Cris Lonergan-White – Art Portfolio.

Biography

Edit: 2024

Since the last update we also went and did the Hotshot racing work and no doubt assorted other bits and bobs. The major thing we released though during that time was obviously the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The first really meaty character art project we had at the studio since it was set up. There had been some stuff that had come along (not here on the site) but they were either help jobs for other studios or as projects in general hadn't worked out for one reason or another. This one did though.

It wasn't easy with an at times very demanding publisher but i think everyone was pleased with the result in the end. My job on that if you have read the TCM page or my resume wasn't really a hands on modelling one. Truth be told it hasn't been that for a long time. After the initial pipeline set ups and all that sort of thing there was a lot of production type work, talking to people, trying to sort out feedback either to concept or from the art director or publishers. Helping team members out if they got behind or stuck on something. A bit of modelling and texturing here and there. A did the hairstyles for a number of the characters and learned a lot doing that. I also did the facial blendshapes. But it was a very limited setup, a very far cry from what I had been involved with back in the day. Budget dear boy Budget.

Which moves us onto the dlc. Most notable thing to mention here is that around this time myself and a senior artist on the team Jon Berry had been having quite a few conversations about scanning. He is a great proponent of the workflow, having been a champion of it when he had been at the central sumo sheffield studio, it never really got off the ground though. I am a great one for lets make things easier for ourselves. So how could we make this happen? Initially we were just thinking if we could prove this would work then we could potentially start talking about proper professional scanning sessions. It didn't work out like that though. So we borrowed a camera and some lights and a concept artist then took some photos of her on a turntable in the office. Results weren't half bad. We needed more lights and because of the turntable moving our colleague was moving ever so slightly as she stood there, degrading the quality of the scan from what it could have been. The solution to that was after research had shown us there wasn't anything really appropriate on the market so suit our need was to build a mannequin using 3d printing and insulation foam. Jon is luckily very good with his hands at that sort of thing. So it was his job to do that and mine to get the money and persuade the higher ups that this was a good use of A. Cash for materials and equipment and B. His time. Luckily the sight of a concept artist spinning round on a turntable in the glass room next to the kitchen while two grumpy old bastards took pictures coupled with some print screens of the processed models was enough to allow to get my side of things done. Jon took a while longer but the result was that all the clothes for the characters for the dlc were scanned using this method, particularly successfully on the Hands model I think.

That was a big ramble.

This has turned into a blog. It is supposed to be a professional summary of things. Well anyway, Sumo have now after 20 odd years decided they have to make redundancies and I'm updating this just in case. Can't say I am best pleased about the situation but I have been here before. Everything on this site, its very existence is all due to the implosion of Lionhead in 2016 and I wouldn't trade this life for that. So silver linings? new opportunities? I dunno we shall find out; likely in a couple of weeks. Change is definitely coming, I guess its just a question of how much.

Salut.

Edit: 2019

I now have 21 years experience, have released Team Sonic Racing and my team and I at Sumo Nottingham have been involved in multiple other projects to one degree or another since the studio opened 3 years ago.

That would be the major difference between the role at Sumo and that at Lionhead, the multiple projects, here it is more all encompassing at the studio level. Multiple projects active at once ranging from large to tiny (in terms of our scope and or our involvement). Sometimes being very busy, sometimes not and making sure I am able to motivate the team through those extremes.

Working with outsourcing, and fulfilling that role ourselves for other Sumo studio's when we have capacity and they need some character art help. Trying to make sure the junior artists on the team are getting the right work coming to them to help them develop. Working with Technical Animators to develop new tech. Reverse engineering pre-existing asset pipelines, trying to understand how partner company X does things and why. Learning what motivates your team members and what interests them, trying to do your best to put square pegs in square holes and what to do when you can't. Learning when to delegate and when not. Some people crave responsibility some just want to make models.

Its all go.

2016

I am a very driven and professional individual with 18 years of games industry experience, primarily as a Character Artist, with ten years as lead on four AAA projects.

I have extensive experience of managing a team of artists and linking the character art discipline to the other teams on the game. I think in terms of systems and the bigger picture, rather than individual solutions for individual assets. I work closely with others in order to make the pipelines we use as smooth as possible.

During the Milo & Kate project at Lionhead, I worked very closely with the Animation Director to develop the facial animation system we used on that game. Driven by morph targets and based on the Facial Action Coding System, the work we did was carried over into Fable: The Journey and Fable: Legends. Mesh resolutions and complexity were adapted to the needs of each subsequent project .

I have been responsible for doing the main character(s) on a number of games, understanding and dealing with the pressures that can bring. On Fable: Legends, I focused more on the behind-the-scenes aspects of the character pipeline but would like to include more modelling as standard as I move forward into the future, whether as a lead or senior artist.

I am an avid, almost obsessive gamer. I do art in games because I LOVE games. I gravitate mostly towards third person games: action. RPGs or MMOs, and historical strategy games. If you are making one of those and like what you see here: you know what to do.