Meet the Instructors

Alex Beddows is an Expert Environment Artist at That's No Moon with over a decade of experience across the game industry, from mobile to AAA. He has led teams as Lead and Principal Environment Artist at outsource studios on titles such as Returnal and Scavengers, released Godfall on PS5 in-house at Counterplay Games, and worked on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor at Respawn Entertainment. Alex is also known in the community as a former host of the ArtStation Podcast.

Andreas Ezelius is a 3D / hard-surface artist at TTK Games in Stockholm, Sweden, specializing in vehicle and hard-surface design and modeling. He has worked in games since 2007 at studios including EA DICE and River End Games, on titles such as Mirror's Edge, Battlefield, Need for Speed, and Star Wars Battlefront. Outside work he enjoys building cars and photography.

Ben Wilson is a Senior Technical / Material Artist, currently at NVIDIA in Stockholm and previously at Epic Games, Ubisoft Massive, and MachineGames. He has contributed to AAA titles including Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Doom Eternal, Tom Clancy's The Division, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. A longtime Substance Designer specialist, Ben builds robust in-Designer tools that extend into the Python API for plugin creation (author of the BW Tools plugin), collaborated on the Substance Source Signature series, and shares his workflow through tutorials, talks, and mentorships.

Bogodar is an Environment Artist from Ukraine, currently Principal Foliage Artist at GSC Game World, where he created vegetation and foliage for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl. He specializes in foliage creation and is well known in the Substance Designer community for his attention to detail and hyper-realistic vegetation projects. Bogodar's procedural workflow has been featured in Substance and 80 Level.

Bohdan Bilous is a Senior Material Artist at Arrowhead Game Studios in Stockholm, having previously served as Lead and Principal 3D Environment Artist at Wargaming in the UK. He specializes in props, environment assets, and textures, with Substance Designer as his favorite tool for procedural materials, and has worked on titles including Cooking Simulator, Plane Mechanic Simulator, and Europa Universalis.

Carlos Perfume is a Senior Environment Artist at Thekla, Inc. in Seattle - the studio behind The Witness and Braid - specializing in environment modeling and level design. His procedural and hand-crafted environment work includes the Substance Designer "Dome of Cologne" project shared on Level Up.

Casper Wermuth is an Art Director at Shapefarm in Copenhagen, where he previously worked as Lead Artist. Before that he was Senior Lead Environment Artist at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, leading the environment art team on The Settlers. He specializes in environment art direction and asset creation.

Cem Tezcan is a freelance technical designer based in Ankara, Turkey. Despite holding a master's degree in Statistics, he focuses on hard-surface CAD modeling, generative modeling, and procedural texture design with the Substance toolset. He is well known for environment and product-based work with a strong emphasis on realism, manufacturing detail, and photographic feel.

Daniel Castillo is an environment artist from Spain who specializes in realistic props and environments for games and is best known for his rock sculpts. He has worked at MachineGames and MercurySteam, and is currently a Senior 3D Artist at elite3d in Valencia.

With roughly two decades of experience in the games industry — including specialist roles at DICE and Bungie — Daniel specializes in material, texture, and procedural asset creation. Now a full-time freelancer, he collaborates with top studios including Adobe, Blizzard, Epic, Ubisoft, and Valve. He is passionate about anything procedural and spends most of his spare time experimenting in Substance Designer. He collaborated with Allegorithmic on their Signature Series and spoke at GDC 2018, and his workflow has been featured by 3D Artist, 80lvl, Adobe/Substance, and Marmoset Toolbag.

Dannie Carlone is a Senior Staff Environment Artist at Santa Monica Studio. He has worked at studios including Vigil Games and Crystal Dynamics, and his work can be seen in the *God of War* series (including *God of War Ragnarök* and its *Valhalla* DLC) and the *Tomb Raider* franchise.

Derk Elshof is a Senior Material Artist at NVIDIA in Malmö. He got his start as a 2D/3D artist in motion graphics and VFX, then found his passion for material creation in Substance Designer while studying 3D animation. After freelancing for Dekogon and a period at Massive Entertainment (a Ubisoft studio), he moved to NVIDIA, where his work includes materials for Half-Life 2 RTX, Portal RTX, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. His breakdowns and methodology can be found on Experience Points and 80lvl.

Dmytro Bajda is a self-taught digital sculptor who moved into 3D in 2017 after a decade working as an architect, a background that sharpened his drawing and form skills. He specializes in ZBrush character work, and his clients include Epic Games along with a range of mobile and outsourcing studios. Much of his output centers on collectibles and 3D-printable statuettes. You can follow his work on ArtStation at demonu4.

Enrico Tammekänd is a material and environment artist from Estonia, currently a Senior Material Artist at CD Projekt Red working on The Witcher 4. Self-taught over roughly a decade, he specializes in creating materials and textures procedurally in Substance Designer, alongside photogrammetry, sculpting, and modeling. His past work spans studios and clients such as Counterplay Games (Godfall), Ubisoft, Dekogon, and Adobe Substance, and he teaches through ArtStation Learning. He also founded his own indie studio, Enthelity, with the hope of one day developing his own IP.

Eric Lautard (aka "Janine") is a VFX and material artist from France with nearly two decades in the CG industry, spanning 3D web real-time work and CG supervision on films such as Sherlock Gnomes and Santa & Cie, with client work for Peugeot, Cartier, Nissan, and Louis Vuitton. In 2018 he joined the Adobe/Allegorithmic Substance team, where he has produced many of the materials in the Substance Source library across Automotive, Skin, Creatures, Architecture, and Fashion. Since placing 3rd in Allegorithmic's 2016 contest with his very first material, he has never left Designer, and continues exploring new workflows with meticulous attention to detail. Follow him at artstation.com/eric-lautard.

Eric Wiley is a Principal Material Artist at Blizzard Entertainment in Irvine, California, with over ten years of experience specializing in environment art and material creation. He is well known in the community for pushing the limits of what can be achieved inside Substance Designer, and his work has been featured in 3D Artist. His credits include Diablo 4 — where he helped develop the look of many of the game's biomes — along with Guild Wars 2, Gigantic, Skylander SuperChargers, and Destiny 1 & 2.

Jakub Kowalczyk is a Senior Concept Artist at Ripple Effect Studios (an EA studio), with around a decade in the games industry and prior time at EA DICE. He is an expert in atmosphere, architecture, and environments, and is especially known for pushing VR into the concept pipeline — his workflow blends Gravity Sketch, ZBrush, KeyShot, and Photoshop. He loves experimenting with 3D tools to solve common problems in fresh ways, and has collaborated with Gravity Sketch's development team to help improve the software. His concept work includes Battlefield 2042.

Jan Trubač is a freelance VFX and procedural artist from the Czech Republic, best known for winning the Substance Designer "Insanity" award in 2019 with his acclaimed City project. With a background in computer graphics and image processing, he specializes in texture and material creation and is passionate about real-time graphics, procedural tools, and non-destructive workflows. He works primarily in Substance Designer, Houdini, and Unreal Engine. See more at https://www.artstation.com/jantru.

Khayyam Naghiyev is a material artist at KRAFTON Inc. in Amsterdam, specializing in procedural material creation, environment art, and asset creation. He previously worked as a material artist at Ubisoft Ivory Tower in Lyon, France. His detailed Substance Designer material studies are regularly featured on ArtStation (https://www.artstation.com/kn96).

Lee Borrer is a 3D artist based in Brighton, England, with over a decade of industry experience spanning military mixed-reality simulators to casual mobile racing games, and a client list including Channel 4, Hasbro, and Atari. He now works as a Senior Material Artist at Media Molecule, following time at Sharkmob. He is passionate about every aspect of texturing and specializes in material creation with Substance Designer. See his work at https://www.artstation.com/meser.

Lennard Claussen is a self-employed, freelance Expert 3D Designer specializing in hard-surface and cinematic asset creation. His recent work includes cinematics through Blur Studio - Amazon Prime's Secret Level and the Gears of War: E-Day announce trailer. On Level Up he teaches Futuristic Weapon Creation and Modeling & Texturing a Mechanical Dog.

Max Kutsenko is a material artist from Estonia working at Ubisoft in Barcelona. An expert in Substance Designer, Substance Painter, and Houdini, he creates highly realistic procedural materials, several of which are featured on CG content libraries such as textures.com and gametextures.com, with additional work featured on 80.lv. See more at https://www.artstation.com/maxkutsenko.

Maxime Guyard-Morin is a material artist from France and a Senior Technical Material Artist at Mighty Canvas, where he specializes in material creation, environment art, and 3D modeling. His work ranges from fully procedural texturing to hand-painted detail, and he builds and shares his own tools, including a 3ds Max script and Substance Designer generators. He also teaches. See more at https://www.artstation.com/nova__12.

Maximilien is a Senior Technical Artist for Substance 3D Assets at Adobe, based in Paris, France. He discovered his passion for 3D at the end of his Fine Art studies and taught himself through personal experimentation and tutorials, developing a distinct procedural style. A big fan of non-destructive workflows, many of his projects feature generators that produce infinite variations, and his materials appear in Adobe's Substance 3D Assets library.

No change needed. Patrick's career began at Crytek (Crysis 3, Ryse: Son of Rome). In 2015 he joined DICE in Stockholm on Star Wars: Battlefront, then moved back to Germany to work on Star Citizen at Cloud Imperium Games, where he is a Senior Environment Artist building procedural content like planets, caves, and materials. He specializes in natural environments including foliage and shares his knowledge on platforms like 80.lv and 3D Artist Magazine.

Pauline Boiteux is a material artist at Funcom ZPX in Bron, France, specializing in innovative, pattern-driven textile materials. Her "Weaves of the World" collection for Adobe Substance 3D recreates traditional weave structures from around the globe, and she has previously created materials for clients including Louis Vuitton. With a background in lighting and texturing, she began working in Substance Designer in 2017 and has taught introductory courses at schools in Paris, France.

Phil is a Senior 3D / Material Artist with over a decade in the video game industry, currently at Firewalk Studios. He has worked at AAA studios including 343 Industries, ArenaNet, Monolith Productions (WB Games), and Valkyrie Entertainment, contributing to titles such as Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Guild Wars 2, Halo 5, God of War Ragnarök, and Hogwarts Legacy. Primarily an environment artist, he also has professional experience in weapon, vehicle, and creature creation, and is passionate about fantasy and sci-fi art in his spare time.

QiYu Dai (aka Aiden) is a Principal Texture Artist who has worked at Ubisoft Montréal for around eight years. He has contributed to titles such as Rainbow Six Siege and For Honor, and began working with Substance Designer in 2015. He trains artists in Substance and the PBR workflow for texture creation.

Romain Lemaire is a French 3D / material artist, currently a Senior Material Artist at Omeda Studios. He previously worked as the sole material artist on Helldivers 2 biome environments at Arrowhead Game Studios, and has taken on projects across games, film, and architecture for clients such as Lacoste, Dekogon, and Decathlon. He also shares his knowledge as an instructor in France (e-artsup, Lille) and offers professional training in Substance.

Rosa Lee is a Lead Character Artist at Riot Games, where she creates agents for VALORANT. Over her career she has worked at studios including ArenaNet, Bungie, and 343 Industries, contributing to titles such as Guild Wars 2, Destiny, and Halo, and has freelanced on games including Darksiders 3, Borderlands 3, and Remnant. She is known for high-fidelity, stylized character work.

Sabrina Echouafni is a Senior 3D Environment Artist at Scopely. She has contributed to acclaimed titles including God of War Ragnarök (Valkyrie Entertainment), Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Insomniac Games), and VALORANT (Riot Games), with earlier experience at Warner Bros. Animation. She enjoys sharing her workflow and mentoring new artists and students (via @SEchouafni).

Simon Barle is a Lead Vegetation Artist at Quixel (Epic Games) in Stockholm, with over a decade of experience in game vegetation and environment art. He previously worked at EA DICE on Star Wars Battlefront and several entries in the Battlefield series, and later at Ubisoft. Passionate about grounding game worlds through believable foliage, he combines techniques and technologies to achieve high-quality results, and his work has been featured in 3D Artist Magazine and 80 lvl.

Vincent Dérozier is a Principal/Lead Material Artist at Ubisoft Québec, specializing in architectural and environment material creation. Trained in France as a Conceptor Draftman, he began at Ubisoft Annecy around 2010 and moved to Canada, contributing to Assassin's Creed Syndicate, For Honor, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Gods & Monsters / Immortals Fenyx Rising, and Assassin's Creed Shadows. On Odyssey he owned architectural materials — building benchmarks, giving artistic presentations, and training outsourcing partners. A GDC 2019 speaker, his work has been featured in 3D Artist, 80lvl, and Substance Academy.

Wang Shuchang is a Material Artist from Shanghai, working at Tencent. He specializes in making material shaders and developing material libraries. His work includes production design for films and games.

Zhelong Xu (徐振龙) is a world-renowned digital artist and Principal Digital Artist at NVIDIA, and co-founder of Shanghai MagicStone Images. Born in Jingdezhen — China's famed "porcelain town" — his work is deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture, with dragons a recurring and instantly recognizable motif. He created the splash-screen artwork for Substance 3D Painter (2017), won ZBrush's Sculpt of the Year (2018), and his work was collected in the 2019 book "Yechawood: The Art of Zhelong Xu." Recent credits include Black Myth: Wukong, Love, Death & Robots, and Ne Zha 2.