Danidem (right) with TobiWan (left) at The International 2013. Image Courtesy of JoinDota

Life as a Workshop Artist

Hi Dani, thanks for doing this interview with us!

My pleasure! I'm really happy to be here.

Could you tell us about life as a workshop artist?

I do this full time. It is boring and exciting at the same time. Boring if you look from the outside, exciting if you are inside my head!

What about your daily schedule? Could you elaborate on that.

I wake up every day and sit in front of my computer and I keep working where I left the work last night while I eat breakfast. I just go outside my studio to get food and I started going to the gym everyday 1 hour more or less since 1 month ago, sedentary life isn't good and it's really easy to fall into it if you work at home. I stayed many days in pyjama working when I had to crunch like a boss due to a really killer deadline or similar, sleeping like 4-5 hours a day.

One time due to the pressure of doing a lot of stuff at the same time, the amount of hours working during a long period of time and the lack of sleep I ended up at the hospital, was there when I decided to take this way more easy and relax for a bit.

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even if it's just one encouraging comment that's enough for me to wake up every day and keep doing what I love the most with that extra smile.”

I also became 100% nocturnal, I really try to fix it but I always end up going back to it. One time I asked at twitter and looks like I'm not the only one at the workshop in the same situation. I think the night is more calm and you can concentrate a bit more. It is also when inspiration comes to me most of the time!

So no much social life at all, just doing art most of the time (around 10-14 hours every day). Looking forward to change that as well as soon as I can!

And it's thanks to the support of the people that enjoys what I do that I can keep moving forward, even if it's just one encouraging comment that's enough for me to wake up every day and keep doing what I love the most with that extra smile.

Are you looking to do this long-term?

Yes I do, and the only thing that can stop me from doing this is Valve hiring me. I want to make an artbook with all the art I made for Dota 2 and a trailer for each hero kind of [like the] "meet the..." series from Team Fortress 2, so I think I have a lot of work to do!

Is the pay being a workshop artist actually sustainable, considering living expenses and all?

For me, yes it is. I'll not go into the details here because each artist has a different situation, but in my case thanks to Dota 2, I've been able to help my family get out of a hard situation, myself as well. Perfect timing if you ask me.

How is it like being one of the better-known workshop artists?

I don't believe I'm that well known compared to other of my fellow artists. But for example it's great when I'm playing a game in Dota 2 and someone recognizes me, makes me smile. It even happened to me one time while playing CS:GO, I was really surprised!

Could you elaborate on any problems you face?

Sometimes I find hard to communicate, because if you say something that the community doesn't like for any reason, that creates some kind of hate that if you don't stop or fix may snowball and not only hit your work but the work of the 3D artists I work with, so I try to be really careful there. Also it's really hard for some people to accept feedback even if you say it just to help or to improve their creations (I might be wrong a lot of times) but always without any bad intention on it, what I would call constructive feedback.

Somehow I believe that it's a responsibility for the known artists at the workshop to "carry" it in some way, helping it to grow in the right direction with the help of the community and Valve, lending a hand to the less experienced members trying to improve. Everyday I get one or more messages at either Steam, Skype, Facebook or Twitter asking me for feedback or "what do you think about this idea?" or whatever and I'm always happy to help around. Nowadays it's harder to join the workshop and "take a seat" due to the quality bar that actually exists.

Do you feel any pressure coming up with new items because of that?

I think that when you have some kind of fan base or you are known in the community, you have a lot of eyes carefully looking at your stuff and it's really important to maintain a certain level with your work, always trying to make the next one better than the last one. I don't feel pressure at all, I just try to pay attention to the details, the lore, the design, the presentation and if the community may like it and overall to enjoy the process of creating.

I do feel pressure when I work with insane deadlines that don't let me do my best- if you know what I mean. Or when work overwhelms me.

Also, the overall level at the workshop grew a lot and every month it has newcomers that come from great studios like Blizzard, From Software, Eidos and many more... and instead of giving me more pressure that keeps me motivated somehow! Let's say that I LOVE challenges- the "you can't do that", I do it.

I think many people get the wrong idea and don’t realize that workshop artists tend to work in a team, some doing the animating, some doing the modeling, what do you specialize in?

I do specialize in coming up with an idea, doing the concept art (fighting the white canvas and coming up with an idea that is doable in 3D), presentation (illustration/loading screen, SFM trailers- this last one is HARD and they take an insane amount of time) and textures if necessary. Also I have some 3D sculpt skills. Thanks to the workshop I'm becoming more [diversified], I learn a lot from every project.

Do you prefer working in a team, or are you a ‘lone wolf’ kind of guy?

I'm a lone wolf who likes working in a team: I like creating my own ideas and then talk and team up with the right artists to make them happen. I usually move around in between different artists, everyone is unique and use a different workflow. It's really a rewarding experience.

Also I believe that the best stuff happens because of teamwork. I'm not saying that a single artist can't do something awesome, but if you take a top notch concept artist, 3D artist and animator what comes from this kind of team-ups it's something of the highest quality, also you can create more stuff and it's faster than doing everything by yourself.

So how do you normally decide on what your next creation should be?

I never know unless I have a project for a tournament or a professional player. I think it depends on my mood, how I feel about doing something, how hyped and excited I can be about creating something for that hero when the idea comes to my mind. Right now there are plenty of options, like huds, sets, collections, couriers, wards....

The Process

Let’s simulate the process of creating a workshop item- Azuremir.

> Game is hard

Ok, let's go for it!

Where do you start?

First of all, we had a really short deadline to make Azuremir, less than one month and we were already busy with other projects

Everything starts on a research on what fits better for the Nexon Invitational Supermatch. They really wanted to make something that represented Korea, Nexon gave me greenlight about what to do (this is the best way to work and Nexon knew this) and after some thinking I suggested doing a Korean dragon. From this point, everything is a research and documentation work about how

Korean dragons are to evade any kind of confrontation with the Chinese or Japanese ones.

Once I knew how they were supposed to look like and I double check with Nexon, it's all about finding images of paintings, statues and any representation of Korean dragons of any shape or form. At this point is where I start doing some rough and fast sketches, trying to find not only how it could look like but also how is his personality, catching the movement and looking for cool shapes and colors that read well from the in game view. I also gave him 6 arms which make him kind of unique and to stand out of any dragon.

Once I have something that I'm happy with it and everybody in the team likes it, I start from zero a final concept based on the sketch. Nexon asked me to record the process, so I made a video where you can see it!

Alright. On to modeling, can you describe the process of modeling the courier?

Once we are done with the concept, it's the turn of my pal Spudnik to make the 3D model. He starts doing an initial blockout of all the major shapes in Autodesk Maya based on the final concept art as well as a sketch of Azuremir in a neutral pose that I provided. Once all the forms read well, he imports the blockout into ZBrush, a program which allows him to sculpt the blockout like digital clay into its final shape, defining all the details from the concept art. But this high-polygon sculpt is too complex for the game engine to handle so the next step is retopology where he creates a low-polygon representation of the high-poly model. Then he bakes the high-poly to the low-poly, creating 2D bitmap images which capture all the high-poly detail and serve as a basis for the textures. Now the game can understand the model and it's ready to be animated and textured.

When he was done we were all really happy and excited about how it came out!

Now that we’re done with the base model, what’s next?

At this point, to advance our workflow with such a short deadline, our mate Big Tuna started adding bones and aligning them to the

blockout mesh that Spudnik modeled in Maya.

BigTuna was then able to test the blocked out rig on a spine to more accurately determine the bone count. The ability to add and adjust the bone count of a rig on the fly is very important when working side by side with artists creating the final courier.

We start texturing: Spudnik provided me a PSD with all the layers I need to start working with a base color for the difussal map, that speeded up the texturing process on my side. I work jumping between Photoshop and 3D coat for the Diffusal map, once I'm done I work on the shaders and jump into the game client importer to check how it works in game, fixing/testing/adjusting everything until I'm happy with the final result.

Okay. Now that we’re done texturing the model, I’m assuming we’re going on to animating the rig? Tell me more about the process.

Yep! BigTuna was able to rough in most of the animations with the basic blocked out rig and mesh. After the model and texturing was considered final, he was able start polishing the animations. He was really open to any ideas and we even made a Google Hangout where i explained to him how I imagined Azuremir's movement: The Idle, portrait, run haste... all of the animations. Based on that collaboration and some of his magic, he gave life to Azuremir.

With the schedule being as tight as it was, it was very important to plan out each step. As far as animation and rigging goes, the most difficult part was creating a rig with CAT that was able to adapt to the pipeline. On top of that, the rig needed to be able to attach seamlessly to a spline to achieve the fluid movements that Azuremir ended up with.

Since we’re done with the courier, I’m assuming we’re going to be working on the promotional art. Could you show us some examples of your promotional art?

Sure!

And Spudnik made this cool video showcasing Azuremir animations:

That’s some great work. Do you have any upcoming workshop items you’re currently working on that you’d like to share?

Thanks a lot! I'd like to share a lot of incoming stuff, but I can't share all of it. There's a trailer for the Windrunner set I made with Hunter that it's basically 99,9% done: here.

The next stuff that is going to be released is a Lycan set I worked with Organized Chaos with the most challenging SFM trailer I ever made:

And I have around a Warlock gorilla golem and a Furion Gorilla treant that are in the works at the moment, they were done at TI3 and I'm doing them with Sith Happens, Dry, Fewes and TVidotto:

The rest of the stuff... I can't share it but you'll see it soon!

Alright, thanks for doing this insightful interview with us! Any shoutouts?

Thank you as well! Shotouts to everybody that keep making Dota 2 happen, to all the artists I worked with for beeing awesome - Bronto, Anuxi, Thiaggo, Hunter, Organized Chaos, Jeremy, Manny, Pinkman, Bounch, Helenek, Spudnik, BigTuna, Dry, Tidal, Swordz, Vivin, Tobi, Sheever and Jazza. To the professional players, for those moments at the edge of my chair.

A big one to everybody that stays at my side no matter of what. You know already who you are.

And to Valve.

Also, check out the new Aria of the Wild Wind set for Windrunner I made with Hunter, here.

Follow Danidem on social media here:
Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

Source: Headline Image Courtesy of Flipsid3Tactics

Into The Forge: Danidem