THE MIND OF A BORDERLANDS 3 ARTIST
We sit down and pick the mind of Romain Lambert, an artist currently working on the Borderlands franchise. Get a first hand view of his experiences, how he adapted his artistic style to match the requirements of the studio as well as an extensive Q&A from getting a job in the industry and common mistakes he sees in portfolios.
Introduction
Hello, I'm Romain Lambert, a young 3D Artist from Belgium living in Québec.
I’m currently working as a Content/Environment artist on the Borderlands franchise at Gearbox Studio Québec. Moving to Canada and getting this opportunity to work on Borderlands 3 was one of the best days of my life and there is even more to come!
Borderlands 3
Previous games are part of the Borderlands soul, so yes, they remain the main reference in terms of graphic designs and scenarios. Gearbox likes to continue improving what already exists rather than making too many changes that could alternate the initial content. However, there are now different planets in Borderlands 3, so we allowed ourselves to enrich this initial universe with new artistic direction and new environments. This big addition is a very pleasant one for the players as well as the artists who like to create new content with their own design, originality and complexity!
More than that, bringing freshness to the gameplay is always a good plus to consider. We tried to adjust it to this game era by having an improved feeling when you play, shoot and drive. I think Gearbox managed to have a good balance between the old and new gameplay to keep all types of players happy.
Working on Borderlands 3 - Personal Touch
By being an artist who also loves traditional drawing, I immediately loved the graphic style of the game. I like this kind of more stylized works with their unique looks.
The inking is one of those little things that brings an identity to the franchise and allows the artists to have more freedom when texturing. With this process, each artist can bring a lot of details and their personal touch, while of course paying attention to keep a graphic cohesion to the overall game. When I work on my personal projects, I allow myself more freedom and try to push my own skills by working with this ink style. This is a really fun process that can take more time to finish but it brings so much detail to the final art, it’s worth it!
New Knowledge
I found an artistic style that suits me and that I never thought of using before. I was always pushing myself to make creations as realistic as possible, whereas it was not what I preferred graphically. I think it’s not false to say that the video game is an art that can be used to embellish the reality so I'm not a big fan of photogrammetry. I’m more into the creativity than the duplication of reality.
Of course, I also learned to work differently by working in a team. I like to believe that I’m a way more professional artist now. My coworkers are great people with a lot of talents, I have and still can learn so much from them!
Real World References to Borderlands 3
To create an object or an environment, we rely on real references for the size and proportions and we combine it to a more stylized look for the design itself. Likewise for the characters, a good balance needs to be found between realistic and stylized. We try to add a lot of charisma to them but also to all aspects in the game, Borderlands always had this unique type of arts and design. Even now that we are working on different planets, it keeps its originality, but by working with references, it also keeps a realistic and plausible look.
Concept artists are really good to create all these unique designs based on references. With the help of the artistic directors, they make the concept art that will provide the main idea and direction for the 3D artist to take.
Iconic Stylization
I will say that what defines the most the graphic style of the franchise is the inking process during the texturing. So the unique art of the textures because on any objects, materials or characters, ink will be present in their very characteristic way.
But, it should not be confused with cell shading. Borderlands is not a game completely made in cell shading, the biggest job is done by hand in the textures. Each artist will create their texture with an inking pass on top, and after that, shaders and post process will refine everything to create the BL style!
Adapting to the Borderlands Style
I had to rethink my workflow in accordance with this particular work criteria. In general, the high poly step requires a lot of work and details but most of the details will be done during texturing. It takes some personal adaptation and your production time may seems slower at first, but once you get used to it, it is not so different than the classic way of doing it.
It is also important to pay attention to the graphic cohesion between all the different artists and work. When you need to create a large world with a lots of assets and with some artistic parts that will be created by hand, it can quickly take a wrong turn. Having good art directors helps a lot with that kind of problem!
Vault Hunter of Choice
As a big fan of robots and companions, my main VH is obviously Fl4k.
I find his design really great, character and concept artists did an amazing job on him. His abilities are nice to play with too, all the pets are pretty fun and it is perfect to have them for solo player like me because you will never be completely alone during your journey to kill the bad guys!
Still keep in mind than playing with others players is a must in Borderlands, so grab your friends and go full mayhem Vault Hunter!
Q: What skills do you find most frequently lacking for artists trying to get their first job? How can they improve or learn these skills?
Young artists or students often have a good base on several production areas but don’t have a real speciality. It’s good to know a bit about all the game pipeline to understand what your coworkers are doing or to be able to work on different projects but if you want to get your first job you will need to specialize yourself by pushing yours skills in a specific domain. Find what you like to do most and work on it. You don’t need to find a job directly after your school, take the time to progress and to create more content for your portfolio. They are a lot of great tutorials or online classes now that could help on that too.
Also, students can quickly be demotivated because of the time it takes to learn more and to get this first job... but don’t forget that when you will be working in the industry, you will not have so much free time anymore to do what you really love so take this chance to create personal projects and above all, be proud of what you do!
Q: What are some common mistakes you see in junior/students work when it comes to lighting/composition etc?
The main thing that you will learn as working with a team is how great it is to be able to learn new things from other artists around you. I was a freelancer before and when you are in a team it’s really different because everyone can ask for help, tips or even just for feedback on their works. Junior, mid or senior artists... it’s all the same when it comes to improving our skills, we want to learn more to become even better!
But for that, communication and trust are also really important traits. If you stay on your side and don’t want to speak to anyone or worst, if you are in a competition with other artists, it will not be good. Each game project need to have good team under it to be sure that everything is going well until the game is launched.
Q: How did you land your job at Gearbox and are there any useful tips you can give our readers, if they were to apply? How would they stand out?
I was living in Belgium but I really wanted to come to Québec to work in one of the biggest parts of the video game industry. After my studies, I kept pushing my skills by doing personal works and at the same time I was waiting to get a 1 year Work Permit to go to Canada. Belgium and France have that possibility because some agreements exist between these countries, you can also try to find this kind of possibilities in your country, it will help a lot.
After I got my Work Permit, I came to Montréal and I tried to find the perfect job while I was working as a freelancer to be able to stay there. At first, I had a lot of refusals because of my lack of experience but I was always looking for new opportunities on Artstation and Linkedin. One day, I saw one post from Gearbox and I took my chances. I managed to succeed the Art Test and finally, I got my current job at Gearbox Québec. So, continue to believe in yourself and push yours limits!
Q: For artist just starting in the realm of 3D what do you think are the most important concepts to learn and any tools/software you would recommend learning?
Basics are the most important, you need to understand what is PBR, how to make great composition or lighting of a scene, etc. You will be better if you know these basics because your environment automatically will look more interesting. Knowing different tools and workflows is also a good thing, like that you will be able to find which is the right one to use on a particular situation or even just to find what you like the most to do for the future projects
Free software like Blender are really useful because you can do almost everything in there! So it is a great way to begin 3D. Learning software as Substance Designer or Houdini can be a good choice too, it seems that these ones are ready to become really important software in the industry right now.
Q: What tips do you have for newly graduated/junior Artists trying to land their first job in the Industry, do you have any key presentation tips to make a portfolio shine and stand out?
Learning more and create personal work is the key to succeed after school. You don’t need to show everything you have done in your portfolio but only the best!
If you have something really well done and sexy, put it on your Artstation, if you have something not so beautiful but still interesting in terms of production pipeline or team works made at school, keep it for your interviews only. You will have plenty of time to do better work In which you will be prouder than your first ever made scene or substance. People forget sometimes than quantity is not better than quality.
Q: How should we apply for an Environment artist position? Do we strictly require an environment or would just assets work?
When you are looking to get your first job, don’t hesitate to apply to all kind of environment positions available even if you have not the experience required in the description, you will not lose anything to try and it can work! It was my case.
There are different areas in the environment production so Content artists will always be as necessary as Level artists. You could create your scenes only with already existing props or create props without an environment if you enjoy that more. It really depends on what you like to create so don’t force yourself to do something you don’t enjoy just to get a job because you will not be happy afterwards. Motivation is important, you need it before but also after getting the job to stay at 100%.
Outro
I hope this Q&A was interesting and will be useful for everyone who wants to start their 3D adventure. The video game industry is really awesome in terms of work that you can create with a lot of passionate people.
Take your time to learn more and improve yours skills, grow as an artist but also as a person. The right opportunity will come sooner than you think, at least, that's all I wish for you!