The Character and Creature Modeler at Epic Games discusses his career and introduces the team.
All ‘Gears of War’ images courtesy of Epic Games Inc. All rights reserved.
Gears of War, Marcus Fenix and the Crimson Omen are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.
Beginnings
From as far back as I can remember, I have always enjoyed the freedom that comes from art. Art kind of runs throughout my family; my mother and grandmother are both traditional painters, and my brother Sean is currently a Senior Graphic Designer. Throughout my childhood, I would spend countless hours drawing and sculpting monsters from cartoons and comics.
My mother being an artist herself constantly enrolled me into every art class she could find. Art became my favorite subject throughout high school and with the help of a pad, pencil, and a set of ear-plugs every class quickly became art class, in one way or another.
evin Lanning started creating art at a very early age
drawing and sculpting. He received a half-ride scholarship
at the Art Institute of Dallas graduating with a Degree in
Computer Animation. Thanks to online exposure Kevin received commission work including character art for several commercials.
This led to his discovery by Epic Games where he was hired as a full-time artist to create art assets for their next-gen game technology Unreal Engine 3. For the past four years Kevin has been working as a Character and Creature Modeler at Epic Games. His most recent work can be seen in Epic’s blockbuster hit for the Xbox 360, ‘Gears of War’.
Education
I’ve been rather fortunate to have two parents who have been extremely supportive in my pursuit of this career. I knew from very early on that I wanted to become an artist, and they helped me in my pursuit every way they could. Up to this point in my life, I had focused solely on traditional mediums, so attaining the knowledge needed for today’s digital realm became a priority. After High School, my brother and I decided to attend the Art Institute of Dallas.
I studied there on a half-ride scholarship won from a portfolio competition for around two-and-a-half years focusing on character modeling. The attendance of figure drawing and 2D animation classes served to be very rewarding in the amount of knowledge that was gained in regards to human anatomy and motion. I still find myself attending local figure drawing classes from time to time to relax for a bit. It’s amazing how fast you can lose the ease and quality of your drawing skills when they’re not exercised daily. I’m constantly humbled by the amount of raw skill and talent some artists have with this medium.
Digital
As for 3D application-based studies, these classes demanded a large amount of self-teaching. I’ve seen quite a few artists become overwhelmed by the complexity of application interfaces and with the amount of procedures involved in certain tasks. However, as one of my professors put it: “The moment one is truly free to begin creating art digitally, is when the tools become transparent to the user.”
That saying resonated with me for some reason, so I went out and bought as many books as I could find on the applications and buried my nose into them for months. After spending the time to learn the applications, I gained a huge understanding for the creation process involved that was previously incomprehensible to me. From that moment on, I began focusing on the creation of character models. There is a certain love I have acquired for the process of digitally sculpting a character or creature.
Career Start
Once I graduated from the Art Institute, I began working with several friends from school on small side projects and helped out in the creation of a digital library that was to be sold online. This was quickly placed on the back burner after a good friend of mine Peter Hayes suggested I post some of my work online.
With the exposure of my work, came opportunities of contract work within the industry. I was contacted by Floyd Bishop at Ice Pond Studios to do some character work on a ‘GI JOE’ commercial they were subcontracting for. I had a blast working on that project. In my eyes, this was the first real production work that I had done. This quickly erased any self-questioning I had on whether I had made the right decision to become an artist. I remember having a strong feeling that all of the hard work and dedication put into my studies was about to pay off, and it was.
Shortly after finishing the contract work for Ice Pond Studios, I received an email from Epic Games‘ Lead Designer, Cliff Bleszinski who was browsing the forums on cgsociety.org and came across my work. I was given an art test that day and flew out to Raleigh, North Carolina at the end of that week for an onsite interview.
I remember being totally blown away by the quality and creativeness of the concept that was given to me for the art test. It was one of those pieces that I couldn’t get enough of and really enjoyed working on. From the moment I walked into Epic’s headquarters for the interview, I knew that this was where I wanted to work.
After a day of meeting the team and being completely amazed by the quality of work and the professionalism held within the studio I sat down with Cliff for a final chat. I accepted a full-time job with them that night and have been happily employed with Epic for the past four-and-a-half years.
All ‘Gears of War’ images courtesy of Epic Games Inc. All rights reserved.
Gears of War, Marcus Fenix and the Crimson Omen are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.
