Industry Practice - Role Models (22/11/24)
Daniel Orive
Who is your chosen role-model in the Games industry
The person I have chosen is an the co founder and head of art at Dardo Studios, Daniel Orive. The reason I have chosen this artist, is due to his large amount of experience and background. He did some great concept art and 3D models for a game I enjoy called League of Legends (Riot Games, 2009). His portfolio can be found on art station at https://www.artstation.com/danielorive/profile. I aspire to be a concept artist and would love to have the chance to work on the games I enjoy playing. This is what led me to Daniel Orive. I think learning his thought process on the concepts he creates will offer me a lot of great advice and considerations to help me build up my portfolio.
Identify the job role and responsibilities of your Games Artist Role Model?
Daniel Orive has worked many jobs in the games artist industry. He's a concept artist, character artist and most recently, art director. These roles, though different from each other, share similar responsibilities. Both a concept and character artist require the artist to research the style of the game, respond well to feedback, working to a schedule, working close with their director and teammates etc (CGSpectrum). Daniel Orive has put these skills to good use working for various well known companies like Riot Games and Blizzard. He currently works as an art director for Dardo Studios, which he created alongside Kenny Carvalho. In the about section of Dardo Studio's website, I found some feedback Daniel Orive received from Carlos Sánchez, General Manager at ProbablyMonsters (Dardo Studios, 2023). He comments that "Daniel's expertise and leadership have been invaluable to us. His ability to understand our vision and translate it into stunning visual assets has elevated our project to new heights. Moreover, his direct inclusion in our leadership team has been instrumental in refining our creative direction and achieving our goals." This shows just how important it is to have these responsibilities and how values they are to those looking to hire for these roles.
What technical and 'durable' skills would be required to be successful in this job role?
The technical skills required in this job role, is knowledge of the software commonly used in the industry. Examples of commonly used software in the industry is Photoshop, Maya and ZBrush. On Daniel Orive's art station, it shows that he has skills in Photoshop, ZBrush, 3ds Max, Maya, Keyshot, SDCoat, Unreal Engine, Substance 3D Painter and Quixel Suite. This diverse technical skillset has likely been a crucial factor in establishing himself as a concept and character artist.
An important skill for artists, is the ability to adapt a design to a game. I have found a post on Daniel Orive's instagram detailing his thought process when it came to designing Neeko. Since Neeko is based off of a chameleon, he started off gathering references of the of the animal and the colours they are. He says that he'd have to be careful when it came to using them as Summoner's Rift (League's main map) has a lot of earth tones and he needs to make the character stand out or she'd be difficult to read. To do this, he limits the values so they're between 3 and 5. These values must be higher than the environment. After that, he experiments with the hue and saturation until he's happy with them.
There are a lot of durable skills that are required to be successful in this role. One of the main ones, is having strong drawing skills. Without this, your design ideas might not be communicated effectively and the visual communication between you and your client will be severely impacted. Some other crucial durable skills in this industry are: the ability to draw in a variety of styles, knowledge of anatomy (and zoology in some cases), able to draw from written brief, high attention to detail, etc. All this skills enhance the visual communication of your artwork and being able to adapt it to different styled projects will help build up your design skills. This will be useful in a portfolio and will grab the attention of clients looking to hire artists.
How did they get where they are today?
Explain what you have discovered about ur role models route into the games industry. Include information about their education and experience.
Daniel Orive has amassed over 15 years of experience working for various studios. From 2013 - 2015, he worked as a character artist for Ninja Theory. In 2016, he worked as both a character and concept artist for Riot Games. He worked for them for 3 years, concepting and modelling many champions such as Neeko, Xayah and Ornn. The models and some of his concepts were used and implemented in game.
In 2021, he worked as an art director for Blizzard. During this time, he concepted work for illustrations used in Hearthstone. He created the illustration of Queen Azshara used in the Voyage to the Sunken City set.
Currently, he works at Dardo Studios as the Senior Art Director where he ,and over 30 other artist, work to bring visions to life. To help establish himself, Daniel Orive has participated in art station art challenges, published various art studies and has posted fan art of popular games and shows he's enjoyed such as World of Warcraft, Frozen, Witcher 3 and most recently, Arcane.
What element of this person's practice can you utilise in your own?
In order to establish myself in the industry, I need to build up a diverse portfolio to grab the attention of studios and clients looking to hire. To do this, I plan to create fanart for shows I enjoy and attempt to replicate the style of them similar to Daniel Orive's portfolio. This will help me build up on my ability to adapt to different art styles. Another thing I plan on doing, is practicing my technical drawing skills by trying out the method Daniel Orive used to create Neeko. Limiting my values and experimenting with the hue and saturation, will help me make recognisable character designs that will make my portfolio 'pop'. This will aid me in increasing my understanding of colour theory as I will be studying greyscale values. I could participate in artist challenges on popular sites like art station to grow my artistic skills and build up recognition. Showing my process and furthering my skills in industry standard programs will help me be stand out amongst other artists.
Do you see yourself reflected in the Games Art Industry?
Compared to my role model, I think we both share a strong passion for art and a desire to create strong recognisable characters. We both share similar sources of inspirations and Daniel Orive has contributed to a lot of projects that I aspire to be able to work on. His concept work for thumbnailing is quite messy and sketchy which is very similar to the work I am trying to produce currently. I don't have as much passion for 3D but seeing the models that Orive has sculpted, has inspired me to attempt to create something similar.
In the industry, I feel both represented and not represented. Recently, a lot of games have been adding a lot LGBTQ+ characters which is really nice to see. I have yet to play a game with a trans character like myself but I have heard of a few!
I think the main reason why I don't feel represented in the industry, is that many artist don't show the very early stages of their journey. The artist I talked about in this post, didn't detail much about his education before beginning work at Ninja Theory. Similarly, a lot of artists who post online only post the good artworks. It's rare to see something that they aren't proud of. I find this to be quite demoralising. It makes me think I'm not good enough for the industry.
Reference List
Anon, n.d. About Us [online]. Dardo Studios. Available at: https://dardostudios.com/about-us [Accessed November 22 2024]
CGSpectrum, n.d. Character Designer [online]. CGSpectrum. Available at: https://www.cgspectrum.com/career-pathways/character-designer [Accessed 22 November 2024].
CGSpectrum, n.d. Concept Artist[online]. CGSpectrum. Available at: https://www.cgspectrum.com/career-pathways/concept-artist [Accessed 22 November 2024].
Daniel Orive, n.d. Daniel Orive [online]. ArtStation. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/danielorive [Accessed November 22 2024]
Daniel Orive, n.d. danielorive_art [online]. Instagram. Available at: https://www.instagram.com/danielorive_art/ [Accessed November 22 2024]
Daniel Orive, n.d. Daniel Orive [online]. Facebook. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/daniel.orive [Accessed November 22 2024]
Riot Games, 2009. League of Legends [online]. PC. Los Angeles, CA: Riot Games. Available at: https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-gb/ [Accessed November 22 2024]
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