AAA / AA Games | Franchise & Project Leadership | Team Building & Scalable Pipelines
leifestes@gmail.com | 650-619-9759
SUMMARY
I’m a Senior Art Director with 20+ years of experience helping teams create visually strong and distinctive games. I’ve contributed to some amazing projects at industry-leading studios including Electronic Arts, Telltale Games, Crystal Dynamics, THQ, and most recently with Paramount Skydance.
I’ve had the opportunity to work across a wide range of well-known franchises and platforms, driving the art vision, leading development teams, managing executive relationships, and aligning IP holders with their brand expectations.
At the core of my approach is creating an environment where teams feel inspired to do their best work. This starts with providing clear artistic vision and strong creative alignment, and is reinforced by building genuine relationships across all levels of the organization.
EXPERIENCE
Paramount / Skydance Interactive — Art Director
2022–2026 | Santa Monica, CA
Led art direction across multiple AAA game projects, including established franchises and original IP, with responsibility spanning internal teams, external co-development partners, schedules, staffing, budgets, and milestone delivery. Managed a multidisciplinary art organization of roughly 30 people, including leads, art production, and partner teams. Oversaw visual quality, team performance, workflow improvements, and execution across environments, characters, lighting, VFX, UI, animation and concept. I also worked closely with executive leadership and IP holders to align creative ambition with practical scope.
Cold Iron Studios — Principal Artist
2018–2022 | San Jose, CA
Played a key role in shipping Aliens: Fireteam Elite, leading look development, lighting, post-process workflows, optimization, and final polish in Unreal Engine. Provided senior-level creative direction and mentorship while maintaining cross-discipline collaboration.
Telltale Games — Art Director / Studio Lighting Director
2011–2018 | San Rafael, CA
Held senior art leadership roles across multiple franchise titles, contributing to critically acclaimed releases including The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, and Batman: The Telltale Series. Provided art direction on The Walking Dead during its award-winning breakout era, helping define visual tone, environment quality, and overall presentation. Later led studio-wide lighting direction across four simultaneous projects, combining team leadership with hands-on involvement in final polish, visual consistency, and pipeline improvements.
THQ — Lead Artist
2008–2011 | Brisbane, Australia
Led art team execution across multiple licensed titles, including Marvel’s Avengers, DreamWorks’ Megamind, and contributions to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, overseeing workflows, schedules, and visual quality from early development through final delivery. Managed collaboration with licensors, outsource partners, and internal teams while contributing directly to lighting, VFX, polish, and production problem solving.
Crystal Dynamics — Senior Lighting Artist
2006–2008 | Redwood City, CA
Contributed to next-generation lighting and materials pipelines for the Tomb Raider franchise, partnering with artists and engineers on tools, workflows, and overall visual quality. Helped bridge artistic goals and technical constraints during a transitional period in real-time rendering. Worked closely with art leadership to integrate assets across disciplines while maintaining performance and visual consistency.
Electronic Arts — Lighting & Materials Artist
2001–2006 | Redwood City, CA
Worked on major licensed franchises including The Lord of the Rings, James Bond, and The Godfather, contributing to lighting, materials, cinematics, and final polish across multiple platforms. Early work included blending film assets with real-time environments and helping push visual quality within technical constraints of the PS2 era. Collaborated with senior artists and art directors to deliver high-quality visuals under aggressive production timelines.
Education
SAE Expression College for Digital Arts
Associate of Science | Digital Visual Media
While attending SAE Expression College I was educated in a wide variety of digital visual media formats including film, television, web, and interactive mediums. It was an excellent experience to become familiar with the tools and workflows of creative individuals across many industries before finally focusing on 3D art development and eventually lighting and rendering for games and film.