Compulsion Games South of Midnight Art Blast
The greatest privilege for an Art Director is to be able to support and nurture incredible artists, and none more impressive than the art team of South of Midnight.
South of Midnight is a Southern Gothic meets Dark Fantasy coming of age folktale, set in a fictional Deep South with a unique and original hand–crafted style. Once direction was defined, the artists pushed it to a level beyond what we thought possible. Each artist, from every discipline, has shown not just extraordinary skills, but incredible perseverance, innovation, and collaboration, while holding an impressive standard with admirable discipline over the long, challenging and ever–evolving phases of game production.
The Environment Artists perfected the crafted style, creating unique assets and kits all while managing our incredible external partners. They worked with the writers to ensure the themes and story of the locations rang true, while simultaneously collaborating tightly with our talented level designers to ensure that each level is fun, coherent, and evocative.
Our Lighting Artist pushed the mood, tone, and atmosphere of each space to an incredibly high standard while defining technical constraints and managing an incredible team of external lighting artists.
The Character Artists created breathtaking characters pumped with personality and meaning, and collaborated with animators, tech art, and cinematics so that each character shines in both gameplay and cinematics.
The Concept Artists designed beautiful and impactful worlds, characters, and mechanics while considering each design’s thematic, symbolic, and stylistic needs.
The VFX Artists brought our world to life through environmental VFX, creating our complex and unique magic system, and supported game design and cinematics through evocative character effects.
Our 2D Artist worked closely with the writers and Environment Artists to create all the posters and in game signage. This defined unique world branding and provided crucial layers of story and depth to the experience, making the game feel both real and familiar.
Our Ul Artist created our HUD and all our menus. He designed a unique branding identity that frames the game through graphic design, text, and layout while addressing the needs of game design and accessibility.
Our tech artists created essential tools that enabled and supported artists. This allowed the team to create impressive features and shaders to realize the unique crafted vision of the game, and optimized our insanely dense game so that it runs smoothly.
Our external partners, who we value as our own team members, and who demonstrated the same autonomy, creative problem solving, standard for quality, and smooth collaboration as our internal team with the added challenge of navigating multiple time zones.
And our Leads, who graciously and patiently guided and mentored each artist while setting up pipelines and pushing the vision within their discipline. They also took tedious organizational work off their team’s shoulders, collaborated closely with production, direction, and the other disciplines to share information smoothly, and ensured that the multitudes of crucial tasks were completed within the timeframes needed.
When viewing the final art, the intense and complex work that goes behind every screenshot or concept is not always obvious. I hope this sliver of context provides some deeper insight and appreciation for the beautiful work that you are about to see.
As Art Director, it is an honor to introduce the art for South of Midnight. We are extremely proud of what we have achieved, and we hope you see the passion and joy we have had in crafting this extraordinary and unique world.
Whitney Clayton
Art Director
Joao Bragato – Concept Artist – Compulsion Games
James Arkwright – Lead Environment Artist – Compulsion Games
Rodrigue Pralier – Character Artist – Compulsion Games
Lucas Grillet – Senior 3D Environment artist – Compulsion Games
Miguel Hernandez – Principal Lighting Artist – Compulsion Games
Whitney Clayton – Art Director – Compulsion Games
Ian Mac Gregor – VFX Lead – Compulsion Games
Chad Emond – Principal Character Artist – Compulsion Games
Lucy Zini – Environment Concept Artist – Compulsion Games
Scott Kowalchuk – Lead 2D Artist – Compulsion Games
Emmanuel Pappas – Lead outsourcing artist – Compulsion Games
Paulette Richardson – Senior 3D Environment Artist – Compulsion Games
Jasjot Singh – 3D Environment Artist – Compulsion Games
Samir Yahia – Senior 3D Environment Artist – Compulsion Games
Francesco – Lead character artist – Compulsion Games
Fabio Henrique – Character Artist – Compulsion Games
Somina Rout – Senior 3D Environment Artist – Compulsion Games
Emmanuel Lauzon – Senior 3D Environment artist – Compulsion Games
Michael Davini – Concept Artist – Compulsion Games
Petro Kosariekov – Senior VFX Artist – Compulsion Games
Cyriel De Jonghe – VFX Artist – Compulsion Games
Alice Duarte – VFX Artist – Compulsion Games
Connor Bugni – VFX Artist – Compulsion Games
Brandon Savanco – VFX Artist – Compulsion Games
Charly Vanlaere – Lighting Artist – Compulsion Games
Eugene – Concept Artist – Compulsion Games
Sarah – Concept Artist – Compulsion Games
Leonardo Grabau – VFX Artist – Compulsion Games
Bernice Wong – Tech Artist – Compulsion Games
Quentin Delobel – Senior 3D Environment Artist – Compulsion Games
Tamara Dragutinovic – Vegetation Artist – Onyx Studio
Nikola Petrovic – Vegetation Artist – Onyx Studio
Nikola Jovanovic – Level Artist – Onyx Studio
Milica Milutin – Level Artist – Onyx Studio
Aleksandar Pesic – Level Artist – Onyx Studio
Katia Cervera – Level Artist – Onyx Studio
Charly Vanlaere – Lighting Artist – Onyx Studio
Nemanja Ivanisevic – Lighting Artist – Onyx Studio
Tristan Reimus – VFX Artist – Onyx Studio
Alice Duarte – VFX Artist – Onyx Studio
Brandon Savanco – VFX Artist – Onyx Studio
Keos Masons – Studio – Keos Masons
Marco Plouffe – Art Director – Keos Masons
Isabelle Renaud – Director – Keos Masons
Dimitri D’Urbano – Director – Keos Masons
Kevin Ochoa – Project Manager – Keos Masons
Victor Bassieux – Project Manager – Keos Masons
Ilya Loginov – Lead – Keos Masons
Daria Rashevskaia – Concept Artist – Keos Masons
Andreea Scubli – Hair Artist – Keos Masons
Warren Boonzaaier – Hair Artist – Keos Masons
Sushan Krishna Manandhar – Character Artist – Keos Masons
manoj Kumar Maharana – Character Artist – Keos Masons
Farhad Nojoumi – Character Artist – Keos Masons
