We’re thrilled to introduce Pablo Gomez Utiel, our new Lead Game Artist at Sandsoft! With a dynamic career spanning indie gems and blockbuster mobile titles, Pablo brings a wealth of creativity and expertise to our team.
In his own words, Pablo is passionate about crafting immersive game worlds that connect with players through cohesive art, storytelling, and design. From shaping stunning visuals to collaborating across teams, his insights highlight the power of artistry in gaming.
Check out the full interview to learn more about Pablo’s journey, vision, and what excites him about creating at Sandsoft.
With an impressive portfolio across both indie gems and major mobile titles, what inspires you most about your role as a game artist?
For me, the greatest part is when the art that we create as game artists is helping in building a world that feels consistent and coherent. This involves concept art, UI design, asset creation… And ultimately, when all the pieces together make sense, is when the game can come to life, and the player can get a better experience.
From designing UI for hit mobile games to creating key art for award-winning indie projects, your range is remarkable. How do you approach maintaining a unique artistic vision across such diverse projects?
I think for every project you need to approach things differently, so you need to be able to adapt to the necessities of each of those with a specific artistic direction. But in the end, conveying a message in the best possible way should be a priority, and this can be true for both console/pc games and mobile games. In the end, as said before, the whole package must feel coherent, regardless of the artistic direction you take.
You’ve worked on projects that blend storytelling with visual design. How do you think visuals enhance narrative and player engagement in games?
Overall, the player needs to have fun when playing a game, which can be in different ways: enjoying a story-driven gameplay, having a thrill trying to kill a big boss, or relaxing while farming and crafting and optimizing the production pipeline. But in the end the visuals are there to help enhancing what you want to transmit to the player, which is why an artistic direction is very important for the overall experience and engagement. The color palette you use, the animation fluidness, the style of the UI, the music and sound effects…, all of that affects the way the player is going to perceive things.
Collaboration plays a big role in game development. What’s your process for working with other team members like game designers and developers to bring a cohesive artistic vision to life?
I think trying to come up with a common vision for the game is the first priority, and is going to help the collaboration between different parts of the team in achieving this goal. From there, the conversation with game designers and developers has to move a lot in the direction of trying to make the visuals fit in the best way with the vision we have for the project itself and the player experience, and help solving the problems that can appear along the way. And sometimes a design can look great on paper, but implementing it presents some issues, so we need to rethink things trying to compromise as less as possible. In the end, constant communication is super important to smooth the process and to align with what we want at all times.
Which tools or trends do you think will define the next generation of game art?
It’s very difficult to know, I think visually there’s always room to innovate or at least come up with original art styles, but trends are usually very unexpected. You always get surprised by indie games creating an original gameplay, sometimes of mixed genres, with a unique style that you would not think it could fit, but when you play it, it just works. So we have to be open in that sense, and don’t be afraid to try new things.
As someone who’s created everything from concept art to polished final designs, what’s been your proudest artistic achievement in gaming so far, and what are you looking forward to creating at Sandsoft?
Being part of big projects and trying to work on how to visually upgrade parts of the game to improve players engagement it’s been very interesting and a great learning. I am looking forward to create new games that can be both fun and visually appealing, with an interesting world the players can enjoy.
