The Hobbit artist portfolio sets a shining example

Ben Mauro is one of these rare artists that are leading the new trend of game artists. Not only do his unique designs stand out from the pack, but also his approach to the job embraces a wide range of tools and techniques, and show us a glimpse of where the game art industry is heading to.

From sketching, to modelling, rendering and photo compositing, Ben embraces all the genres to achieve a vision. Now, more than ever, game artists have to be flexible and adapt to the needs of the production, and Ben’s portfolio shows us a brilliant example of the new set of skills needed by today’s artists.

Ben designs are always fresh, one of the reason's Blanche loves his work

Ben designs are always fresh, one of the reason's Blanche loves his work

By going back and forth from ZBrush sculpts to Photoshop paintovers, Ben can explore shapes with lot of freedom and in the same time stay strongly anchored in reality.

His works have a sense of practicality and are grounded designs, but yet they still always feel open to any other possible iterations that is something that could be hardly achieved in another way. I’m a big fan.

Words: Pascal Blanché

Pascal Blanché is one of the most popular digital artists working to day. He's currently an art director at video game giant Ubisoft. This article originally appeared in 3D World issue 181.

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The Creative Bloq team is made up of a group of design fans, and has changed and evolved since Creative Bloq began back in 2012. The current website team consists of seven full-time members of staff: Editor Georgia Coggan, Deputy Editor Rosie Hilder, Deals Editor Beren Neale, Senior News Editor Daniel Piper, Digital Arts and Design Editor Ian Dean, Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur Einarsson and Ecommerce Writer Abi Le Guilcher, as well as a roster of freelancers from around the world. The 3D World and ImagineFX magazine teams also pitch in, ensuring that content from 3D World and ImagineFX is represented on Creative Bloq.