On Avatar, Pascal was given the chance to use all of Cameron's universe (which includes the volumes of material that didn't make it into the movie) and, with the team, add new elements to it. The team created all sorts of new weapons, new armor, and new plants that were submitted to Cameron's team for approval. Pascal was personally designing props as simple as roots and rocks, but with specific shapes needed to create the mood he was looking for in each of the game's many levels. Some of his designs (armor for example) made it into the final game, but not all.
As for the tools we used: Photoshop, Painter, Zbrush and 3dsMax. a real mix of all at the same time. When asked about his familiarity with Avatar, Blanche explains, "I bought an art book, maybe two or three years before starting on the project: Worlds by Allec Gillis with a foreword by... James Cameron himself. In the book, he refers to Wayne Barlowe's Expedition, a book I also had in my collection (I buy a lot of art books, I guess). When I was offered the job on Avatar, it was almost like I already knew where Cameron was going with Pandora; it was intense."
"What I love most is that Cameron hired one of the best in the business, Wayne Barlowe, for his bestiary look and feel. The guy is brilliant. He has this uniquely surreal aspect in his paintings: a cross between Dali, Bosch and H.R Giger that gives that unworldly feeling that you get when you watch the creature move."
ABOUT PASCAL BLANCHE: Blanché started on the path towards a career in art/design for games at the Art School of Luminy, Marseille, which provided him with a classical grounding for his CG work.
Early on he freelanced for TILT magazine, one of the early video games magazines. Then, since 1994, he has worked in modeling, concept art, texturing, lighting and animation for various French gaming companies. As an artist Blanché has had to perform well in a variety of roles in the games development industry, but he still treats illustration and design as an artistic process and continually strives for better illustrations.
"I got into the gaming industry early, when companies were small and artists had to be able to multi-task. I think it was during that period that I started to think about the big picture. What makes a good illustration? What do I need to take time on? Where should I be spending my energy? In 2000 I moved to Canada where I first worked on Kæna: The Prophecy as lead animator before joining Ubisoft's ever-growing Montréal studio to work on Myst IV."
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D'artiste: Character Modeling
