Report (2500) Words Introduction Creative Assembly is a Multiple award-winning BAFTA British video game developer who have created successful triple A game titles. This report is designed to give a clear understanding on what it s like to work for them. Creative Assembly have some of the most interesting character design work within the industry they use a high level of design depth and research to bring their characters to life. They also keep up to date with technology and trends so that the games that they create are visually amazing all the time. Total War series has documented the history of human warfare through realtime strategy since 2000, covering events in times such as medieval Europe, feudal Japan, and ancient Rome. The company was founded in 1987 and has 500 plus employees with 170 of them building the total war empire as of 2017. Creative Assembly was brought out by the company Sega in 2005 and since then they have been cashing in with multiple times coming out at the same time. There hasn t really been any competition that Creative Assembly has faced Mike Simpson creative director at Creative Assembly states that There are aspects of the technology that stretch back all the way across those 15 years. I
think that s one of the reasons there haven t been any competing games going into exactly the same area. It would take them 15 years to catch up. He said this in 2015 which meant that Total War had 15 years of to it. Total War games have sold millions of units and even still now they still achieve around 850,000 monthly active players. Below is a link to Creative Assembly s website. https://www.creative-assembly.com/ The game franchise Total war series will be the focus of this report, the series has a range of realism and history behind them which is educational and interesting. The historical events of wars that have been captured within the games show a lot of research and the detail when creating these games is immense. Creative Assembly runs Traineeships, one of which is in Character Art. They want to help develop the next generation of creative minds, so they have a legacy program which they run to help develop young artists. This is a great way to help the creative industry within the United Kingdom. Helping to inspire young minds which one day could lead to them creating their own company or joining a creative company. About Creative Assembly Creative Assembly is a successful games company who create global hits, they create games that go through the history and story behind some of the world s greatest wars. Most of their games are based around strategy and being able to control massive armies, it is great game for gamers who are looking for a bit of history and strategy. Within Creative Assembly it has such a creative team
who design the worlds and recreates the wars that once happened across the world. If you take were to take up a position at Creative Assembly you could be someone who looks at the research to help make some of their games accurate to real world events or you could become a designer creating the character models or the environment that the game take place in. One of the first goals that Creative Assembly had when creating the Total war franchise was to show the historical events and wars that had happened. It was different to other games and they had the foundation to be able to show the war units and the destruction that it had occupied. This also can be seen by the level of detail they put into the 3D models and environment showing off as much as they can so that the audience get real taste and idea of what war was really like. The game can be very educational to a certain level. The strategy that is involved within the game help show off how certain units would struggle against other units, showing off the realism to the game. They have stated that another goal that Creative Assembly have is to help develop the creative industries within the UK. We see this because they mention that 14,000 fewer students took a UK creative art and design course in 2017 and there is a clear drop off between GCSE and degree level this shows that they are concerned and aware of the education for the art industry. They also mention that they see artists that lack the understanding for the games discipline and feel that artists need to understand the difference between these disciplines, focus their efforts early and define their style. https://www.creative-assembly.com/blog/creative-chronicles-art https://www.ucas.com/file/115931/download?token=n-dpq8pp They mention that they want to hire graduates and that they are keen to look for fresh talent. We know this because they mention that over the last 2 years creative assembly has hired 9 art graduates straight from university. https://www.creative-assembly.com/blog/creative-chronicles-art
Creative assembly also have what they call a legacy project, this is to inspire and educate the next generation game development talent. The legacy team is a team from creative assembly and it is their job to educate and inspire young talent they do this by working with schools and partners which will help support game related subjects. They offer paid trainee schemes for graduates. This shows that they are dedicated into helping the growth of the gaming industry and to help artists develop their work and passion. They also state that they recognise the UK art skill gap and that they have experts who visit university s and schools to share their knowledge to try and help show the importance of the industry. Overview: Total war series Total war started out in June 2000 with the release of Shogun Total war, this game was helped by Electronic arts for funding after they noticed the success that creative assembly had had previously for creating sports games. This led to a boost of success leading to the company s breakthrough title which helped start the growth of the company. Shogun total war was nominated for a 2000 BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award with this it helped give influence
towards the next total war game. It was also regarded as one of the benchmark strategy games as of its times. http://awards.bafta.org/award/2000/interactive/games-pc-award After Shoguns Success Creative Assembly then moved on to using Activision as a publisher and distributor which led onto the announcement of a second Total war. With continuous successful hits the Total war series still is going with new releases such as Total War: Warhammer 2. Total War: Warhammer broke series sales records at its time which led to it being the fastest selling total war game. Selling half a million copies within the first few days. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-05-27-total-war-warhammer-isthe-fastest-selling-total-war-game-ever
Out of the series we can see a huge contrast it has from historically accurate to a fantasy twist. Although the history within the Total war games have helped develop the franchise to get to where it is today. Warhammer Total war shows a much bigger range of characters that have been created which a lot of people might prefer over the historically accurate games. Creative Assembly is well known for creating strategy based games and has a unique gameplay experience that other games don t offer, it allows you to take control of huge armies and lead them into battle, this is also mixed with the strategic element on where certain units are better in different situations to other units and it is all about finding the solutions to give your army the edge in combat.
Case Study: Lead Character Artist Mathew Davis The artist Matthew Davis has worked for Creative Assembly and has amazing examples of work. He has been a character s artists on games such as Civalry Medieval Warfare (2012), Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (2012) and Fire fall (2014) which helped him then to progress to develop character art for creative assembly games such as Total War: Rome 2 (2013), Total War: Warhammer (2016) and Total War: Warhammer 2 (2017). We see that he was the lead artist creating characters such as the forest dragon, Ever watcher and the Chaos Sorcerer.
Matthew Davis was a Senior Character artist for Total War Rome 2 and has progressed to become a lead artist for Total War Warhammer, this has shown that he is able to adapt from Historical accurate events to fantasy war styled games. Knowing that he was a Senior Character artist and then moved on to become a lead artist for a future game shows the progression you could take while working for Creative Assembly. Anyone wanting to go down the character design root will need to build a portfolio to show that they are able to adapt and use different designs to create characters rather than sticking to one style this will show that you have diversity but also you need to keep up with the trends of what the creative industry is looking for in character. This will then hopefully show the range of skills that you ll be able to offer for a creative industry helping you find work in the area you are interested in. Conclusion I decided to choose Creative Assembly because they are within the UK which makes it easier rather than moving abroad. The work that they create is very interesting and historical such as the Total war series they also get to work on projects that sometimes aren t as historical but are sci fi such as games as Halo wars 2 or Alien Isolation which shows that they can adapt to new projects and have a range of experience. They seem to have a strong creative atmosphere within the teams and studios, which is something that I am passionate to enter. I found that looking though Matthew Davis s work I was inspired and that it is defiantly the direction that I d love to go down within the creative industry. I feel that it is something that I am defiantly interested in doing and I love the design work that he has created within his models. Although I know that for that kind of high level detail I will need time to develop myself as an artist and gain experience to improve my portfolio even more to try and reach the level that Matthew Davis has. I feel that with my 5-year plan I could work on
developing my portfolio to try and to get it industry level and to brush up my knowledge using programs such as Maya and Z brush, this will help me create highly detailed 3D models, which is what a character artist needs to be able to use as well as having a high understanding of 2D work. Creative Assembly also offer traineeships for graduate level and experienced individuals trying to pursue a creative career. I also learned that a lot of their trainees have stayed with creative assembly and worked their way up to senior roles which could be ideal for me to be able to work myself up in the creative industry. https://www.creative-assembly.com/careers-faq I love the amount ideas and range of work that they have created. I like the idea of working within a studio working on a character model for a Total war game which will be shown to thousands if not millions of people. Creative Assembly has been a games company that I have grown up with, have knowledge of and have always enjoyed playing their games that they have offered over the years. I found that they have been very interesting because of the history behind them which has helped me get an understanding on what war was like hundreds of years ago. Action Plan Year 1 I plan on developing myself as an artist, looking for inspiration and researching on how I can develop my portfolio to get it to industry standards. From June to July 2018. I will also be looking at how I can develop myself as person and boost my confidence, this is something that I feel I need to work on and will help me be able to work in teams better. I will be doing this throughout the years. Apply for the traineeship character artist role at Creative Assembly which will hopefully lead to me being able to start my career. August 2018. I feel that I need to be considering going to festivals more and speaking to people within the industry. This will lead to connections and help me network
so that I can find work easier and that if I need someone for a specific role I am able to find them easily. Throughout the year when possible 2018. Travel more and visit places that might help give me ideas on how to develop my portfolio and improve on my craft. I feel that I need to get into traveling more so that I can get use to the system because there can be a lot of traveling involved with the animation industry. When possible during the year 2018 Year 2 For year 2 I plan on also working more on my portfolio and this will become a permanent task that I will be doing so that I can keep on top of my work and develop myself as an artist. Throughout 2019. Look for voluntary work at festivals so that I can build more connections with people, this will benefit me with talking to people in the industry and help me get my name out there in the industry. If I have free time during 2019 this is what I d be doing. If unsuccessful with Creative Assembly I will look for more work and apply for other job roles which will help me start my career. Depending on how work hunting is going I might do a Postgraduate teaching course so that I can then become an art teacher so that I can share my knowledge and skills. September 2019. Keep up to date with industry trends and set up a social media profile to showcase my work to help promote me. Throughout the year. Work on editing my Show reel/portfolio and make sure it shows my best work. Throughout the year. Learn more about the technology that is used within the industry and keep up to date with all the new technology so that I don t use programs that are outdated. Year 3 Keep working on my portfolio improving it and making sure it s what the industry is looking for. If I m in the industry then I keep focussed and meet the deadlines. I also need a plan for after the project if its only contract work.
Volunteer for more work within the industry developing myself even more. 2020 during free time if I am not working. Applying myself for my job roles and making sure it meets the requirements of my portfolio work. June to September. If I went onto doing a postgraduate course I then I should be finished by this point and then choose whether to go straight into teaching or to continue my craft looking for work within the creative industry.