Astrid Castle – Womenize! – Inspiring Stories
Womenize! – Inspiring Stories is our weekly series featuring inspirational individuals from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Astrid Castle, Art Director at Wooga. She speaks about her journey from QA to Art Director on June’s Journey, highlighting how storytelling, leadership, risk-taking, and perseverance have shaped her creative career and current role guiding artistic vision across teams. Read more about Astrid here:
Hi Astrid! You’ve been involved with June’s Journey in several roles over the years, from concept artist to art director. What does a typical day look like for you now, and how do you stay connected to the creative side while leading a team?
Firstly, a big cup of coffee! But yes, I’ve been with the team pretty much from the start, back when it was much smaller in every way, with just 2 stints away from it (first stint was a year of maternity leave with my daughter, and secondly as the Environment Art Lead for another hidden object game Wooga made, Ghost Detective) before returning again, this time as the Environment Art Lead there. As an art lead, I was very involved with providing feedback to the awesome environment artists, and even occasionally making a concept if necessary – but mostly over painting and looking after the large team with my then co-lead.
As an Art Director though, I’m not as hands on as such, but my days now involve being more aware of what is happening in each department with art (environment, character, isometry, sometimes UI) and having a nice overview – we all work quite far in advance of what goes live, and looking into the theming of the game each month.
Honestly, seeing each of the team’s work keeps me super motivated though! I still provide over paints where I can, and provide verbal feedback, aligning with the leads too. I’m also helping to push new tooling for the artists, and trying it out myself too.
But other than that, my day also involves talking a lot to various team members (not just in art) and drinking probably more coffee than I should!
Your career started in QA and evolved through storyboarding, concept art, and now into art direction. Looking back, what were some key moments or decisions that helped shape your path?
Ooo, great question! So many key points to be honest. So back in ye olde days of 2005, the quickest way to get into the games industry was via QA, so despite wishing to be an artist in games, I knew QA was a foot in the door so to speak. QA wasn’t the area I wished to be in, but I knew it would hopefully lead into other areas – which it did. 🙂 The experience I got at EA in QA allowed me to be hired for a job overseas in Germany, also in QA but with the idea to move on into the art department. It was tough though, as the artists there were incredibly talented, but I learnt so much from them. But actually – the decision to leave behind my family, friends and home in London was such a pivotal thing – if I hadn’t made this tough choice, I honestly don’t think I’d be where I am today. It was uncomfortable and difficult moving to a country where I didn’t speak the language, but I had such ambition and drive to work in art within games.
It wasn’t all roses though – The industry was a different place back then and I had to deal with a lot of negativity, from how I should “just focus on art as a hobby”, to “it’ll be time to settle down and have babies soon” to use but two actual examples.
Rather than let it get to me, it fuelled my determination and my resolve to prove them all wrong. Which I eventually did! Negative comments like that can drag you down, and are completely unacceptable (not to mention unprofessional), but they can also push you to go further, and not to give up.
I was also pushed into learning how to do environment art (I’d been doing storyboards previously) and wow was I so intimidated by environments! I do wish ‘past-me’ could be told I’d be leading a team of Environment artists one day; I’d have laughed and subsequently panicked 😉 Again this was a pivotal moment, as I realised I actually rather enjoyed making them, and loved adding in all sort of story telling which I’d previously done in storyboards.
Again, another move (this time from Frankfurt to Berlin within Germany) was a key moment – to join Wooga, where I’ve now been for 12.5 years. 🙂 I’ve found that taking these big risks and leaping out of my comfort zone is when the magic happens. (mostly ;)) And eventually taking on a more leadership and managerial role at Wooga was the next big step and challenge – I was very much enjoying being a hands on artist, but the challenge of leading a team was one I couldn’t turn down.
You describe yourself as an artist who loves to tell stories. What role does storytelling play in your work today, especially when guiding the visual direction of a game like June’s Journey?
It’s integral to all of the art we make here at Wooga on June’s Journey 🙂 We work closely with the narrative department, and even the ISO team who don’t work quite as closely – the small little scenes they make are bursting with character and storytelling. I help to ensure that the artists maintain story telling in their work – whether it’s the environments, character or ISO. Thankfully guiding the artists in this sense isn’t difficult at all – they all have an inbuilt sense for storytelling, and it shows in their gorgeous work. 🙂
I continue to tell stories both in and out of work – I have a 6 year old daughter and we invent all sorts of stories. Stories about princesses, hedgehogs, farts and other wonderful things – tough to beat the wild mind of a child in storytelling 😀