View of city from apartment
woman looking out at cityscape

Go with the Flow

Name
Samuel Otto Mathiesen
Education degree
Kandidat
Fagfelt
Design
Institute
Design and Visual Interaction
Program
Visual Game and Media Design
Year
2025

‘Go with the Flow’ is a short animation project, exploring how smaller creators can create visual media with fewer resources than traditional studios, through efficient modern workflows and clever planning. The goal was to create a short appealing audio-visual experience in the form of an animation, with limited storytelling told primarily through the environment. 

Originally created based on an older idea I had centered around a young woman who gets caught up in a global arms race to develop the first sentient machine intelligence, this project instead took on a much more limited framework: Here the daily journey from home to work and back is depicted, with all the monotony and repetition that it brings. And in the background the city PRISM - a corporate city state built on the ashes of a fallen nation state - is alive and bustling. But underneath it all something is waking from its slumber... 

The animation was almost entirely produced in Blender, with Zbrush used for character art, Photoshop for image creation and some painting, and Premiere Pro for final editing. It demonstrates the power of working efficiently within one program - and how even small or solo creators can do more than you might expect.  

About me:

I'm a detail oriented 3D artist who's touched every part of the pipeline, from character & environment art, game production and now animation. As long as I get to create worlds in 3D, I'm in a good place - and I want to create worlds that people get lost in. 

Sounds of PRISM

Watch the full animation here

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The City

The art style for the environment centered around visible paint brushstrokes, and made use of custom materials and compositing tricks to achieve this look.

View of city from apartment
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Hand on phone on nightstand
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Woman walking down stairs
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Woman walking towards train station
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Woman looking up at massive skyscraper
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Extreme close up of eye
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People on train at night
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woman looking out at cityscape
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Environment Breakdown

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The Character

Painting normal maps with a brushstroke-like pattern was the basis for the style of the animation and was originally developed for the character. The colour palette also played a large role in the project, and here the main character Juliana is unique in having several high-contrast colours in close proximity, helping the character stand out from the rest of the world. 

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Character Breakdown

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Turnaround of character
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Character Sculpting
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CV

With an educational background in visual design in general, I have a wide repertoire of design skills to use in my work as a 3D Artist. My work is often high fidelity and hard-surface but have branched out in other areas too, most recently with the game project ’End Transmission?’ and consider myself a generalist.
I work well both independently or as part of a larger team’s process, and am good at adapting to new workflows and projects.

Education & Relevant Courses
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Masters in Visual Game & Media Design

Focus: Refining my artistic skills in 3D, leadership and management within creative fields as Art Director on two projects: “Waterwalk,” displayed at DAC from September 2024 to March 2025.“End Transmission” - a DADIU student game which was released on Steam.
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Bachelor in Game & Interaction Design

Focus: Case-based project work, 3D Graphics (modelling, texturing etc.), general design work, work with diverse target groups, 2D
Result: Experience in a large range of areas within game design a strong technical background in 3D graphics and visual design.
Professional Work Experience
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Art Director - DADIU

• DADIU is a cross-disciplinary semester for game development in teams of 15 in Denmark.
• As Art Director I was responsible for defining and producing the visuals of the game, as well as leading three artists within the team.

Result: Gave me knowledge of carrying a game from idea to product from a visual point of view, as well as leadership skills within game art. The final project - ‘End Transmission?’ - can be found on Steam.
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3D Artist / Intern - Bolverk Games

• Worked on a range of different types of 3D models for the VR game ’Genotype,’ with a focus on optimization for the Oculus-platform.'
• After the Internship I did contract work until the end of the project.

Result: Contributed consistently as part of the team to the development of the game and became used to routine work with deadlines.
IT skills
Blender
Substance Painter
Zbrush
Unreal Engine
Unity
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Maya
Microsoft Office
Language skills
Dansk
English