It’s time for another amazing game artist showcase. And you will never see greater Halo fan art than this!
Game Artist Showcase: The Almighty Jesse van Weiden
Written by Alex Sinclair Lack at 05/16/2022, 10:03 AM
Here at MMO Games, we'll take any excuse to show off the work of an incredible game artist. Following our game artist of the year competition, we've been showcasing the work of the amazing artists that impressed us most. So far, we've shown you the work of Yuhang Weng, Betsy Weymouth, Nana, and Chris Binns. Now, we're delighted to show off the work of Jesse van Weiden.
To get started, check out this striking piece based off of the Speed Runners character Cosmonaut Comrade. Jesse and his friends play as specific characters, and this was one made for his friend's 19th birthday being the character only he plays with.
Whether or not you're a Halo fan, you're in for a real treat here. We're not only showing off Jesse's almighty talent, but he's kindly provided us with a stage-by-stage breakdown of his process. Aspiring artists, take note!
Jesse is a student from Sweden who only works on his art in his spare time. Though you wouldn't think it when you take a look. Sometimes, one game just captures our imagination and defines our lifelong love of gaming. For Jesse, that game is Halo. Jesse has some great work, but the piece that truly took our breath away was the Halo fan art piece below. It took him a year to put together, and he was delighted to finish it on Master Chief's 20th Birthday last year.
A Q&A with Game Artist Jesse van Weiden
1. What games are you playing right now?
At the moment I'm only playing Halo Infinite. It's the first game franchise I fell in love with and it'll be the one I die with.
2. How do you decide on your designs?
I tend to go through as many options for different directions I can develop towards, before I settle for one that I want to stick with.
3. What is your creative process?
There are two ways I approach my creative process.
The first and most time-consuming approach is when I'm more methodical when I'm creating a new piece. If I have a clear image in my head then I first start developing a sketch based on many, many references. Then I finalize my sketch before I start with going through different design options. I do this to ensure I am confident with the direction I decide to take. In this phase, I take help from the people around me to generate ideas and make something that's more than what I could make on my own.
In the Master Chief art piece, I ended up using a style inspired by my girlfriend's design. She added a backlight behind Chief that I thought would look good with the light emanating from the sword. And then I decided that those would be the only things you'd see in the art piece, pink and blue. Then I make a high-fidelity sketch of the "final idea" with the pink and blue lighting design. Then for the last phase; when I enlarge the canvas before drawing the whole image again and giving it smaller and smaller details as I go along.
The second approach is when I open an empty canvas and start doodling the first thing that come to mind without any objective. I keep on developing the piece, not afraid to change or take a different direction until I feel I'm done. I try my best to not overdevelop and stop once I notice I'm running low on inspiration. When I use this type of approach then I try my best to be as quick as possible so I don't lose momentum and stop due to over-exertion. (I used this approach on the other non-Halo art pieces).
4. Which piece are you most proud of?
The art piece I'm most proud of is the wolf one that I made for my artist aunt for Christmas a few years ago. Because my aunt was a successful artist I had to try my best to impress her with my Secret Santa present. It's of a wolf with cyan'ish teal eyes. The art piece was drawn by finger with an iPad older than time itself. At the time it was the longest project I had worked on totaling a 22h from start to finish! Today the record stands at 65h + some.
5. What's the next step for your art? Are you working on anything interesting?
My next step in arts is through music, at the moment I'm working on some songs to be released on Spotify! I've started a band with my brother and we are called Mumble Sessions and have one song out on Spotify, so far.
Of course, it's not just Halo that Jesse draws. The Among Us inspired art piece above belongs to a collection called The Houston Collection that Jesse put together a few years ago. For reasons that need no explaining, this one is titled “Sh*t…”.
Be sure to check out more of Jesse's work and follow his career via Instagram @mr_van_weiden .
Stay tuned for more incredible game art in June's game artist showcase - Only at MMO Games .
MMOGames.com is committed to bringing you all the freshest, funniest, and most insightful MMO news. If you enjoyed this content, why not share it with your community? And make sure that you never miss our updates and exclusive giveaways by following and favouriting us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.