From the Rugby Field to Environment Art with Respawn’s Alex Beddows

Justin interviews Alex Beddows, a Senior Environment Artist at Respawn Entertainment, about what it takes to get ahead in the industry. Alex has a pragmatic perspective on career advancement, sharing his best tips and examining how certain personal projects like his podcast 'Game Dev Discussion' helped him to network and land jobs.

Alex also talks about how his background in sports (rugby) has been an asset for leadership in the studio, the importance of developing soft skills, how to research for a position you want, and determining the scope of a project. Alex also answers some listener questions about inspiration, mental bandwidth, and preferred software for environment art.

Episode Breakdown

00:00 Intro
01:12 Alex’s background from rugby to game art
03:25 Starting the GDD podcast
06:29 How sports helped Alex in the games industry
09:15 Communication and delivering bad news in a positive way 
11:54 Progressing with soft skills rather than hard skills
16:28 Doing the research
19:35 Alex’s pragmatic approach to his career
23:45 How knowing what you don’t want to do helps you figure out what you do want to do 
26:30 How far is far enough? 
32:39 Scoping your project and maintaining momentum
36:23 The easy way to make a checklist for your portfolio
38:30 Getting inspired through photography
43:30 Making steps toward Art Direction
48:00 Listener questions: inspiration, mental bandwidth, preferred software for environment art
57:45 Where to find Alex

About Alex Beddows

Alex is an environment artist with nearly 10 years of experience in varying sectors of the game industry, from mobile to AAA, on titles including Returnal, Scavengers, and Godfall. He also worked at ArtStation as a consultant. Alex currently resides at Respawn Entertainment as a Senior Environment Artist.

As well as being an artist, Alex hosts the ‘Game Dev Discussion’ podcast dedicated to the games industry, where he speaks with people from all aspects of games with a strong focus on environment art. 

Sunforge level art for PS5 launch title Godfall. Alex, was responsible for creating extra trim sheets, and authoring new materials to help push the level's aesthetic. 

Environment art created during Alex's time at Counterplay Games for the Godfall Fire & Darkness expansion.

As part of the Primal update, Alex worked on the boss room variants for the Tower Of Trials, including a base room and four variants.

To learn more about Alex, head to his website.

Additional resources about this career:

• World building: the role of a 3D environment artist
• How to create a scene in Unreal Engine — a step-by-step guide
• Environment artist career pathway