Introduction
My name is Cole Henry-Mashuga, and I am currently working as a Character Artist in the video games industry at Blind Squirrel Games. Specifically, I am working on State of Decay 3 as a co-dev for Undead Labs. I have also previously contributed to Star Vault’s Mortal Online 2 as a Weapon Artist.
I have been into art and video games since I was a child. I always gravitated towards art, which included taking art classes throughout middle and high school and spending a lot of my free time making drawings of Master Chief, Link, random Pokémon, and everything else I was into at the time. When I eventually decided to go to college, I decided to lean into my talents and attend the Art Institutes International of Minnesota, where I majored in Media Arts & Animation.
A lot of my inspiration and interest in character art originally came from, and still comes from, movies, video games, and other artists’ work. I loved watching behind the scenes and the making of video games. I distinctly remember watching the documentary on the making of Halo 2, and I think that is where it clicked that real people make these games and that it was possible to get into this industry.
My skillset as a base came from school, but after graduating, I realized I still had a lot of work to do to develop as an industry-level character artist. So after leaving school, everything I learned became self-taught through books and tutorials. YouTube and sites like Cubebrush.co, Vertex School, and GumRoad were huge resources for me to hone my skills and to learn the entire game art pipeline.
However, I think some of the most impactful post-educational moments in terms of my growth as an artist have come from participating in hands-on mentorships/workshops with Glauco Longhi, Andrew Ariza, and Raf Grassetti.
Additionally, advice and help from artists in the industry, like Mike Haney, have helped me grow as an artist not only in an artistic sense, but in the technical side of the work at my current job as a Character Artist. The person I contribute my most growth to is a great artist named Ackeem Durrant, who took me under his wing after I enrolled in his class at Vertex School on building character for games.
He helped me get my first break in the industry and continues to help me hone my talent as an artist through and through. I have been lucky to have great mentors as I continue to develop my skills as an artist in the gaming industry.
