MEET THE ARTIST
Devon Fay
Creative lead at Riot Games, Devon Fay, chats to us about his career journey and favourite projects – including the hugely popular competitive shooter VALORANT
Fay’s home office setup, complete with art inspiration and a furry friend
A graduate from the Gnomon School of VFX, Devon Fay started his career at Blizzard Entertainment, working in the film department on projects such as Starcraft II: Wings Of Liberty and World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and later as a matte painting lead for DiabloI II.
Seeking a new challenge, Fay transferred his focus to real-time environments, joining Neversoft Entertainment and later Infinity Ward as a senior environment artist, working on a variety of games in the renowned Call Of Duty franchise. Currently he works as a creative lead at Riot Games, and has taken time out of his hectic schedule to answer a few questions about his day-to-day work life, career goals, and favourite projects.
Do you have a background in 3D design or are you self taught?
I started 3D when I was pretty young, about 10. It was with a program called TrueSpace. This was before the internet was totally widespread, so I had no information on how to use the program, or what it was even capable of. I basically just clicked every button and read every tooltip until I was able to figure out some really basic workflows, but I didn’t fully understand what I was doing.
From there I kept picking away at 3D, and eventually got the internet and was able to learn much more, including starting to learn Maya. Once I learned Maya I switched from TrueSpace and never looked back. For many years I picked away at personal projects, surfed the internet for information, watched every ‘making of’ special I could find, and even bought books full of tutorials and technical knowledge.