06.11.2025 – Guest Speaker Rhys Shepherd
Rhys’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhys-shepherd-988a40150/
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In week 6, we had the opportunity to talk to Rhys Shepherd – a technical artist with an impressive portfolio. From a QA tester, through working on Fall Guys in Mediatonic, to finally becoming a part of an AAA game in a massive company, Rhys had the chance to gain expertise in various roles in many different work environments.
Our guest speaker began by presenting his final major project from year 3, Hacker Ball! He graduated from the game design course at Winchester School of Art in 2018 and described this course as perfect preparation for becoming a tech artist or gaining experience similar to one in an indie studio.
After graduating, Rhys became a QA tester for gambling games, which was a great way to break into the industry. Later, he managed to get his first “proper” job as a junior programmer at 22 Cans Studio. It allowed him to gain real industry experience in creating games and significantly expand his social network. However, it also proved to be very challenging and Rhys left after 3 months. A fragment of advice we received from that was to never get discouraged if you burn your first shot. Simply add that experience to your CV and keep moving forward.
His second job as an artist and designer began in a very small studio, Erase All Kittens, which consisted of three people including himself. The role was focused on making art, a very different area than what he had worked with earlier. Nonetheless, it was a good opportunity to expand his skillset.
Subsequently, he got a job as a junior tech artist at a massive studio with over 300 employees – Mediatonic. It was his first role as a technical artist. Rhys explained that his tasks there included working on UI and a bit of tooling, which I learned was extending the functionality of game engines.
Soon after, Epic Games took Mediatonic over. Firstly, he worked as a tech artist for Fall Guys and later for Fortnite. The experience of working in AAA studios turned out to be a lot different, with both its advantages and disadvantages. While Rhys got to learn a completely new engine, any suggestions he might have had regarding any aspect of the design did not hold as much impact as they might have in a smaller indie studio.
What I found particularly useful was learning what kind of questions or tasks I might expect during the interviews, for example “How would you design this game element differently?”. During the Q&A, it was also interesting to hear about what aspects make one stand out from other candidates. Rhys shared that he reached out to the CEOs first and talked to them, and that is probably a factor that increased his chances of employability. It is yet another guest who put an emphasis on the importance of networking in the game design industry, and this might be one of, if not the most important part of it so far.
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