Abbas Ishtiaq

I am a professional Lighting Artist within the art of video games and for the last 3 years, I have been perfecting my craft. Lighting is my chosen specialism within game art as it is something I am seriously passionate about and what I love working on and improving upon. My goal within the industry would be to start as a Junior Lighting Artist to then perfect my craft throughout the years within the industry.

SCREENSHOTS

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GET TO KNOW ABBAS

Describe yourself in 5 words.

Exciting, experimental, determined, detailed and methodical.

What makes you unique?

I would say my most unique feature would be that I am very experimental with a lot of my work. I generally always have an idea in my head of scenes I would love to create or little set pieces that could make something really cool and with this, comes me just trying all sorts of different experiments. For example, what if lights were more of a liquid rather than a solid and how would that look, or if I use shards of glass to shine some light - how would that influence my scene?

Tell us an achievement you're proud of.

My proudest achievement would be my project in which I had entirely lit 2 separate scenes in 2 different times of day. The lighting portion of this project had taught me a lot as this was the first time I had really explored physical based lighting values, as well as cinematic camera angles/shots, but the part of the project I'm the most proud of would be the set designing. Every area within both scenes I spent quite a lot of time set designing and really pushing ever asset to get the end look I really wanted.

Describe a challenge that you had to overcome in your group projects.

In my team's 'Demon Souls' project there was a large dark area with the stain glass being in the centre of it. There were a few ideas I went through to light that area the best I could. All-in-all, none of the ideas really nailed the look I was going for, so then I experimented on the stained glass itself having its own light source and that is where I feel like I had made the most unique part of the entire scene as it beautifully contrasted against the rest of the scene's more warm light sources.

Which game inspired you the most to choose this career path and why/how?

Destiny' is a video game that I have been playing since the very first beta. I remember being in such awe when traversing the world and seeing all the really beautiful set pieces that the team at Bungie had crafted. I knew from spending hundreds of hours on that game that it was something I would love to pursue. For my art projects within school I had already started making pieces heavily influenced by the game and this would be in my portfolio that I eventually showed to Escape Studios before getting accepted into the University.

What video game character best embodies you and why?

Cayde-6 is a jokey, light hearted but skillful character within the Destiny universe. I think already those 3 aspects of Cayde are something I would say I have within myself. When planning or being social, Cayde is jokey but charming and quite a few times cocky, but when executing the plan or getting to work he is one of the most skilled in his field and only a few can do what he can do. Behind his work also is a lot of heart and passion, everything is achieved with an intention.

What was your crowning moment of your time at Escape?

As soon as I found my love for lighting within my 2nd year of Escape, I had my mind sharp and focused on what my goal by the end would be. This moment of realization really kicked in gear the best time of my life within Escape because I found purpose within this amazing University.