This AAA Artist Spent 4 Years Building His Dream Game | Pixel Peeps | Episode 27

What does it take to leave the world of AAA game development behind and build your own game? I sit down with veteran character artist Greg Strangis to talk about his ambitious new indie game, Black Tides: Draga’s Wake. Greg has spent years working on some of the biggest games in the industry, including Red Dead Redemption, GTA V, and Back 4 Blood, with experience at Rockstar Games, Naughty Dog, and Turtle Rock Studios. Now he’s putting that experience into creating his own game with a small, independent team working remotely across seven countries. We talk about how the project started, the challenges of building and funding an independent game, assembling a team, and what it takes to create something that looks like it came from a AAA studio. We also get a behind-the-scenes look at the character art, including the main character Draga and one of the game’s horrifying creatures. Greg walks us through his ZBrush sculpts, Substance Painter textures, character design iterations, topology, and how he approaches creating high-quality characters for Unreal Engine. BLACK TIDES: DRAGA’S WAKE 🎮 Game / Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/48... 🎬 Official Game Trailer:    • Draga's Wake Official Trailer   🎨 Greg Strangis — Portfolio: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Nr... LEARN CHARACTER ART ►My course: https://www.characterclass.com ►Mentorship: https://www.characterclass.com/mentor... Thanks for watching! _________________________________________ ► Join the Character Art Team:    / artofjhill   🤝 Become a member:    / artofjhill   🤝 Patreon:   / jhill   _________________________________________ ◆ Discord:   / discord   ◆ Newsletter: https://www.characterclass.com/newsle... ◆ My website: https://www.jhill.com ◆ ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/jhill ◆ Instagram:   / @artofjhill   ◆ TikTok:   / artofjhill   ◆ LinkedIn:   / artofjhill   ◆ Setup: https://kit.co/artofjhill/my-setup _________________________________________ 00:00 Intro & Meet Greg Strangis 01:50 Introducing Black Tides: Draga's Wake 03:12 Four Years of Building an Indie Game 05:17 How Small Teams Can Make AAA-Quality Games 08:25 The Origins of Black Tides 10:40 Designing Draga, the Main Character 11:36 Building a Team & Bringing the Game to Life 13:33 Pitching Publishers & Building a Vertical Slice 16:37 What Does It Take to Get a Game Funded? 21:37 Dreaming Big & Advice for Indie Developers 23:42 AI, Game Development & Creative Authenticity 27:47 Character Art Breakdown: Draga 30:20 Developing the Art Direction 33:49 ZBrush Sculpting & Character Details 35:07 Creating Characters Efficiently 38:15 Creature Art Breakdown 41:15 Texturing Creatures in Substance Painter 43:07 From ZBrush to Unreal Engine 45:56 Character Topology & Production Workflow 47:50 Polygon Counts, Hair & Optimization 49:50 The Beauty of Handcrafted Character Art 52:18 What's Next for Black Tides? 54:36 Supporting the Game & Final Thoughts