Featured student – Nikolas Mösonef
Nikolas Mösonef is an ARC Academy alumnus who came all the way from Germany. He graduated in Concept Art and served as the producer of the game Saviours of Axabras during his final semester, where he demonstrated excellent leadership and creative skills. Today, he mentors at the Academy while working as a game designer and technical artist at Chase A Cloud, contributing to the Zmey Football and Zmeyborn Universe project and continuing to hone his skills and inspire others.
*Chase a Cloud is a creative studio with a team of creators, animators and showrunners, crafting captivating stories for global brands such as LEGO, National Geographic, and Volvo since 2008.
What inspired you to pursue an art career, and what drew you toward the game dev industry?
In short: Creative people inspire me. The nature of our work is collaborative. I love to help evolve and shape ideas over the course of a project – solving problems, building on each other’s work and adding new perspectives and unexpected turns. Nothing is more stimulating for me than having someone creative to bounce ideas off. I believe my best work was and will be created through other people. In game dev specifically, there are many moving parts. Any good game is a carefully curated experience, where many disciplines come together to create something unified. This makes for fascinating and complex questions – to which I love to find answers.
What made you decide to attend ARC Academy?
What caught my attention at ARC was its dedicated Concept Art program and its hands-on approach towards creation. The games the students created made a very good impression on me – even more so now that I’ve been through this process myself. Looking back, I’m really glad I took the leap of faith – I wouldn’t want to miss out on the people and experiences I’ve found here.
Can you share some of the valuable insights you’ve learned during your time at ARC?
It’s actually a quote from one of our teachers, regarding the quality of our game: “It’s the game industry. Always keep pushing.” Most notably, I have learned that progress comes from taking initiative and consistently pushing for more. The lecturers are great and provide valuable feedback, but it’s up to you to keep creating. If you don’t pick up the pen, you won’t grow. In games, we are delivering experiences to players. The quality bar is high, both for products and people – but to me, that makes it worth pursuing.
We’re so happy to have students like Niko – he will always be part of the ARC family. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors and will continue to support him and all our alumni!
