MEETTHEPASSIONATETEAMWHOHELPBRINGIDEASTOLIFE
FORFILMS,VIDEOGAMESANDINTERACTIVEMEDIA,WORKINGFORSOMEOFTHEWORLD’SMOSTNOTABLECLIENTS
ATOMHAWK
EYE ON DESIGN STUDIO INTERVIEW
C
reating striking, high-end visuals for huge
blockbuster films, such as Marvel’s Guardians
of the Galaxy, and best-selling videogames,
like Mortal Kombat X, it’s hard to believe that
Atomhawk studio is just six years young.
It was founded by Ron Ashtiani (creative director and
CEO) with his best creative team from Midway Games
studio, which closed in the tough economic times of
2009: “We set off on our journey into the creative
services sector, armed with just our talent, experience
and creative vision.” Since then, the team has worked
on eight number-one charting videogames, three
blockbuster films and won five awards. The team itself
has grown from just four to twenty, and it aims to
become “the world’s leading design agency for games,
film and digital media”.
The studio is based in Gateshead in the north east of
the UK. Being a relatively small team means that there
is a strong bond. “We all know each other really well;
whether we’re hanging out in the games room or
having lunch together in the kitchen, we’re like a big
family,” says Dan Gilmore, lead interactive designer.
“Atomhawk is a company totally committed to quality
and design flair, so it’s quite demanding, but there’s a
great community of talented artists and designers here
that all spur each other on to do bigger and better
things each day.”
As well as the dedicated team, Atomhawk makes
the most of the latest technology and software to
achieve its visions. The studio’s high-end visuals rely
heavily on the power of Photoshop, especially for
creating concept art for videogames and films, explains
head of operations, Tim Wilson. “This could be anything
from a set of stylised character concepts through to the
design of photorealistic objects and environments.
Photoshop is the key tool that we use to create these
designs. It allows us to iterate quickly on projects at
early stages, producing sketches for initial approval,
then polish the imagery through to an awesome final
standard. Since we work on such a variety of projects,
Photoshop is essential because of how well it
integrates with the rest of the Adobe suite. The UI/UX
team often work in Illustrator and After Effects;
incorporating work from the concept art team that was
done in Photoshop is really straightforward.”
Photoshop is the key tool of the trade for the team,
but it does utilise other packages, including 3D
software such as Modo, Autodesk Maya, Z-Brush and
Keyshot, which are helpful when creating base
character models and block-outs for environments. In
terms of hardware, some of the team have found thatPhotoshop is the key tool that we use to create these
designs. It allows us to iterate quickly on projects at
early stages, producing sketches for initial approval, thenpolish the imagery through to an awesome final standard