Florian Coudray About Working on His Favourite Childhood Game

This was actually one of my favourite games on PlayStation. I grew up with the series as a kid!

I grew up with a SNES and a PlayStation. My father is really into video games, and he was really fond of playing with me when I was younger. We spent hours playing Warcraft II on PlayStation back then. It took a lot of time to find the game because it was actually a pretty rare find on consoles. I vividly remember how overjoyed I was when he came home with it one day. Warcraft left a mark on my family, and my parents know the lines of all the different units now. It’s a lot of fun!

Anyway, it’s mostly down to the art, sounds, and the general feel of the Warcraft universe that sparked this interest in games art for me.

I’m inspired by Hayao Miyazaki. Like many artists, I fell in love with Ghibli’s lush environments and beautiful music. I know it’s not very original, but I’m definitely a fan of this universe. As for more modern inspirations, I’m a big fan of Cory Loftis for his incredible shapes and versatility in visual language.

Working on Crash Bandicoot 4 was an incredible opportunity for me. This was actually one of my favourite games on PlayStation. I grew up with the series as a kid! When my former Art Director invited me and my friend, Didier Nguyen, to work on this game, we couldn’t believe it. Didier and I have been following each other on many projects, and now we had another one lined up.

I learned a lot from this production, thanks to the incredible team there. There was a ton of emphasis on shapes because when we designed the game, we wanted to have that old school Looney Tunes feel, but with a modern take on depth and lighting. We took inspiration from Uncharted to imagine what it would be like if Naughty Dog continued working on Crash Bandicoot. This was very fun to do, and there are a handful of fun Easter eggs for them to discover.

Colours are such an exciting topic, and I love to share different concepts and theories about them. I think you should start by understanding the seven contrasts of colours to get a good grasp of it all. Then practice a lot with it, start with simple contrasts that make sense right off the bat like complementaries. I always start with a base colour and expand on it very progressively until I find a pleasing harmony. At some point, I settle on saturation and keep adding accents to enrich the painting.

Even though colour is an important topic, I believe that values are where you should focus your attention, and colours will automatically follow. I’m quite messy as an artist. I love to paint traditionally, even when I use Photoshop. There’s usually only a few layers with real adjustments or layer styles. Oh, and please stay away from grayscale to colour tricks unless you want washed-out colours.

The Watermelon Market is one of my favourite personal pieces in my portfolio. This was done as a demo for my students during a workshop. The process is quite simple. I decided on a theme very early on (fruit-themed places). I did a blockout in Maya with simple shapes. A 3D blockout is a tremendous help if you want to quicken the process of construction, perspective, and proportions. I can experiment very briefly with camera angles and lighting.

In a couple of hours in Maya, I can get a pretty good base for my painting. Once I’m done with this part, I make a very simple render, no special passes (I’m not patient enough for that). I then paint directly on top of the screenshot. I focus my attention on the atmosphere and mood. Then I focus on a small part of the environment, and I try to resolve this area to get a good start on the overall piece. I let it rest, come back to it when I’m fresh and keep painting until there’s a finished result!

When I was offered the opportunity to work on Kena, it was summer, I was at my parents in the garden, and I wanted to provide some extra value in my concepts by working traditionally. This is not necessary or recommended. I just felt that the project deserved some extra care, and I wanted to experiment with a mix of digital painting and watercolours for it. The whole thing actually turned out much better than I expected. Genuinely a ton of fun to do!

Confidence. It’s so crucial! If I leave traditional media for a long time and then return to it, I’m not confident anymore. I begin to doubt myself, suddenly feeling unsure all of a sudden. It’s all because digital media gives us so many ways to make everything perfect. We’ve got piles upon piles of layers, easy adjustments, layer styles, etc. It provides a safety net that’s actually far too comfortable. If you struggle with painting quickly, or if you think you lack spontaneity and confidence in your work, go back to traditional media for a while. This will be very beneficial for your digital creations.

At the moment, I’m enjoying the opportunity to work for a legendary licence that I loved since I was a kid (see question 1), and I couldn’t be happier! I want to create more online courses, too. Sharing my knowledge has been an enormous step in my career, and I’ve benefited from it a lot, so I want to keep doing this as much as possible.