Soma Games LLC is an indie video game developer located in Newberg, Oregon. We believe video games can be far more than time-wasters. Video games hold the potential to showcase beauty, reward adventure and excellence, and challenge thinking. Our goal is to passionately and dutifully craft the games that elevate humanity rather than waste it.
ERIN MARANTETTE
Erin Marantette is currently the Art Director for our Lost Legends of Redwall™ project, the multi-game project that’s had our studio’s primary focus for nearly four years. However, her relationship with Soma Games started in 2011 with a summer internship, and she came on to the team full time in 2014 after graduating with her bachelor’s in studio art from George Fox University.
Her niches are character development and concepts, and art direction. She enjoys practicing leadership combined with art, “I love being able to nurture other people in their strengths and being able to give them opportunities to grow,” Marantette said. She explains her love of character development as an outpouring of the family in which she grew up. Several of her family members are psychologists, and creating characters gives her the opportunity to “add little cues that hint at their psychology.” For example, “I like to ask questions like, ‘why does this person dress the way they dress?’”
One of her recent favorite character concepts was a coming-of-age mouse for Lost Legends of Redwall™. The mouse character was at the awkward stage most humans experience in middle school. Erin’s mission was to explore what that time of life might look like on a Redwall character, primarily in the character’s attire — little things that may be consciously unnoticed by players, but interpreted subconsciously to speak to the character’s personality and motivation.
Both personally and professionally, Erin makes an effort to practice mindfulness. In her work, that includes exercising self- and other-awareness to best use her, and her team’s, time. She is particularly careful when mentoring interns who are experiencing the video game development industry for the first time. She usually starts with concepting assignments, which are more creative and less structured, and slowly pushes them to explore the deeper limits of their skill sets to stretch their potential.
Personally, she wants to be remembered as someone “who’s passionate, caring, and prayed first.” For her, this looks like being intentional to reach out to friends and to connect with people, as well as take her faith seriously. Her personal motto also extends to her practice of mindfulness. It started in college as “fake it till you make it,” but for her, it was more about practicing confidence knowing God’s got it under control. “Even if I am not confident, I’m going to trust that God knows what He’s doing. This is what He’s prepared me for.” With this confidence, she is able to move forward without fear.
A few quick facts about Erin:
What’s a goal you have for this year?
“Buying a house”
If you could create a custom ice cream flavor, what would it be?
“Tequila sunrise sorbet”
What have you read recently and enjoyed?
Spider-Man and Avengers fan fiction because, “If I get sucked into a story I can’t put it down.”
Erin invites you to learn more about her on social media:
Art Station Art Portfolio
LinkedIn
Twitter
She’s also featured in this article from Her Magazine.
