Blog4-Michael
Maurino (also known as IronStylus)
IronStylus
Blog-http://ironstylus.blogspot.com/
Interview
with Michael Maurino-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hxUlbnVkIA
Michael Maurino is
currently a senior concept artist at RIOT Games, specifically League of
Legends. I enjoy finding interviews with these particular artists because it
makes it seem like they are not superhuman or machines who are extremely
talented, but they are humans too who can relate to the community. This man in
particular is a very inspiring person because he goes out of his way to talk to
the League of Legends community to get their input on what they think about the
characters he creates as well as gathering ideas for future characters he could
make. Michael is very active in the Twitter and Forum community and also
encourages his fellow artists at RIOT Games to participate in discussions with
the public to foster that passion that they have for creating characters for
the game. Michael is very passionate himself about making champions and
connecting with people directly in person as well as through the internet. I
admire this man because he works for a famous company that is continuously
growing and he finds the time in his day to talk with the passionate fans. I
also admire him because he states in his interview that he enjoys making female
characters just as important as the males by making them equally as heroic and
fully clothed, which is difficult to find now in entertainment nowadays.
Another reason as to why I see him as a role-model is that he has this deep
passion to make characters that appeal to not only him but the community. His
sketches are proof that he had put in a lot of time and thought to each
character he created (I linked his sketches in the website above). This gave me
hope because I sometimes struggle with an idea to the point where I want to
trash it, but in his case he kept working at it and came out with something
beautiful and promising. It makes you think that nothing has to be perfect at
first, everything takes time to develop within art, just like solving a math
problem except a lot more enjoyable in my opinion. Michael is not alone in this
development process though, he has his team to give input and critique his work
(just like we do in class to make an art piece the best it can be). Sharing
ideas is probably one of the most successful ways of gathering information
about a particular art piece because two or more heads are always better than
one. Whether it be critiquing a landscape by saying to add more shadow on the
mountains or saying a character doesn't look like he/she should bend that way,
all ideas are part of constructive criticism and everyone (even professionals)
make these same mistakes because we are only human. Seeing his work in the game
also inspires me because when I play the Champions he created it makes me feel
even more appreciative of his work because I can see the passion he put into them.
I also had the privilege to see how he
interacted with his fellow artists and even his boss/producer at Riot. It was
clear that the relationships they share at Riot are very friendly and lax which
is a great atmosphere to work in which causes less stress. A fun tidbit of
information to add is that this company/game that Michael works for makes most
if not all of its money off of the artwork. They make it an option to buy these
so-called "skins" which are basically different versions of the
character. For example, a costume change. Working as a concept artist for Riot
is very important because the aesthetics of the game are its main driving force
of development as a company.
