Montreal artist Léo Chiola on drawing for Marvel, Fortnite and Borderlands

Borderlands. Marvel Snap. Fortnite. Transformers.

These are just some of the massively popular franchises that French-born, Montreal-based comic book artist, illustrator and video game concept artist Léo Chiola has worked on. He’s currently working as a storyboard artist at Gearbox Studio Montreal on the highly-anticipated Borderlands 4. It all certainly makes for an impressive portfolio, and it’s one that he was recently able to show off at Toronto Comicon. At the show, MobileSyrup sat down with Chiola to learn more about this multi-disciplinary work.

You’re from France originally. What brought you to Canada?

Léo Chiola: I was hired by an animation company at the time to work for them, so they got me a visa.

How have you been liking it here?

Chiola: I love it. No, it’s great. What I’m usually saying is that it has all the good stuff from the U.S. and the Europe stuff, but not the best from the both countries. [laughs] It’s fun. I love it.

One of the projects that you worked on was Marvel Snap and I know you designed some alternate cards for characters like Rocket Raccoon and Hulk. So I’m curious: when you design an alternate costume, are Marvel and [developer] Second Dinner coming to you and saying, ‘This is the outline for what we want?’ Or are you kind of given more free rein? How does that collaboration work?

Chiola: For example, for [Rocket] Raccoon and the Hulk and stuff, it was a collaboration with Marvel Rivals. So they didn’t have much to show, because it was very secret. So they just had the screenshot of the trailer that was released. So they gave me that, and I had to do something from that. Same for [Dr.] Doom — it was just literally a screenshot from the game, and I didn’t have even the full body. So I had to guess a bit and work around that.

So in a situation like that, do you like go back and look at other designs for inspiration? How do you get the artistic process going for that?

Chiola: It depends. I try not to [look at other designs] so I’m not influenced by someone else. Because sometimes when you check a good image, you’re gonna be obsessed with it. But sometimes, when I cannot get around the character, I check what other people did.

For Fortnite, I know you did some of the loading screens for that. How does that process work? That’s a game that’s so massive with so many different characters, both original and licensed. Does [developer Epic Games] come to you and just say, ‘We want you to [tackle] these specific sort of designs? How does that work?

Chiola: So they have a big brief, like a PDF, that they give me with all the detail I need from the upcoming seasons. So they gave me all the character designs, all the props, sometimes the backgrounds. Sometimes, as I’m working on it, they’re still figuring out what it’s gonna look like in the game, so I need to adjust if they change something on their side. But yeah, it’s great. And usually, in the time I had with them, they gave me all the characters of the season, and they let me choose like three of them or you need to make one up here, and then you can choose. Or sometimes they give me a situation, like, ‘This guy needs to blow up a bank,’ and I need to work around that.

I know that you can’t really talk about Borderlands 4 specifically, so don’t worry. I’m not going to pry on that. But in general, when you’re working as a storyboard artist on a game like that — for people who might not know, what does that process look like for you? In this case, when you’re approaching the world of Pandora?

Chiola: So for Borderlands, it’s a bit different, because I didn’t do so much work on it. So I will take more the example of other projects. I cannot talk about Gearbox. But usually what I’m doing is like, I work with the cinematics team, and I need to draw the scenes before they’re gonna shoot them in motion capture. So I need to have my camera right. And basically, it’s like working on a movie, because they’re gonna shoot after, so I’m drawing before they shoot motion capture.

Working on all these beloved franchises, whether it’s Borderlands or Marvel or Fortnite, what’s your favourite part of getting to be in these big sandboxes, as an artist?

Chiola: It’s when you have freedom to actually do a retake of the design. My favourite, I would say, is to work on Marvel. I’ve been a fan of Marvel since I was a kid. So working on those characters — I always have my version in mind, so it’s really enjoyable working on those.

Do you have a favourite Marvel character in particular?

Chiola: Yeah, Spider-Man. Not very original, but yeah. [laughs]

Can’t go wrong with that! So, I’m very passionate about covering the Canadian video game space. And something that I think is interesting is there’s so many games that are made in Canada, either wholly made in Canada, or in the case of something like Borderlands, you have a support team here working on a game that’s being made in America. And there’s a lot of situations like that as well. A lot of people don’t really know about that sort of thing, even though there’s so many games that are made here. People know that Gearbox makes Borderlands, but they might not necessarily know that there’s a Quebec studio that’s helping with it. So from your perspective, what do you think we can maybe do to better promote the fact that there are so many games being made here?

Chiola: I think we need to make good games in Canada and then people are gonna notice that Canadian studios are all doing great [work]. But I think it’s already starting, that people notice, like Eidos or even Gearbox. They have a big studio in Quebec [City] and in Montreal. I mean, can we say that Gearbox is also a Canadian studio? So, it’s mostly [making] good games and then people are gonna notice.

You’ve worked on different mediums and different properties. What is it about working on games, specifically, that is maybe unique compared to other mediums, and maybe the things that are more challenging about it or exciting about it — what makes it different?

Chiola: So I would say that what is exciting also is that you work on a team in comparison to other mediums. You work with other people, and you need to communicate, like with the 3D department, with the story department. You need to communicate with everybody in the company, and that’s the part I like. But I feel you have more restrictions than in other mediums — like they really need you. I don’t think you can express yourself artistically as much as in comics, for example.

Borderlands 4. (Image credit: Gearbox)

But another good aspect, to be honest, is the money in video games. It’s much higher than in other mediums. And as you feel comfortable with the money, you feel comfortable in creating. So it’s one of the parts of the video games that is
very nice.

When you get to come to conventions like Toronto Comic Con, what are the most special things about that for you? Why is it such a meaningful thing for you to get to come to these events?

Chiola: This is my first Toronto Comicon. I was expecting to meet artists, to meet fans. To be totally honest, I didn’t know what to expect. When I went to New York Comic-Con, I was a visitor, not a guest. And what I wanted to see was the artists working and see the originals and stuff like that. So I’m expecting that the people here are doing the same, maybe with me. So that’s nice.

Having worked on Marvel and Fortnite and Borderlands and all these properties, is there one other property that you haven’t gotten to work on yet that you would like to manifest — a dream thing to work on, whether it’s a movie or a TV show or a game?

Chiola: Yeah, definitely. I still want to do comics for Marvel, like interior pages. It’s one of my goals since I started drawing. I want to do interiors for Marvel. And my ultimate goal would be to draw Spider-Man as an interior artist. That’s my dream job.

We’ll manifest it here.

Chiola: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. Marvel, if you hear me!

This interview was edited for language and clarity.

Image credit: Léo Chiola