Cole Gray

What is your name and title?
My name is Cole Gray and I’m the Art Director at IllFonic.

Are there any games you played while growing up that have inspired you as an artist?
I got a Sega Genesis for Christmas and it came with Atomic Robo Kid. It was a shoot-em-up side-scroller thing with mechs, robots, and these incredible boss fights. That would really start a lifelong love of all things ‘robot’.

The other game that really hit differently would be Half-Life 2. I'm probably not alone in saying that that's one of my all-time favorite games. The narrative design, the art design, and all the groundbreaking things that it did. That was really an incredible experience. The art specifically stands out. The artist of a lot of the architecture and mechanical props is this guy Viktor Antonov. He would go on to work on Dishonored, so in a way I considered Dishonored the unofficial Half-Life 3. His work was an immense inspiration in my artistic growth.

As a young artist, how did you start to apply your art into video games?
I went to an arts High School where I participated in a video cinema arts program. There, I was exposed to these really primitive 3D programs– Bryce, Poser, but the main one was called Infini-D, I began realizing that the stuff that I was learning was video game adjacent.

At the time, there were these video game mod projects that were starting to pop up all over the internet. People were forming these groups and modifying existing video games, changing out the art, the sounds and in some cases creating all new games using these existing games as the backbone. I started working on a specific mod project called Neo Tokyo. I made a few art assets for it and made a few textures for some of the characters.

Seeing stuff that I made in real time application was incredible and would be the genesis of a lot of my momentum.

IllFonic’s game catalog has worked on some of the most legendary names in 80’s movies. As a Millennial and an Art Director, what is it like working on these IP’s?
I guess I'll say it's been humbling. It's also been just incredibly educational in a really interesting way.

I think a lot of us take these IP’s for granted. For example, everyone knows about Ghostbusters, but when you start working on different IPs like these, you really start to research the crap out of them. You learn about how they came to be and the trials and tribulations that went into them. All the talent, the environmental factors, the lucky breaks, and how all these things lined up so they became what we all know and love today. So I say this all the time- I feel like we're standing on the shoulders of these giants.

I think we at lllFonic, as a studio, have been learning how to create great games based on these amazing IPs and I look forward to seeing how we leverage those learnings in future projects.

In the ever-evolving world of game development, how do you keep up with the latest art and design trends?
I'm surrounded by incredible artists, designers, and technical wizards; so many amazing people work at IllFonic. I think that being around them every single day is what keeps me up to speed. Game art and technology development is constantly evolving and I think that I would be completely overwhelmed by it if it wasn't for the people at IllFonic. That's how I keep up. I can't stop the tech waves, but I can learn how to surf the waves. I guess I've just learned to find some good surfing buddies.

How do you collaborate with folks in design, engineering, and other relevant departments to make sure the game mechanics line up with the overall style?
Tons of communication. I think you just need to be talking constantly and you need to be checking in with people and making sure that whatever you're making is really achieving a core goal at the end of the day, that the game should be fun. I think a lot of communication circles around the idea that we're just trying to create the best possible end-user experience.

As the Art Director, I think it might sound like I make a ton of art, but really I don't. I work with a whole bunch of artists and I lean on their skills and expertise. So what will typically happen is we’ll identify a style goal, and then we'll reach out to concept artists that either have that style innately or are such style chameleons then can easily achieve the results were after. We then enter an exploratory phase where we create pilot works that will become the driving force for the entire team to run with during the course of the project.

Looking back at your career in the art side of game development, what is something that stands out as a piece you are particularly proud of that made it into a game?
Like I said, I'm an Art Director, so I don't make much art these days. A lot of the pieces are from my past– Back when I was working on Prey 2 at Human Head, I had created a bunch of environmental assets, a handful of props, (one being this cool alien train car!). A bunch of those assets got sent off to a studio called Blur to make a pre-rendered cinematic that was meant to drum up buzz for the project. It was really awesome to see a bunch of my assets in this super high-caliber cinematic, so that was a lot of fun.

At IllFonic, I think it was surprisingly fun and gratifying to work on the UI for Friday the 13th. And then, most recently, on Ghostbusters I worked on the concept model for the containment unit, so that was really cool because that helped us establish the look and feel for tech inventions for the project.

For any budding artists looking to join the gaming scene, what advice would you give on building a career and keeping that creative fire burning?
The creative fire thing is always a pressure point for artists. Staying inspired is just a never ending pursuit. It's important to note you can't always have that creative fire raging and to allow yourself some downtime to recharge your batteries. Past that, my solution is to keep a handful of hobbies going at once. If I start to get bored of one, I'll jump over to another one, and once I have tired that one out, I'll jump back or I'll jump to a new one. I just try to keep fresh in that regard.

As far as advice for new people trying to get into the industry, I think it's all about being in the right place at the right time. But with that, you have to constantly put yourself in as many places as possible until you've achieved your goal. With that comes having a really good resume or portfolio that shows your skill set. If you're an artist, you need to show amazing art. And if you're technically sound, you need to show how and why you're technically sound. 

When I was growing up, the internet wasn't quite what it was today. Now you can just jump online and find anything and everything you could possibly want, good and bad. But I would just say never stop taking advantage of that and leverage the shit out of it.