-Hello Jan, thanks for taking time away to chat with us. Can you briefly give us a little insight into your background as an artist, and how it all started for you?

Well, as far back as I can remember I have been drawing and it has always been apparent that I should spent my life doing something creative. Off cause it was only later that I found some direction to where I could take this, which led me to the Game industry.

I Graduated as a Production Designer at the Danish Design School, January 2007, and was hired right after by a Game Company called Deadline Games. I spent about two years here, working on a number of game titles, such as Faith and a 45 and newly released Watchmen the end is nigh. I really loved my time at Deadline Games because it was my real education as I like to call it.  Now I’ve just started at another game company called Io Interactive, where I am working on a much bigger title which I unfortunately can’t talk about yet.

-Where do all your ideas and inspirations come from? And why do you love creating them?

I am very structured when I work. One part of me is working from the heart while the other is working with the head. It’s difficult to say from which of these areas I get my inspiration from because it varies from design case to design.  I have one rule when it comes to inspiration and that is:

“The only rule is that there are no rules”. As to why I love creating my ideas I have to say that it’s one big fantasy journey for me. When I am painting I can travel everywhere I want to, realism or fiction it doesn’t matter – only the imagination sets the boundaries.

-What areas of your work do you enjoy the most?

I would have to say environment paintings. Now don’t get me wrong – I also really like painting characters, and trust me after doing so many environment paintings that I do, it’s a thrill to work on character designs some times.

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-What has been your greatest artistic achievement in your life so far?

That would have to be the work I did on the Watchmen game. It was a very big challenge and we had to be very clever in our designs for this game to come out looking good in time and I really think we did it. The people who worked on this game knows how crazy it has been, and that we got nominated  as best artistic achievement just shows that it wasn’t all bad.

-What software programs do you use for your CG and why?

My primary tool is Photoshop, but I also use Painter, Artrage2, SketchUP6, 3dsMax and Zbrush.  The reason I use Photoshop the most is simply that it is the best.  I manly use SketchUp and 3dsMax for mock up pourpeses to give some basic shapes and texture to an image before I start painting myself.

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-As we can see from your blog you are very well educated, there’s a well known debate in the design community regarding the role of education in a designer’s work versus no design education and loads of design experience. What do you think about this ?

I have worked with some really good self taught artists before, but I still have to say that you , as an artist, only benefits from having a proper design education to fall back on. One needs to understand design theory and that is difficult to learn on your own. Another aspect is the community you grow to a part of by attending a course or a school , which in the long run might get you a job faster.

The Internet, though, has in the meantime changed all of this. We have seen a lot of growth in the online education communities in the past few years and today you can almost give yourself any design education if you want to through online tutorials, which is absolutely fantastic.

-You currently work at Deadline Games please tell us something about the studio and the project you are currently working on?

Well, I just switched from Deadline Games to Io interactive which is a much bigger company with a lot more employees. Io Interactive is known for game titles such as Freedom Fighters, Kane and Lynch, Hitman and Mini Ninjas. Unfortunately I am not really allowed to talk about what I am working on at the moment so that will have to wait for now.

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Of all of your artwork, which piece is your personal favorite and why?

Oh! That’s difficult to say.  But I really liked one of the images I did for Watchmen the end is nigh which I believe is released on Team Xbox. It shows Rorschach writing in his journal in a dark New York back alley. It was the first image where I captured the mood and style that was going to become the style of the game.

Game Arena and Steam City are two of my favorite images, can you tell us little more about on how you went to create this images?

Game Arena was as the name says. I wanted to create an arena where one could see some game play ideas.  I first build a rough 3d model in SketchUP and then painted on top of this in Photoshop.  It was actually on this image I started making my own 2d textures which I then transformed into the right perspective, which is a method I have used ever since.

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Steam City was a little different given that this image was made entirely in Photoshop. I have always been fascinated with Steam punk, and the idea for this image was to create a metropolitan city where everything was powered by steam energy. I wanted to capture life in this world, and maybe the final result became a little too cramped and busy. Given that I had to design so many things in this image I decided to stay loose with the subject and not use references or 3D software to help me out. It took me a couple of days and actually I wasn’t really pleased with the end result to begin with, but over time I have started to appreciate it much more.

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Do you have a good piece of advice for anyone wanting to start a carrier in the graphic industry?

Yes, if you decide to take this path make sure that you put in the work you need, to become good at what you do.  Throw away your ego – it will only prevent you from learning, and remember that the only rule is that there are no rules.

Besides design, what do you like to do in your spare time?

Music. A friend and I started an electronica band some years ago now and whenever I get time I’m working on that. But that isn’t something you will be hearing on the net or anywhere else…for now.

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And for the last question How would you like to see your career evolve in the next 5 years?

Doing what I do right now. That is how I hope it will evolve. I love my job. I will never stop painting and hopefully I will be doing this for the rest of my life. Maybe I’d also like to spend some more time with my beautiful girlfriend…

We like to thank JAN for this great interview for more information visit JAN’s blog:

http://www.janditlev.blogspot.com/