Ashley Swidowski's guest appearances

Ashley Swidowski

Script Lock

CHIUSTREAM

Sarah Elmaleh

Meg Jayanth

Karla Zimonja

Brad Muir

Matthew Burns

Anna Kipnis

Tim Schafer

Jill Murray

Sean Vanaman

Robin Hunicke

Walt Williams

Marc Laidlaw

Mike Laidlaw

Cissy Jones

Jon Ingold

OwlTail

Graham Reznick

We celebrate spooky season all year round here, which is why we've brought back Ashley (Character Art Director at Bad Robot Games, previously Character Art Director at Naughty Dog, Lead Character Concept Artist on The Last of Us Part II, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and a concept artist on The Last of Us: Left Behind) and Graham (Writer, Director, and Sound Designer. Writer on Supermassive Games' Until Dawn, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, Hidden Agenda, The Inpatient, and The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan) to talk all things horror! Together they chat with us about what attracts them to horror, whether horror is a genre or a tool, the sublime of horror, the power of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, cross-pollination between film and TV, video game adaptations, how to pace horror games when players control the pacing, horror games following different rules from other horror media, first-person horror, how horror changes the art-making process, what non-horror games could take from horror games, the calcification of genres, horror games showing too much, dream crews, guilty pleasures, and Pyramid Head. Our Guests on the InternetAshley's Twitter (but don't follow her) and InstagramGraham's Twitter, Instagram, and check out his sound design work in the upcoming X!Stuff We Talked AboutThe Crypt KeeperThe Prince of DarknessResident Evil franchiseSilent Hill franchiseUntil DawnBlair Witch by Bloober TeamP.T.SomaAshley’s Silent Hill Mondo coversMasuhiro ItoOur theme music was done by Isabella Ness, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

We celebrate spooky season all year round here, which is why we've brought back Ashley (Character Art Director at Bad Robot Games, previously Character Art Director at Naughty Dog, Lead Character Concept Artist on The Last of Us Part II, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, and a concept artist on The Last of Us: Left Behind) and Graham (Writer, Director, and Sound Designer. Writer on Supermassive Games' Until Dawn, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, Hidden Agenda, The Inpatient, and The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan) to talk all things horror! Together they chat with us about what attracts them to horror, whether horror is a genre or a tool, the sublime of horror, the power of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, cross-pollination between film and TV, video game adaptations, how to pace horror games when players control the pacing, horror games following different rules from other horror media, first-person horror, how horror changes the art-making process, what non-horror games could take from horror games, the calcification of genres, horror games showing too much, dream crews, guilty pleasures, and Pyramid Head. Our Guests on the InternetAshley's <a href="https://twitter.com/coyotehackles" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> (but don't follow her) and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/aswidowskiart/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a>Graham's <a href="https://twitter.com/grahamreznick" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/grahamreznick/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a>, and <a href="https://a24films.com/films/x" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">check out his sound design work in the upcoming X</a>!Stuff We Talked About<a href="https://tftc.fandom.com/wiki/The_CryptKeeper" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Crypt Keeper</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Darkness_(film)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Prince of Darkness</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Resident Evil franchise</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hill" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Silent Hill franchise</a><a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/until-dawn/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Until Dawn</a><a href="https://www.blooberteam.com/blair-witch-game" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Blair Witch</a> by Bloober Team<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.T._(video_game)" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">P.T.</a><a href="https://somagame.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Soma</a><a href="https://mondoshop.com/blogs/news/music-weekly-silent-hill-3-4-and-the-medium-original-video-game-soundtracks" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ashley’s Silent Hill Mondo covers</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masahiro_Ito" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Masuhiro Ito</a>Our theme music was done by <a href="https://www.isabellaness.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Isabella Ness</a>, and our logo was created by <a href="https://www.lilynishita.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lily Nishita</a>.

Ashley Swidowski & Graham Reznick

Claire Hummel

We're taking a big ol' swan dive into character design and concept art on this week's episode, and so we're SUPER lucky to have Ashley (formerly a Concept Artist on The Last of Us: Left Behind, and since then she's worked on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End as Lead Character Concept Artist, as well as the upcoming The Last of Us Part II) and Claire (formerly an Artist and Associate Production Designer for Microsoft Studios, where she worked on a bunch of Kinect games, Fable Legends, Sunset Overdrive, Powerstar Golf, and more. She also was the Production Designer for Westworld VR, and currently works as the Art Director on In the Valley of Gods for Campo Santo/Valve) joining us to talk about the misconceptions around what a concept artist does, how they each approach character design, what they want from the writers/creative director when they're starting out with designing one, working for the project instead of yourself, how they know when they're done, the importance of taking breaks and having personal projects, how to achieve good storytelling and character work through costuming, how "real" you can push things before it becomes so novel for players that they're distracted by it, cloth sims: the final frontier of video game character design, making art for VR, major influences, how to create characters that are lifelike and not superficial, the secret to navigating creative disagreements successfully, the importance of failing and making mistakes, which game stories they've responded to recently, and MORE! Our Guests on the Internet Ashley on Twitter and Instagram. Claire on Twitter and her Website. Stuff We Talked About James Gurney In the Valley of the Gods Mary Zophres The Order: 1886 Isao Oishi Layers of Fear Hilda Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles &amp; Ted Orland Horizon Zero Dawn Night in the Woods Our theme music was composed by 2Mello, and our logo was created by Lily Nishita.

We're taking a big ol' swan dive into character design and concept art on this week's episode, and so we're SUPER lucky to have Ashley (formerly a Concept Artist on The Last of Us: Left Behind, and since then she's worked on Uncharted 4: A Thief's End as Lead Character Concept Artist, as well as the upcoming The Last of Us Part II) and Claire (formerly an Artist and Associate Production Designer for Microsoft Studios, where she worked on a bunch of Kinect games, Fable Legends, Sunset Overdrive, Powerstar Golf, and more. She also was the Production Designer for Westworld VR, and currently works as the Art Director on In the Valley of Gods for Campo Santo/Valve) joining us to talk about the misconceptions around what a concept artist does, how they each approach character design, what they want from the writers/creative director when they're starting out with designing one, working for the project instead of yourself, how they know when they're done, the importance of taking breaks and having personal projects, how to achieve good storytelling and character work through costuming, how "real" you can push things before it becomes so novel for players that they're distracted by it, cloth sims: the final frontier of video game character design, making art for VR, major influences, how to create characters that are lifelike and not superficial, the secret to navigating creative disagreements successfully, the importance of failing and making mistakes, which game stories they've responded to recently, and MORE! Our Guests on the Internet Ashley on <a href="https://twitter.com/coyotehackles" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/aswidowskiart" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Instagram</a>. Claire on <a href="https://twitter.com/shoomlah" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and her <a href="https://www.clairehummel.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Website</a>. Stuff We Talked About <a href="https://twitter.com/gurneyjourney?lang=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">James Gurney</a> <a href="https://inthevalleyofgods.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">In the Valley of the Gods</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Zophres" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mary Zophres</a> <a href="https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/the-order-1886-ps4/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Order: 1886</a> <a href="https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Isao_%C5%8Cishi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Isao Oishi</a> <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/391720/Layers_of_Fear/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Layers of Fear</a> <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80115346" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hilda</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/187633.Art_and_Fear" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking</a> by David Bayles &amp; Ted Orland <a href="https://www.guerrilla-games.com/play/horizon" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Horizon Zero Dawn</a> <a href="http://www.nightinthewoods.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Night in the Woods</a> Our theme music was composed by <a href="http://2mello.net/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2Mello</a>, and our logo was created by <a href="https://lilynishita.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lily Nishita</a>.

Ashley Swidowski & Claire Hummel