At the age of 15, Leavon was creating amateur comics for a small business before taking an interest in fantasy art which he achieved through airbrushing and pen and ink.
He came to Chesterfield College to do Fine Art, but found he wasn’t well suited for it as he much preferred graphics. At the age of 17 he was creating games! Unfortunately, because of the time period he began in, he didn’t have many colour options to work with and only created 2D games, so he had to brush up his skills on palletisation, which is where you take the colours you are given (in this case, sixteen) and try and make as many as you can. E.g. in different tones or shades of the same colour.
He found he was inspired by Disney and would create many different demos for games with different story lines and main characters to try and get a producer interested, but he admits that 9/10 of your designs get “canned”.
He started with very basic characters (again because of the time period), starting with polygons and working materials onto them to make them look more realistic. But when Photoshop came out, he found that he very much enjoyed working with 3D characters and so moved from the job he was at so he could join Sony and start the mission with Playstation. Everything was hand drawn and then edited on the computer.
Some of the work that Leavon showed us was absolutely amazing! He has worked with the makers of Pirates of the Caribbean and made the Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom characters. He says that the actors always wanted a say in how they looked and Orlando Bloom wanted to be more bulky than he was in the film.
He says that working in life drawing was probably the most beneficial thing he had done at college and still attends classes now. He uses the human body structure to inspire him when he creates bizarre creatures.
He created one character from a book series but he only had the man himself as he looks now he’s in his 60s and one blurry photo of him back in the day. It was amazing. I noticed as he was speaking that he very much enjoys working with new projects and experimenting, which is why he was thrilled at the chance to make a horse statue. He also says that there are many variables to do with how successful a game is other than just how well the team works… The contract could be running out and therefore time is cut shorter.
He has different ways of inputting his designs onto the computer, one way is to draw straight onto the computer via the drawing tablet and then bulk it out and make it look nicer, or he’ll sketch out in pencil on paper and take a picture on his phone to upload onto the computer and then he would edit it to make it look more professional.
One of his projects was for a game that needed an angel on every level; each one would be of a different element. The one that he showed us on his slideshow was one of a water angel, he told us how the colours had been taken from the striking markings of a colourful tropical fish and how the fins were from an angelfish… The wings were designed from jellyfish tendrils and then mirrored and flipped to mimic the wings of a butterfly.
He told us also of how he often used a base mesh for his characters which enabled him to start the actual design straight away instead of starting from the beginning each time. Once he has made the initial design about how the character should look, he will have to assess each little detail about the character to see if it is believable and functional in real life. He had to redesign the shoulder pads of some of the soldiers and redesign the weapon because it was too bulky and wouldn’t have made sense. Because of all this redesigning, Leavon suggested that you don’t become too precious about how you get to the final stage of your design and instead you should just concentrate on how it looks.
He said that he worked with Hellboy and Hulk and, because he had all the old school comics by the artist that the producer was interested in, he could get to work very quickly. Having reference materials helps you get to work faster.
He says that, although he is working on other projects a lot of the time, he still has time for himself and the work he creates for his own amusement can help him when he does his job because of the practice. He says that work is never wasted and although you may not use the majority of an early design, you may still want to use a character’s shoes or gloves.
There are two ways that he uses to get his work on the go, one is that he will find a picture of someone in a similar pose and drop his design over them and edit it until he is happy, the second is that you can get a thick black pen and sketch out an outline or a silhouette and then define it until it looks like the character you had in mind.
When asked a question about his previous work, he said that most of the games he has worked on have been a positive experience regardless of the final outcome. It all depends on who you work with…
He then said, “If any one fancies rock and roll parties, head to Sony.”
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