Interview with Marshall Womack (Fossil Software) by Antonio Neto

Q. Could you please introduce yourself and tell us about what was your dream when you was younger?

Hello, My name is Marshall Womack. I am currently Chief Creative Officer of Fossil Software, an iPhone development company. Before starting my own company, I worked in the video game industry for 12 years, with experience working as an environment artist, a character artist, fx artist, UI artist, cinematics artist, animator, logo/web designer, lighting artist and more. I've worked for companies like Midway, Timegate, and most recently left id Software to pursue my own projects. I graduated from The Art Institute of Houston in 1999, where I studied Computer Animation.

When I was younger, I spent a lot of time drawing. Initially I just wanted to draw as well as my older brothers, but soon my passion evolved and I had my own interest in being an artist. All throughout grade school, I practiced my skills and took every available art course that was provided. By the 6th grade, I knew I was going to be an artist of some sorts for a living. By High School, I'd received several awards for my artwork and outstanding achievements, and I made the decision to go to The Art Institute and continue my traditional art training, and begin all new training as a computer artist.

Q. How did you start your career?

After graduating from The Art Institute, I decided I wanted to get into the video game industry. I spent several months applying to every game company I could find. I'd send off VHS tapes of my demo reel, send cover letters and resumes, and email to follow up. I'd go to best buy and look on the back of game boxes to get more company names I might not have heard of. It was slow-going. As every entry level artist in the industry can attest, no one wants to hire someone without professional experience. So how do you get experience?!?! I kept up my work daily, applying to every game company I could find. I posted resumes on every job site I could find, especially game-related sites like gamasutra and gamejobs.com. I searched local job postings daily, and applied to any related postings as well. Eventually, I was contacted by one such company (Digital Tome), and they were interested in my work. They asked me to take an art test and create an animated character. I completed the test and turned it in. I followed up and found out they'd filled all their positions but that they'd consider me for an intern position. I was hoping for a full position, but I was well aware that an opportunity to break into the industry was not easy to come by. So I took the opportunity and internship at $8 an hour. And so my career began!

Even though I had little to no experience creating artwork on the computer, I did have a very strong traditional artist skill set. I could draw very well, paint pretty well, and sculpt with some proficiency. In my opinion, it was this strong traditional artistic background that helped me to excel among my peers at school. Other classmates were much more technically proficient than I was, but some lacked the fundamental artistic skills and experience that I possessed. I didn't have a computer at home, so all of my work had to be done at school. So I often spent 18 hours a day at my school, until the security guards would escort us out of the building to lock up. It was a rough time, with little sleep. But I knew if I was going to "make it", I'd have to put in the hard work and effort to achieve my goal. Other peers were more interested in parties and goofing off. I was all business. I was there to learn what I didn't know.

Q. What was your daily basis in a work environment like id Software?

By the time I reached id Software, I had about 11 or so years of experience in the industry. The industry had changed dramatically since my first game job, and my roll in the games I was making had also changed over the years. At id Software, I was a Senior Environment artist, who essentially had the responsibilities of a Lead Env Artist. I was involved in early prototypes for DOOM 4, environment art creation, research and reference gathering. I'd work closely with the art director, concept artists, and game designers to flesh out game levels and game play settings. I was involved in scheduling, and managing tasks for other environment artists, as well as training and demonstrating various practices of the "art pipeline" at id Software, and of course- play-testing our game. From day to day, my tasks would consist of some, or all of the above. Some days, I spent so much time managing tasks or planning schedules and "attack plans", that I didn't get to work on any art. In the early days of my career, tasks were just assigned to me, and I created the art I was asked to make. Later on, I took a much more active role in defining my own tasks, as well as the tasks for the entire environment team I was on.

Q. How has your daily basis changed now that you have your company?

Now that I have my own company, things have changed dramatically again. I am now in charge of all creative decisions (with input from the co-owner of course). I have complete freedom to decide the projects I work on (or don't' work on), the style of the artwork for that project, how I want everything to be done, and of course when. The single most enjoyable part of my current position, is not having to deal with other game designers who have different ideas. Working in the game industry involves a lot of cooperation, collaboration, and often compromises. In the end, being surrounded by highly qualified people who are all doing their best at what they do often means a top notch product. But other times, it can make doing your job that much more difficult and frustrating. I still have to cooperate and compromise at times, but at least now I don't have 3 bosses!

Q. How is the interaction of your team with the team that makes the concepts? Do you participate on the beginning of the creation process?

Every game company is different in this situation. With my recent position at id, I was closely involved with the concept artists and the planning of our environments. On some occasions, the concept artists would start the initial idea, and I'd iterate on it in 3d. Other times, we'd create a prototype environment in 3d from the beginning, and concept artists would paint over it. And in other cases, we'd gather reference material on our own and build without a concept piece. It all depends on the team you are on, your level of ability, and the project you are working on. In past positions, we were severely understaffed in our concept positions, so we'd rarely have a nice concept image to go from. In other cases, (especially at smaller companies) I'd perform the roll of many artists and participate in every stage from concept, to 3d modeling, to UV and texturing, material creation, and animation.