Team Member Spotlight, Art Director Oksana
This week is all about Oksana, the amazing creative mastermind behind Zy Universe. Oksana joined the Zy Universe team back in June of 2017, only five months into the project. She came on as a concept artist, but within a few short weeks, she was established as the Art Director. Check out our Q&A with Oksana below!
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First, tell us a little more about you. What's your background?
My parents are both Ukrainian, as are my grandparents. But they are from different regions of my country, which gave me the opportunity to spend every summer in the mountain area. My parents, my grandpa, older brother, uncle, aunt, cousins – they are all architects; all artists in some way. From early on, my father decided to give my brother and me the understanding that "reading books is cool'', and he was right. I instantly fell in love with reading. At the time, I preferred fantasy, sci-fi and horror books. Also from my parents, I got my love of rock music. From my youngest years I listened to AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, etc. But my true love from back in the day, and still for today… is Metallica!
How did you get started in art, specifically video game art?
As I mentioned, I was raised in an architect’s family. My father and brother studied at a children’s art school, and I remember even from when I was three years old, I dreamed of studying there too. When I got old enough to enter to the school (10 years), I passed the entry exams, and for the next six years after my normal school lessons, I would run to the art school three times per week. Each visit was four or five lessons. I didn't hesitate where I wanted to study after high school graduation. It was kind of obvious for me - Academy of Arts. The problem was that we only had three academies in the Ukraine, and I wanted to study only at the best one of them, which was was extremely hard to get into. Usually, people only would go there after college, not after high school. After tons of exams, nerves and disappointment in humanity, I passed. But, over the next 6.5 years I realized that it wasn’t the right fit. In my country, we didn't have universities or academies where I could learn concept art, character design, and digital illustration, so I had to study those things by myself. On the third year, I got an illustration job, and with my first salary I bought a Wacom Intuos tablet. With that, I started to learn from the beginning, since digital art is not the same as traditional. I met good friends, and somehow we turned into a team. My Master's Degree diploma wasn't really from graphic design. It was a game project in which I made all the graphics from start to finish. And as a part of my theoretical diploma, I took a small interview from Andrew Baker (awesome person and digital artist, who at the time worked on the Hobbit movie). He soooo inspired me with his guidance that I started to work harder and more productive as a digital artist.
How did you find Zy Universe and why did you join the project?
Chris and Andy purchased assets from the Unity Asset Store that I created. They contacted me through there. They showed me what they had in the project up to that point, and explained the general game idea. I was interested in it because I had been searching for a while for the opportunity to work on something sci-fi themed.
What are your hopes for Zy Universe? Give me a the range of your wildest dreams, down to your more modest expectations.
The wildest dream...Zy Universe will become a mega popular game. Our team will grow to a big worldwide company. We'll continue with Zy Universe, and create its own universe kind of like Star Wars. Later, we will see movies based on Zy Universe, and books. The modest expectation...we finished this game, and it becomes popular enough to cover the financial needs of the Zy Universe RPG project that we started out as.
Tell me a little bit about your work flow. What inspires your ideas, how do you conceptualize them, and ultimately, how do you get them in to the game?
Nature and its observations are the best inspiration for me. When I get stuck on new ideas, I go outside and look around. It's easy to find inspiration from a tip on the clouds, or textures of wood and rocks. Also, when I'm traveling somewhere, I always take a lot of photos of small details and elements that people usually don't notice. It can be things like interesting lighting, architectural elements or wall textures. Later I use these things in my works. The next thing that gives me inspiration is books, movies and art of other artists.
What is inspiring the look for Zy Universe that you've come up with?
It's mix of our long journey. From the beginning, games like Ori and the Blind Forest were inspiring, but after so many changes and corrections, I believe we are starting to evolve in to our own style.
What has been the best part of working on this project, and what has been the biggest challenge?
The best part is that I got a lot of new experiences, and met nice and very talented people to work with. Also, that I have learned a lot of new things. The biggest challenge was not to panic when we decided to change game directions.
What do you like to do in your free time when you're not working on the project?
Aikido! It's been my passion for the last four years.
If Zy Universe is wildly successful, what will you do?
Organize a big party where all of the Zy Universe team members can meet each other in real life. Then I'll travel to some far countries, see a Metallica concert, and then start to work on the next Zy Universe game.
First, tell us a little more about you. What's your background?
My parents are both Ukrainian, as are my grandparents. But they are from different regions of my country, which gave me the opportunity to spend every summer in the mountain area. My parents, my grandpa, older brother, uncle, aunt, cousins – they are all architects; all artists in some way. From early on, my father decided to give my brother and me the understanding that "reading books is cool'', and he was right. I instantly fell in love with reading. At the time, I preferred fantasy, sci-fi and horror books. Also from my parents, I got my love of rock music. From my youngest years I listened to AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, etc. But my true love from back in the day, and still for today… is Metallica!
How did you get started in art, specifically video game art?
As I mentioned, I was raised in an architect’s family. My father and brother studied at a children’s art school, and I remember even from when I was three years old, I dreamed of studying there too. When I got old enough to enter to the school (10 years), I passed the entry exams, and for the next six years after my normal school lessons, I would run to the art school three times per week. Each visit was four or five lessons. I didn't hesitate where I wanted to study after high school graduation. It was kind of obvious for me - Academy of Arts. The problem was that we only had three academies in the Ukraine, and I wanted to study only at the best one of them, which was was extremely hard to get into. Usually, people only would go there after college, not after high school. After tons of exams, nerves and disappointment in humanity, I passed. But, over the next 6.5 years I realized that it wasn’t the right fit. In my country, we didn't have universities or academies where I could learn concept art, character design, and digital illustration, so I had to study those things by myself. On the third year, I got an illustration job, and with my first salary I bought a Wacom Intuos tablet. With that, I started to learn from the beginning, since digital art is not the same as traditional. I met good friends, and somehow we turned into a team. My Master's Degree diploma wasn't really from graphic design. It was a game project in which I made all the graphics from start to finish. And as a part of my theoretical diploma, I took a small interview from Andrew Baker (awesome person and digital artist, who at the time worked on the Hobbit movie). He soooo inspired me with his guidance that I started to work harder and more productive as a digital artist.
How did you find Zy Universe and why did you join the project?
Chris and Andy purchased assets from the Unity Asset Store that I created. They contacted me through there. They showed me what they had in the project up to that point, and explained the general game idea. I was interested in it because I had been searching for a while for the opportunity to work on something sci-fi themed.
What are your hopes for Zy Universe? Give me a the range of your wildest dreams, down to your more modest expectations.
The wildest dream...Zy Universe will become a mega popular game. Our team will grow to a big worldwide company. We'll continue with Zy Universe, and create its own universe kind of like Star Wars. Later, we will see movies based on Zy Universe, and books. The modest expectation...we finished this game, and it becomes popular enough to cover the financial needs of the Zy Universe RPG project that we started out as.
Tell me a little bit about your work flow. What inspires your ideas, how do you conceptualize them, and ultimately, how do you get them in to the game?
Nature and its observations are the best inspiration for me. When I get stuck on new ideas, I go outside and look around. It's easy to find inspiration from a tip on the clouds, or textures of wood and rocks. Also, when I'm traveling somewhere, I always take a lot of photos of small details and elements that people usually don't notice. It can be things like interesting lighting, architectural elements or wall textures. Later I use these things in my works. The next thing that gives me inspiration is books, movies and art of other artists.
What is inspiring the look for Zy Universe that you've come up with?
It's mix of our long journey. From the beginning, games like Ori and the Blind Forest were inspiring, but after so many changes and corrections, I believe we are starting to evolve in to our own style.
What has been the best part of working on this project, and what has been the biggest challenge?
The best part is that I got a lot of new experiences, and met nice and very talented people to work with. Also, that I have learned a lot of new things. The biggest challenge was not to panic when we decided to change game directions.
What do you like to do in your free time when you're not working on the project?
Aikido! It's been my passion for the last four years.
If Zy Universe is wildly successful, what will you do?
Organize a big party where all of the Zy Universe team members can meet each other in real life. Then I'll travel to some far countries, see a Metallica concert, and then start to work on the next Zy Universe game.
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