A Day in the Life of a KingsIsle Artist
Today Art Lead Melissa Preston gives us a walk-through of what it’s like to walk in her shoes! See some of the amazing work she does with Pirate101 to give you the characters and environments you know and love in the game.
Every morning after I get myself organized for the day, I begin to review the art work that was completed or in progress from the day before. This is my favorite part of the day because this is the time when I really get to focus on just looking at the art and thinking about how each piece fits into the larger puzzle. Does it fit within the design and tone? Is the work consistent with the established style? All of the pieces have to work together to tell a story and they need to be believable in the same world. There are a lot of considerations that have to be made along the way, and I need to be prepared to give productive feedback to each artist on the team on a daily basis including concept artists, character and environments artists, UI artists, and FX artists.
The final concept shown above came after a few iterations with sketches and rough ideas. We wanted the tigers to be strong but they still needed to look agile. We ended up going with a sleeker silhouette that captured the strength and agility of the tiger race much better than the earlier versions
My day to day also includes reviewing story and design material and determining what art will be needed to support the game. This is where I begin to generate art tasks. I take all written descriptions, concept art, consider potential challenges the artist may face with the task, and provide estimates for task completion.
The two sky images above are color studies one of our concept artists made for the Marleybone Skyway in Pirate101. I wanted something that evoked a bit of the familiarity with the time of day from Wizard101 but add a touch of rising sun in the distance to subvert that just slightly. The first image had more of a bright moonlit look and a touch of green in the upper clouds which felt like a storm was brewing. I wanted to achieve a mood that evoked a dark foggy alley way lit by gas lamps at night.
I generally have a wider view of the happenings inside and outside of the art department, so I try to make sure the artist working on a particular task is aware of anything that may affect or influence what they may be working on.
The writers needed the artist to add a suitable place to teleport the player to a location within this zone. It didn’t seem like there was an ideal existing location that was out of the way of player traffic. We decided to add a bridge extension to a spot over the water which seemed to suit everyone’s needs.
The remainder of my day generally consists of a mixture of interactions with various people in different departments. One day may include discussing the next world we may be creating with the writers and designers. Another may be filled with discussing technical issues with a new system and working out how any changes may affect the artists’ pipeline and processes.
I feel like much of my job involves gathering the appropriate materials, providing my own influence and then getting out of the way so the artists have the freedom to add their own creativity into the work.
Of course many challenges and unforeseen issues crop up during the day, so in addition to my normal routine, I have to be flexible enough to jump on anything that may need immediate attention.
Each day I balance making sure the job is done well and on time while providing a work environment that allows the artists the freedom to visualize the story in an exciting way.
This concept was painted for a zone in Aquila. I did not have a lot of changes that I wanted to see after this was completed. I gave the artist some notes up front on the structure seen in the foreground. Other than that he had the freedom to make a cool piece of art!
Melissa Preston
Art Lead
KingsIsle Blog 
Looks amazing. 🙂
AMAZING ART! Wizard101 is my favorite game. I wish they’d level up to 101, because, you, Wizard, 101. I would love to be an artist for Kingsisle!
I’m a ok drawer but man she has me beat
I would love to see an article about how the schools were originally chosen, and how you decide what spells each school will get next(along with some of the artists submissions for spells).
oh wow she is so amazing
wow. that’s some good art!
soooooooooooooooo cool right dude
good
i love this game so much its so fun i wish i can live in wizard101 or like make a thing that you put glasses on and you can see your self in wizard101
You should post more pictures like those in the downloads section. I for one, would download them for desktop backgrounds XD Breathtaking, beautiful, and detailed. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for all of the kind responses. We have a great team of artists here and the game really shows it. Just to clarify, those wonderful drawings were all created by our awesome concept team. I used those as examples of some of the awesome work I review on a daily basis but the credit for the creation of the pieces all belongs to them. They are a talented bunch.
This art is awesome.It’s good to see something awesome on my birthday.Keep up the good work!
Keep it up we love your amazing art work! ❤
THIS…IS…INCREDIBLE!!!
this is AWESOME
p101 friendly henri windlass
w101 Stephen iceblossom
I was wondering, when is all of the test realm updates (Aquila, etc) coming to the live realm? Also, AWESOME drawing skills!!
i am amazed at your wonderful arts! i am starting to get better but i still need a little help on improving my drawings
This Is Great!!
But in a Wizard101 update id like these graphics to be put in 😉
WOW
I love your art! What kind of college did you go to?
I love it! Amazing work, I love to draw in every moment of my free time, these are beautifully done. Please make more installs, I would love to see how characters are created and planned out. All of the artwork is truly inspiring! 🙂
thats awesome
As a fellow artist, I love the details you put into your work. I think the games wouldn’t be the same without your quality artwork. Simply beautiful!
I want to be a graphics designer for Wizard101 when i grow up 😀 It seems amazing you can make the worlds millions of people walk through.
Love this article about your average day. I can only imagine how many hours you must put in to get things completed.
the sketch before the coloring of the tiger showed the sheer power and presents of the tiger race the sleeking in the color just shows thin slender that only way i can tell what that cat is, is by the stripes, come on tigers are the kings of the big cats larger than lions strong, powerful, graceful, even regal, but a tiger is not sleek that belongs to smaller and lesser of the big cats. i sketch paint and draw too, i am not just being a hold out critic tigers do happen to be one of my common subjects tigers are what they are the “Lords” of the big cats. i repeat and say only once more the color looks thin slender weak, i am sorry but i have to be honest now if it had spots instead of stripes it would be perfect for an underling cat. thank you for your time
THAT’S AMAZING
cool
WOW Nice work! I wish I can become like you someday, but I’ll keep trying 🙂
you should make a new game called Ninjas 101
Wow! This is amazing! I have a couple of questions to ask you. I’ve been drawing with my tablet for over 3 years now, and I’m interested in having a job with Graphic Arts in my future. I’m 14 and just entering highschool the next coming month, and I’m so in love with this type of thing. I was wondering what degree should I try for and what college would have that? What all did you go for in college and highschool? If it’s not too personal, what college did you go to to do things like this? I’m going to enter in just about every Art class in the coming years of HS, and I hope I can reach my dream of working with gaming arts. I hope you can reply, I’m really interested in this in my future. Thanks!
I am a young artist that wants to go into design and these are the types of pictures that inspire me
As a parent of “tween-agers,” I’ve always appreciated the appropriate depiction of female body images in Wiz and Pirate. However, there recently seems to be a departure from this, and a move to “sexier” depictions with more pronounced breasts, etc. The illustration on today’s sign in screen is a perfect example of this departure. Please return to the former style – it is one of the reasons these games have a parental approval!
Wow amazing!!!! 😀
Oh my gosh! That is truly amazing work! Do you have a wizard?
Thank you for sharing your experience as an artist! I love to draw things and really enjoy examining works of art made by other talented individuals. I can’t wait to see the new settings and characters that come to life in the game, thanks to the concept art.
This is really good… Maybe i can help sometime.
dang talk about a very very very very very very good artist
Wow your amazing!!! Good job! INCREDIBLE!!! Keep it up! 🙂
Oh wow. Thank you for everything you do to make the art and gameplay. I, and my fellow wizards really appreciate your work. Thank you for everything you do in Kingsisle.
That’s So Cool love seeing images and things from you guys keep up the good work. 🙂
THAT is what I call pure awesomeness!!!
=D
thats so interesting I can create art like that too… I have tried to draw characters on this before and they are pretty good hope to be even better some day!
Omg Your Incredible at this O: Keep it up I can’t wait for the new world and graphics ;D
wow thats so good. i enjoy doing manga and painting, but i dont think i can make art like that!
Awesome art! Keep doing what ya do and keep up the good work
Your way of thinking is brilliant! Throughout each release of the new worlds since Dragonspyre, I’ve taken notice to the way you design each and every NPC and enemy to fit together with the whole concept of the world. I absolutely admire how you can come up with such brilliant artwork.
I wish I could draw as good as anyone who created these game . . . . .
I LOVE YOU ❤ that is all (: ❤
This is Amazing. Your work is fantastic. Thank you for sharing this. I aspire to be a conceptual artist myself professionally. I recently finished my BA and applied to every gaming company trying to find where I fit. Someone to give a rookie like me a start. Yes I’ve even applied to KingIsle too. Anyway articles like this are a great read and it is good to get an view on the inside of a gaming company doing conceptual design. Thanks again.
you are a great artist
Very nice keep up the good work. i love wizard101 because of the graphics and colors and its awesome