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feature :: hannah crosby from thq studio australia

Hannah Crosby from THQ Studio Australia

Hannah Crosby - Artist at THQ Studio Australia

Intro | Brooke Luder from Sega Creative Assembly | Hannah Crosby from THQ Studio Australia | Sheridan Meulblok from Good Game

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What led you to a career in the gaming industry?

I just fell into it really. I saw an application for scholarships to QANTM College and several months later I’m learning the difference between vertices and polygons.
I’d always wanted a creative art-related career, but I’d never thought of games as an option.

What advice would you give to others wanting to train for your particular job?

To be a good character artist you really need a good background in traditional art. A 3D package is just another medium used to create art and if you don’t understand basic composition, colour theory and anatomy no amount of whiz-bang 3D skills will save your work from looking amateur. Most of the new “3D gaming” courses that unis are offering at the moment only cover the 3D package itself, and neglect this other side, so if you’re going to do one of those take the time to do some life-drawing, sculpting and drawing courses yourself.

Where do you see the industry heading towards in ten, fifteen years?

Supposedly we’re bigger than Hollywood at the moment, and I have a feeling that the games industry is going to narrow the gap between games and movies by focussing more on telling a story, setting a mood and evoking emotion from the player. Games like Mass Effect are already exploring this with extensive interactive in-game cut-scenes. As the hardware progresses to support this I can see a big market in games that play like interactive movies.



What do you think of games being developed specifically for a female audience?

I think it’s a really bad idea. Because games companies are still populated almost solely by male developers this inevitably produces games like ‘Barbie’s Fun-time Shopping Adventure’. The idea of having “women’s games” is incredibly sexist and really marginalizes the hardcore female gamers. The only difference between hardcore (as apposed to casual) female gamers and male gamers is that women are less likely to play a game that lacks depth simply because it has realistic real-world guns that are accurate down to the last individually textured bullet. In terms of casual gamers Nintendo already has the female games market covered with everything from Mario Galaxy to hand-held strategy games, because these games appeal to both men and women.

How long do you think it will take for "gamer girls" to become so common it's no longer an issue to comment on?

‘Girl gamers’ already make up a large proportion of the market, but due to games either being anonymous online or single-player entertainment at home not many people are aware of this. This is why many people still think “gamer girls” are a recent phenomenon and not a significant proportion of the gaming community.

A lot of women have been drawn into online games, do you think the socialising aspects of these games have been a major factor in this shift?

Probably, but since I’m not really a fan of online games I couldn’t comment. I think the socialising aspect appeals to people who like to ‘socialise’ without the pressures that come with real-life interactions.




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