BA2 - (CS) Who is Kekai Kotaki?

One of the most famous concept artists is Kekai Kotaki, who was born in Hawaii and rose to fame after the release of the online MMORPG, Guild Wars 2; to which he designed all the concept art for. “MMORPG” stands for ‘Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplay Game’.

He is considered a huge inspiration to many aspiring concept artists as his work truly defined the whole look of the game and made it recognizable. He quotes that, “You should always be curious about the world and about the information out there. As a concept artist you are asked to think and be creative on the fly and having an internal library of thoughts and ideas to mix together is a great thing to have. For me, inspiration comes from anything that looks interesting to me or makes me feel something. Because what I want is to have that tucked into my brain so that I can remember and recreate it when I am working on a piece.”

When it comes to concept art that looks very detailed and complex like Kotaki’s, there are usually a few different ways of how an artist creates it. Either from a sketch made by traditional media and scanned into a computer, a sketch entirely drawn in digital media, or starting with drawing blocks of shapes in either colour or black and white. Kekai has stated in interviews that he always starts pieces in black and white, and adds the colour in later. This is common for a lot of concept artists because it’s a good way for the tonal base to be created, and the colouring to be focused on after.

Kotaki has become quite a master in his concept art skill, however it took him over 10 years to get to where he is today as ‘Lead Concept Artist’ on the Guild Wars 2 game. As the lead, it’s not only his job to make sure the artistic direction of a game is visually appealing and dynamic; but also to make sure his team are doing their job to create concepts. Leading a mix of artists, Kekai describes this as being “a balancing act. On one hand you want your artists to be happy with what they are working on, but on the other hand it is a job and you do not want someone burning out on you. I try to locate where an artist’s talent lies and then try to funnel that type of work to them. I also make sure that the work is varied enough so that nobody gets bored and uncreative. Keeping them on their artistic toes is how some would put it.” As well as, “Allowing an artist room to breathe and time to explore a concept is very important here at ArenaNet. However, at the end of the day, this is a job. I trust the artists to be responsible with their time”. My favourite thing about Kekai Kotaki’s work is his brush strokes; they have a very traditional painting feel to them which I really like. Personally I prefer art like this compared with the hyper realistic designs from other concept artists. In particular I love his character designs, especially because of the amount of detail that he places into each one. Whether it’s a monster, creature or human, you can always see additional markings, small accessories and articles of clothing that seem invisible unless you look at them closely. Kekai Kotaki is one of my biggest inspirations and I’ll always aspire to creating the amount of detail and somewhat hidden features that he does, but in my own work.

Interview Quotes from:

http://cgcookie.com/concept/2013/03/14/interview-kekai-kotaki/

Interview Quotes/Factual Information about him:

http://www.3dtotal.com/pages/interviews/kekai_kotaki/kekai_kotaki_01.php

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