ALEXANDRIA NEONAKIS

The Canadian AAA-games concept artist tells Gary Evans about the importance of storytelling, and how details make all the difference…

- Gary Evans

Alexandria Neonakis posted a picture on Twitter last summer of the top half of a female character wearing a red-checked flannel shirt. It looked perfect, but notes beside the image explained how it could be better: extra fading where the shirt would be regularly touched; small, subtle bleach stains; grime on the stitching.

She tweeted how this – more than “painting nice concepts” – is the kind of work she does on an average day. These precise details say something important about the character, the way she behaves, the kind of life she lives. But it’s also two-way thing: you have to want to hear what’s being said.

“You obviously need to learn to draw and paint,” the Canadian says. “There’s really no way around that, but it’s not the end goal. That’s not where any of this stops. Ideation and strong storytelling are by far the harder-toteach skills and the most sought-after in narrative AAA game studios, particularly in character concept.”

It’s good advice. Alexandria is best known for her work at Californian video games developer Naughty Dog on some of the past decade’s most successful games: The Last of Us, Left Behind, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and Uncharted: Lost Legacy. Last summer, after tweeting equally good, equally solid advice, Alexandria found herself in the middle of what you could call a Twitter “storm.”

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