Interview
Dominic Carter talks to the artist about getting into games, the value of traditional mediums, and beating burnout
Grégory Fromenteau isn’t afraid to change things up. Over the course of his career, which now spans more than 20 years, he’s shifted from animation to video games and picked up a diverse range of skills in the process. We caught up with him to learn more about his work, and why he’s reverting to traditional mediums as generative AI starts to creep into the art industry.
How did you get started as an artist, and what has your career been like so far?
Since I was a child, I’ve been addicted to painting. I’ve always existed in a sci-fi and fantasy world. I was drawing ideas from the novels I was reading, which included classics by Asimov and Tolkien. Comics were also always available to me, and I liked to mimic their epic scenarios or even combine characters from other comic books.
So it should come as no surprise that I studied literature and art, and earned a baccalaureate. I then studied a master’s in visual communication after learning about new media and 3D, which was in its early stages.
I started off as a generalist artist in the cartoon industry; everything from layout to modelling, and texturing to lighting and rendering was covered. It was an excellent way to discover new methods and learn how the whole business operated.
Then, after three years, I made the decision to jump into video games, which had kind of been my objective ever since I began working with 3D. I relocated to Montreal in order to work in this field, and I’ve been doing it for 17 years now. Over that time, I’ve worked in a wide variety of roles on well-known series like Prince of Persia, Assassin’s Creed, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, and I’ve learned a lot from each production. Making video games continues to be fun for me, especially the execution.
How has your art developed, and what has driven those changes?
I’ve dabbled in everything, from concept art and level design through to animation, but what I like the best is the completion of a full project. I worked as a lighting artist for a long time because I loved the technical challenges of striving to produce the best results. I believe that constructing worlds and figuring out how to make things fit together more attractively is what ultimately inspired me to pursue art direction
