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AD 197 | Lorne Lanning x Justin Daashuur Hopkins
“Oddworld: Soulstorm”




Lorne Lanning is an American game designer, director, writer, and voice actor. He is co-founder and creator of Oddworld Inhabitants. He is best known for creating the Oddworld series including the games Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, and Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty. The next Oddworld game titled Oddworld: Soulstorm will be released on April 6, 2021.

Initially studying photo-realism and commercial illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, Lanning soon attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, where he graduated with a BFA in Character Animation.

Working as a Technical Director at TRW, Lanning later moved to Rhythm & Hues Studios in Hollywood, where he would later meet producer Sherry McKenna, who helped co-found Oddworld Inhabitants.


Show Notes:
  • Lorne’s journey from fine art into developing video games
  • The change of perception within art
  • Perceiving the value of art
  • Art as a form of commerce“Fragility of the perishable”
  • The dark side of globalization
  • Lorne’s passion for environmentalism
  • The genesis of emerging technology in the late 80s
  • The power of visualization and how to sell big ideas
  • Making your own luck
  • Lorne working for a military defense company
  • Marketing yourself as an artist
  • Following an intuitive pursuit
  • Staying hungry within your craft
  • Understanding “what your audience is eating”
  • Being a talent vs. being a creator
  • Finding business opportunities
  • Video games
  • Artists’s unique perception and ability to express that
  • The symbiosis of engineering and art 
  • Compromising with a team while making a video game
  • Understanding various subjects and adjacent industries
  • Empathy within video games
  • Game speakThe impact of George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” on Lorne’s storytelling process“
  • Lo-brow access points to high art.” 
  • Emulating the player interacting with real-world objects. 
  • Self-publishing
  • Oddworld’s latest release, “Soulstorm” 
  • The depth of character creation, controls, and tone of the story 
  • The new generation of gaming technology 
  • Systems of monetization within emerging technologies

Official Oddworld Instagram

Posted 4.5.2021


About

"I started this series as a means for exploration, an exploration of self, and an exploration of the perspectives of other artists.

This series is an unabridged documentation of conversations between artists. It’s a series dedicated to breaking down the barriers we tend to set up in our own minds. I want to inspire future creatives to have the courage to explore and experiment. This is about making dreams a reality and not about letting our dreams fall to the wayside.

My intention is to give my audience a sense of real human connection, something that feels rich and organic.

When I was thinking of a title I thought of the word “movement”.

In relation to the Renaissance period in art, my goal for this program is to signify a rebirth of consciousness towards the way we look at contemporary art."

- Yoshino
Contact

info@artistdecoded.com