Introduction

My name is Theo Mills. I am originally from Toronto, Ontario but grew up in a small town near Vancouver, British Columbia. I went to school at Sheridan College for traditional art and then attended George Brown College for Game Development. After graduating in 2014, I worked in the animation industry for a few years eventually arriving at Ubisoft Toronto where I’ve been a Model Artist for the last year and a half. I’ve worked on children’s TV shows such as Rusty Rivets and Max Steel and most recently finished working on Far Cry 5 and Starlink: Battle for Atlas here at Ubisoft.

Modeling approach

My general modeling approach for games starts with gathering a ton of reference. You’re never guaranteed concept art, and if you are given a concept piece you still need to gather as much reference as possible from as many angles as possible. This ranges from a simple Google image search to looking around my actual environment. This process can vary depending on the projects’ art style and settings.

Beyond gathering reference, it’s important to understand the technical restraints on any given project such as polycount, texture budget (unique or tiling) and whether it’s a background or hero asset. I think it’s important to start with as much information as possible to ensure you can work efficiently and cut down on iteration time.