I'm a 3D artist with 10+ years of experience creating characters and props for games, starting as a self-taught freelance artist. I've contributed to True Colors at Deck Nine Games and led character production on multiple titles, while refining art styles and asset pipelines. I enjoy collaborating across art direction, animation, and tech art teams to deliver expressive characters and optimized assets for mobile and premium experiences. I'm comfortable leading workflows, prototyping new tools, and working as a freelancer to deliver high-quality results on tight schedules.…

Stephan Messier

I'm a 3D artist with 10+ years of experience creating characters and props for games, starting as a self-taught freelance artist. I've contributed to True Colors at Deck Nine Games and led character production on multiple titles, while refining art styles and asset pipelines. I enjoy collaborating across art direction, animation, and tech art teams to deliver expressive characters and optimized assets for mobile and premium experiences. I'm comfortable leading workflows, prototyping new tools, and working as a freelancer to deliver high-quality results on tight schedules.…

Available to hire

I’m a 3D artist with 10+ years of experience creating characters and props for games, starting as a self-taught freelance artist. I’ve contributed to True Colors at Deck Nine Games and led character production on multiple titles, while refining art styles and asset pipelines.

I enjoy collaborating across art direction, animation, and tech art teams to deliver expressive characters and optimized assets for mobile and premium experiences. I’m comfortable leading workflows, prototyping new tools, and working as a freelancer to deliver high-quality results on tight schedules.

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Language

English
Fluent

Work Experience

Senior Character Artist and Generalist at Kazoo Games
July 1, 2025 - July 1, 2025
Remote role responsible for all 3D assets, pushing quality and concept art accuracy while maintaining mobile optimization. Helped drive the art style for characters; revamped and improved the project's first pass of 3D assets; explored tools and techniques to build better art within mobile constraints.
3D Generalist at Campfire
August 1, 2023 - August 1, 2023
Led art direction on the projects' Avatar prototyping and pushed quality and optimization on a tight budget and schedule.
Freelance Character Artist at Game Co Outsourcing
December 1, 2021 - December 1, 2021
Sculpted photorealistic character heads and bodies from concept art for Crime Boss: Rockay City. Built card-driven hair for characters. Textured characters and assets from concept art. Provided technical art support (UV unwrapping, Retopology) for characters.
Senior Character Artist at Deck Nine Games
March 1, 2021 - March 1, 2021
Integrated to establish style and workflow for True Colors, using the main character Alex as a guide post. Created characters and assets for True Colors, refined art style with Art Director, led character production mid-way through development, and coordinated with Animation, Cinematics and Tech Art teams to deliver expressive characters.
Freelance 3D Artist at Star Cave Entertainment
December 1, 2015 - December 1, 2015
Created characters and creatures from concept art for various projects; designed characters from scratch; modeled and textured assets; self-managed production.
3D Artist at Leap Motion
April 1, 2014 - April 1, 2014
Created concept art and 3D models for the virtual hand asset; prototyped, modeled, textured, and rigged for real-time hand-tracking animation.
3D Artist at Game Unlimited
June 1, 2014 - June 1, 2014
Modeled and textured 3D assets from provided art direction; revamped assets to better fit art direction.
Freelance Character Artist at Caracal Games
August 1, 2016 - August 1, 2016
Created merchant character from concept art; sculpted and textured assets; worked under art direction.

Education

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Qualifications

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Industry Experience

Gaming, Media & Entertainment
    paper Crime Boss: Rockay City - Secondary Characters

    Some select assets I worked on as an outsource artist for Crime Boss: Rockay City back in 2021. Built for Unreal, rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 5.

    paper Life is Strange: True Colors (Character Art)

    I was lucky enough to serve as Lead Character Artist for LIS:True Colors at D9. All of these characters were given much love and attention by the entire team, and their performers brought them to life to create a compelling supporting cast of memorable characters. While I had a hand in and oversaw much of their development, as a small team production they were only possible with the help of skilled outsource artists. Many thanks to them and the entire team at Deck Nine. True Colors was a journey, and I’m glad I was a part of it.

    paper Life is Strange: Before the Storm

    Served as a character artist for Life is Strange: Before the Storm. For Rachel, Chloe, and Nathan I built their costumes and many outfits. Also worked on a plethora of NPCs and other side characters not shown here. Greatly enjoyed the figurines, baby, and raven. The latter 2 were great learning experiences. Enjoyed working with my team at Deck Nine Games (formerly Idol Minds) on Before the Storm. It was my first studio shipped game, and it was a stellar learning experience. Many thanks to Steven Ekholm (Lead Character Artist), James Kennedy (Senior Character Artist), Katie Stone (Tech Artist), and Andy Weatherl (Art Director).

    paper La Muerte (Personal Character)

    Her town destroyed, family taken, arm severed - she is reborn as death itself. There is no stopping her before her vengeance is due. She is “La Muerte”.

    Here’s a personal character I’ve been working on for a bit - a culmination of style ideas I’ve had for the past few years, an evolution on the sword girl approach. Started with a loose sketch, and refined her design fairly dramatically throughout production. Influenced by grindhouse, classic westerns, Star Wars, Arkane, and traditional Mexican culture.

    My first UDIM project; split her into 11 x 2K~ sets - game ready preview is all baked down to 1 x 4K set for convenience. UDIM is extremely flexible for baking down whatever tilesets are needed, and moving forward will be my ideal workflow. And at 2K, production performance is excellent.

    I used Maya, Zbrush, Painter, Krita and Toolbag 5 to sculpt, model/retopo, UV, texture and render her for this project.

    paper Character Head Sculpting

    A few head studies I’ve had in my backlog - the grizzled dude is from an ongoing personal character project. High poly clay renders in Toolbag 5, greyscale detail shots in Zbrush. Sculpted in Zbrush from various photo reference, skin details sculpted by hand and with XYZ maps.