The Artist Behind the Characters: An Interview with Amy Ash

With over 20 years of experience working in illustration and animation, Amy Ash has repeatedly shown herself to be at the forefront of the industry. Having spent five years at art college working in natural media, Amy realized in her final years that she needed to pivot to working digitally. This led her to learn 3D modeling before gaining more knowledge and skills as time and project demands allowed. 

Amy's big jump came when she decided to focus on character modeling, which eventually took her to Axis Studios. There, she led the character team on projects, including the Love, Death + Robots episode “The Tall Grass” for Netflix. She has additionally worked for Passion Pictures and Aardman Studios and for four years as an animator for children's TV. 

This year, Amy joined The Gnomon Workshop as an instructor with her comprehensive workshop, Character Asset Creation for Cinematics: Volume 1. Her detailed insights and practical demonstrations provide a clear and concise guide to crafting high-quality assets for cinematics.

In this interview, we catch up with Amy to learn more about her career so far, find out exactly what it’s like to work as the Head of Characters at a busy animation studio, and discover her opinions on AI. Read on to find out more.

The Gnomon Workshop: You've worked in advertising, television, and game cinematics. Which has been your favorite industry to date?

Amy Ash: I love game cinematics and adult animation like Love, Death + Robots. Game cinematics allow us to create such an incredible range of characters in so many different styles, so there are constantly new challenges and opportunities to push creativity and quality. I absolutely love that variety where you can be working on a hyperreal science-fiction trailer for two months, then spend the next three developing and executing a look for a stylized fantasy project.

It's difficult to get bored in such an industry, although it obviously comes with a fair bit of pressure, with the next deadline never too far away. As a gamer myself, there’s just the simple fact that I’m often a huge fan of the IPs and studios we are working with. The creativity in games and animation often astounds me. I love seeing the result of a great team coming together to dream up new worlds, and being a part of that in any way is a huge thrill for me.

“Even when the aim is just to create a cool-looking character for a portfolio piece, the best artists will be imagining who that character is, how they interact with the world, and what impact the world they live in has had on them.” Amy Ash

TGW: When creating and posing a portrait image of a character, what things are you considering to make sure the character's personality shines through?

AA: Story is always the most important element of any character. You need to understand who you are sculpting and then make decisions based on that. Even when the aim is just to create a cool-looking character for a portfolio piece, the best artists will be imagining who that character is, how they interact with the world, and what impact the world they live in has had on them.

In cinematics, we work in neutral A poses and rarely pose characters, so the challenge becomes investing personality into a character that has no expression or performance attached to them. Here again, though, we need to let the story drive the decisions we make across the characters. I talk about this quite a bit in my Gnomon Workshop tutorial. 

When working on concept sculpts, there is the opportunity to give the character a lot more life through the pose and the expression, but it’s still all about the story. The pose of a warrior going into battle is going to be very different from one in the midst of the fight and different again as they are leaving the battlefield. You need to consider the emotions and motivations of the character at that moment and layer that on top of who the character is, their body type, and how they might move as a result of all of those things. 

With portraits alone, there is a level of subtlety involved. Facial expressions can be very similar, yet they communicate very different emotions, so a level of research is needed. You should start any project with reference collection, and expressions are no different. Imperfection and asymmetry are also hugely important, as faces are a lot wonkier than you might think, and I find the stage where I can start bringing that into a face is when the character really starts to come alive.

“There’s a real buzz from being involved in something like Love, Death + Robots. When each series comes out, all the artists are sharing their work online, and leaving comments on each other's posts, and it feels like you are part of this small but global community full of immense talent.” Amy Ash

TGW: Out of all the projects you've worked on over the years, which has been your favorite?

AA: The episode we did for season two of Love, Death + Robots, “The Tall Grass,” is one that has specific importance for me. It wasn’t an easy project to work on as we had a lot to figure out in a short amount of time but it was very important for my own personal growth, and it’s also one of the projects that resonates with people the most. Often, when I’m at industry events, it’s the one that everyone wants to talk about, so it’s helped me meet a lot of people that I otherwise might not have. 

On that project, we had a small team, a tight deadline, and a fairly open brief. We not only had to figure out how it would look but also how we could creatively and technically execute that over ten minutes of animation. It called on so many of my existing skills, including character modeling, but also my training in natural media illustration. Considering we were so few, I feel like we achieved quite a lot before the wider production team came on board and shot work started. I think the skills I learned on that project have helped me numerous times since.

On top of all of that, there’s a real buzz from being involved in something like Love, Death + Robots. When each series comes out, all the artists are sharing their work online, and leaving comments on each other's posts, and it feels like you are part of this small but global community full of immense talent. It was nice to work on a project that felt like a celebration of adult animation.

TGW: Aardman is much loved for being the creator of Wallace and Gromit. What role did you play at Aardman?

AA: I was at Aardman for a couple of months as a character modeler and I was just happy to soak up the experience of being there at a company I’ve admired for so long. It’s a wonderful studio full of great people; the atmosphere is lovely there, and Bristol is an incredible city. I have nothing but very happy memories of my brief time there.

TGW: Give us a flavor of a typical working day when you worked as Head of Characters at Axis Animation.

AA: The answer here is that there was no typical day! I learned quite quickly that I needed to be prepared for anything and be able to pivot quickly from one topic to another. There were a lot of meetings, for sure, but also a lot of incredible moments. 

Generally, the day could be any combination of planning for upcoming projects, helping solve problems on existing ones, supporting the artists in the character team, and looking for new artists when we needed to scale up.

Generally, I’d start my day by looking over my calendar and trying to organize my time, answering urgent messages or emails, and then jumping into morning meetings. I’d have regular calls with the crew coordinators to go over resource requests from projects, and plan out how we might crew future projects.

From there, if I were on a project directly, I’d jump into a call with the artists, make sure they were all happy and on track, and give any quick feedback or direction needed. If any artists needed extra help or support, we’d have a quick one-on-one call, and then we’d have Creative Dailies with the project core team, where I’d present the work the team had done to the CG Supervisor and Art Director. 

In the afternoons, I might get some time to do some feedback paintovers, in-between regular one-on-one calls with artists and any calls with production that might be required. On the occasions when I could get into some modeling work, it would usually be in the afternoon; however, it was usually the second half of the day when more unexpected things might crop up that would need my attention.

One thing that made my life a lot easier at Axis was the group I managed. It felt like we were always working together as a team towards a common goal, and they always stepped up and took ownership of issues, looking for solutions and helping each other. An amazing group of artists who were a pleasure to work with!

“I found myself spending more time in ZBrush, to the point now where all of my modeling work starts there, and Maya has become a smaller part of that process.” Amy Ash

TGW: Out of all the software you've used over the years, which has transformed your work and workflow the most?

AA: Without a doubt, it's ZBrush. Now and then, a program comes along that creates a shift in the industry and enables huge leaps in what can be achieved, and ZBrush was exactly that. Before then, we were so bound to polygons and a workflow that, by its nature, was limiting.

Then, ZBrush came along, and we could suddenly sculpt directly into the shapes. Suddenly, we started seeing all these incredible high-definition models appearing, and a whole new community grew. It opened modeling up to a lot of people and expanded the range of things we could create within a given time.

Over the years, it’s become a bigger and bigger part of my process. In the early days, when ZBrush wasn’t so good at creating new models, I’d use it just to detail meshes I’d created in 3ds Max or Maya, but as Pixologic kept adding more features, I found myself spending more time in ZBrush, to the point now where all of my modeling work starts there, and Maya has become a smaller part of that process. It’s rare for a program to come along and so radically change the way you work — I think only Substance Painter is comparable for the impact it’s had on asset creation.

“Building a character asset — or any creative endeavor — involves thousands of decisions, both big and small, from a team of people. A good artist has already made a lot of these decisions by the time an asset reaches review, and if they receive changes or feedback, they will know a lot more about how to execute those changes. All that decision-making is built on years of specialized experience and knowledge, and removing that will only lower standards.” Amy Ash

TGW: Do you see AI playing any role in your workflow either now or in the future? 

AA: It will do, I’m sure, but what I want to see is ethical AI tools built for artists that automate tasks that take time away from the more creative parts of the work. What seems to be the goal right now is generative ‘AI’ that bypasses and replaces the artist altogether while using our work to do so. 

For example, I’d love a tool that quickly and accurately does the UV Unwrap and layout for a character so I can spend more time sculpting and trying to push the asset creatively or something that gives us better quality assurance checks or scene debugging. As long as it’s created ethically without stealing people’s work, I think most artists would be on board with those tools. To be honest, we’ve been learning new tools constantly for years, and it’s only recently that every new thing that comes out is branded as AI, whether it truly merits that definition or not. 

The thing that concerns me the most is that I feel standards are being lowered to meet the output in a rush to claim that the tech is ready to take over. I think we are in danger of a huge amount of skill and knowledge being put aside in the name of efficiency and profit, and it’s at least partially based on a somewhat misguided notion that decision-making lies solely at the top of the chain, or among a chosen few. 

In reality, building a character asset or any creative endeavour involves thousands of decisions, both big and small, from a team of people. A good artist has already made a lot of these decisions by the time an asset reaches review, and if they receive changes or feedback, they will know a lot more in how to execute those changes. All of that decision-making is built on years of specialized experience and knowledge, and removing that is only going to lower standards. 

TGW: After so many years of character creation and animation, how do you continue to stay fresh and inspired?

AA: It’s the people I work with and the things we can create together that keep me inspired. For me, there’s no greater feeling than working with a team of amazing artists and creating something better than any one of us alone could do. Everyone has their own passions and interests and it’s one of those industries where you really can bring those into your work, and it’s wonderful to see people doing that. 

Additionally, I just really love creating characters and the whole process behind it. I love seeing other artists' work and feeling inspired to learn a new workflow. There’s also a bit of healthy competition when you see some modeling work someone has done, and you don’t know how you’d do it yourself. I love seeing the decisions people have made, the way they’ve treated certain elements, and the little touches of an artist’s personality that shine through in their work. 

Going back to AI, I think this is why a lot of the push towards generative AI leaves me feeling a bit numb inside. Removing the teams and the process from the work takes away so much of what I love about my job.

Ready to learn how Amy Ash creates incredible characters for cinematics? Get started with Volume 1 of her workshop today!