Trent Kaniuga is the owner of Aquatic Moon, a boutique Atelier/Art House providing contract art services for industry leading video games. With his team, he creates an excellent illustration and concept art for the worlds leading AAA software. They also develop their own IPs and are always looking for new opportunities to bring them to market.
Over the past 12 years, Trent has been a key contributing character and environment concept designer on World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, and League of Legends. Before that, he created comic books from Indies such as CreeD, and The Fuzz, to penciling Marvel projects like Ghost Rider.
In his free time, Trent is developing his own universe called Twilight Monk.
Get in touch with Trent
- Website: aquatic-moon.com
- Gumroad: trentk (The World of Twilight Monk)
- Facebook: trent.kaniuga
- Art Station: trentkaniuga
Key Takeaways
“If you gonna do an interview on Art Side of Life, then do an interview on Art Side of Life with some freaking passion, maaan!, yeaaaah!”
- The collapse of Comic book industry in late 90s taught him to diversify dramatically so he never has a day he is unemployable. Art is just one of the things he does …
- He tries to do the best work for anybody with whom he works and this spreads by word of mouth – his studio is professional, always on time …
- His advice for young artists – get a job at any studio – indie, mobile, any studio where you can do the role you are passionate about – that will help you to develop and do the next thing …
- He learned at a very young age to prepare for ‘winter’ – he lives very frugal and minimalist lifestyle
Resources mentioned
Note: some of the resources below may be affiliate links, meaning I get paid a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use that link to make a purchase.
- Conferences
- Book(s):
- Michael A. Singer: The Untethered Soul – it’s about letting go, not trying to have expectations for what the future holds …
- Books by Robert McKee – most sought after screenwriting teacher in the world
- Books by Blake Snyder – the author of ‘Save the Cat’
- Books by Alan W. Watts – interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience
- Game(s): Final Fantasy by Akihiko Yoshida
- The Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art
- Tools:
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Special thanks to Trent for joining me today. See you next time!
All artworks by Trent Kaniuga, used with permission
Trent is the man! Yeeeeah 🙂 Seriously … I really admire his humble nature … despite his success … I want to have my own studio one day and it’s gonna happen!
<3 This guy. Work is awesome. Attitude is awesome. Practical approach to his craft is awesome. I'd love to work with Trent at some point. He's grounded and realistic.
Totally agree! Trent’s work and story are really impressive!