The Art Of Michael Kutsche : Videogames, Film And Beyond

(Via)

Michael Kutsche is a concept artist currently working in the film industry, having had a chance to work on several high profile projects in the last few years including Alice In Wonderland, Thor, John Carter of Mars and most recently Oz: The Great and Powerful. His style entails delivering incredibly detailed concepts border on illustrations, offering studios a rich, fully fleshed out visualizations of ideas. This knack of his has earned him definite recognition as one of the up and coming designers in the movie field.



Over the last few years I've seen Michael Kutsche's career evolve in the standard path of most visual designers currently out there, staring off with a gig at Sega working on Viking: Battle for Asgard and the Empire: Total War franchises. Unfortunately based off of a large amount of conversations I've had over the last few years, the game industry can truly be a creatively stifling environment for most artists, who typically transition out to freelancing careers or working in the film industry after a short few years. It's a make it or break it industry, especially considering the toll that working on a game for several years and potentially face cancellations, working under difficult, crunch-heavy environments and other factors can take. The average career span of a concept artist in the game industry typically lasts three years, based off of 90 or so interviews I've had with visual designers.

While film can potentially be very difficult as well, it offers shorter term project cycles with the payoff of seeing your designs on screen, an ultimate fulfillment for a creative person. Whereas these are the circumstances that Michael Kutsche has faced in his career, he's truly found his stride in the movie industry from what we can tell. More of his awesome work after the break!