solving both artistic and technical problems, while at the same time creating high-level character art. I think that sort of mindset and type of work provides experience and skills that are hard to harvest if you are solely creating art.
2nd place Dragon’s Rise: The Forgotten Realms – Game Character Art (Real-Time) Winners: Carrie Warwick
What Advice Do You Have for Future Challenge Participants?
Yumi: Have fun! Try to finish what you’ve started but don’t take it too seriously.
Carrie: Pick a concept that is within your current skill set, but has one or two elements that will allow you to push yourself. This is tricky because every year there are some incredible submissions in the Pre-Production category and it’s very easy to get carried away with your choices! But, if the concept is too difficult, you can end up losing the fun part of the Challenge. Set milestones. Breaking the Production phase down into specific things you want to achieve by the end of each week can help keep you on track. It’s also important to not expect perfection. If, for example, your high-poly isn’t as good as you’d like by the time you want it finished, then move on, and learn what you would do better next time. It’s better to go through the process and finish and have that experience than to never finish at all.
Juras: The most important thing is to make sure you create something that you will have fun with! Once you have that, my only advice is to not focus too much on how much work needs to be done but to take everything one step at a time, and just enjoy the process. A Challenge should also challenge you in some way, so picking something that will make you uncomfortable will also make you grow and become a better artist once you are on the other side of that finish line.
3rd place Dragon’s Rise: The Forgotten Realms – Game Character Art (Real-Time) Winners: Juras Rodionovas
