Legend of Grimrock II Meet the Team: Jyri

There’s a new blog entry up on the official Legend of Grimrock II website this morning, and this time its purpose is to introduce us to the latest artist to join the Almost Human team, Jyri Ullakko. Here are a few questions and their answers to get you started:

How did you end up at Almost Human?

Well, I knew all of the AH guys before I joined the team. Most of us had worked together at one point or another. I’ve known Antti longest as we met in highschool and then after that worked together at Fathammer. Juho & Olli I met at Futuremark. After Grimrock’s success the guys started thinking about adding some muscle to the art ‘department’ and pretty soon I got a message from Antti asking if I wanted to join their little operation. I pretty much pounced at the opportunity as it’s not everyday you get to work in a small successful company with a bunch of your friends on an interesting project where you really get to contribute! . also I felt it was quite the honor that these guys wanted me in their gang as they are one of the most talented people I know!

What is your role at Almost Human?

Juho and I are responsible for creating the graphics for our games. We create the walls, floors, vegetation and whatnot that Antti then uses to build the environments. Then there’s the occasional monster I get to do and sometimes I tinker with creating items for our game. but everyone at AH sometimes do things outside their main focus. (Like writing up blog posts!) I like to take part in game design when I can or atleast listen in on Antti & Petri to find out what cool stuff they are coming up with. It’s nice to have some variety and not get pigeonholed into working on some narrow bit of the game. Ofcourse this also means that sometimes we have to do stuff that might not be as fun as bringing to life some weird fantasy creature but hey, that’s a small price to pay for the creative freedom we have!

What does your average day at work look like?

Usually I’m one of the first ones to arrive to the office. I boot up the computer and make myself a couple of sandwiches which I then proceed to consume in front of the computer while I go through the usual set of art and game sites on the interwebz. . and no, no coffee. Oddly only Jykä, our animator, drinks that stuff at AH! (What kind of a twisted band of misfits is this..?) After the morning rituals I fire up zbrush, modo, 3dcoat and photoshop. There will be probably more to follow about the workflow I have in later posts if you guys are interested. Rest of the day consists of sculpting away at whatever monster or a piece of environment I have under construction minus the usual interuptions like lunch, discussions about the game, funny videos, general monkeying around etc. Also it would be nice to add )workout at the buildings gym) to this description of an average day but I’m still at the gathering motivation phase.