via DeviantArt
This article is part of INTERLINKED, a new series where we speak with industry masters who influence the making of games like CHAOTIC ERA. Sign up for our newsletter here or follow us on Twitter to dive deeper into the worlds of artists, game developers, and more.
Today we’re speaking with concept artist Alex Iglesias, most well known as the creator of the Battlemech for MechWarrior Online. He's worked for Catalyst Game Labs and Piranha Games, designing mechs, machines, and more. We spoke to Alex about life as an artist, his workflow, and some of his latest inspirations.
Enjoy!
1. Can you give us an idea of what a typical day looks like for you?
Well, starting a day off with drinking a lot of coffee and then mostly speaking to coworkers on slack/or via email, and painting in photoshop/collecting reference for a good chunk of the day. Then some back and forth sending of work in progress images. Sort of a boring guy in that respect.
2. How did you first get into mech / machine art?
2. How did you first get into mech / machine art?
I liked drawing machines from a very early age and just sort of continued on that trend and never quite stopped. The aesthetics and design of machinery are always fascinating to me. By the time I got into creating art professionally, it was my preferred specialty.
3. Is there an area of concept art that you find the most interesting? What gives you the most joy to create?
I really enjoy the initial and finishing stages of an art piece. The rough hashing out of an idea when everything is loose, and later on putting in stuff like wear, explosions, battle damage, and such. The middle can often be a drag.
4. Are you able to make time for personal pieces? If so, how do your personal work differ from your professional work?
Personal work is most often just fun black and white doodles for the purpose of illustrating some joke. It's often thick black lines and loose strokes, which is fairly different from my usual professional style of aiming for details and rendering.
via 5. Who or what inspires your work today?
Work is still heavily inspired by other mech artists both within battletech, and other series like Ma.K or gundam, real life military/industrial hardware, assorted animes, western designs like those in Robot Jox, District 9 or Robocop, and industrial designers like Hiroto Ikeuchi.
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