About

Thiago Klafke

Born in Brazil, I relocated to Irvine, California, to pursue my dream of working with the best game developers in the world, making the games that I loved playing growing up.

I have a strong passion for creating believable and immersive environments. For me, game art is not just something pretty to look at but a holistic experience that transports the user to other dimensions.

For contact, mail @ thiagoklafke . com or LinkedIn.

Professional Experience

100 Thieves
Position: Director of World Art
Environment art pipeline, look development and environment art creation for Project X and Bank Heist (UEFN map).
Nov 2022 - Nov 2023

Lightspeed LA/Tencent
Position: Principal Environment Artist
Worked on a still unannounced AAA open-world game.
Sep 2021 - March 2022

Blizzard Entertainment
Positions held: Senior Environment Artist II / Senior Environment Artist / Environment Artist.
Worked as an environment artist on several projects: Overwatch, Overwatch 2, Starcraft II Legacy of the Void, Heroes of the Storm, and Project Titan.
Nov 2011 - Sep 2021

New World Interactive
Position held: Contract Environment Artist
Created props and map textures for Insurgency: Remastered.
Nov 2010 - Sep 2011

Ubisoft Sao Paulo
Position held: 3D Artist
Worked primarily creating 3D for handheld games. Projects shipped: Imagine Detective (NDS), Michael Jackson the Experience (NDS, PSP)
Nov 2008 - Nov 2010

Public Presentations & Events

Digital Dragons 2022
Gave a presentation to games industry professionals about Designing Immersive Environments. Video available here.
Year: 2022
Location: Kraków, Poland

SFI Academic IT Festival
Presented to IT students and enthusiasts how the work of an environment artist is. Sadly, the recording is not available online, but I also recorded a podcast interview here.
Year:
2019
Location: Kraków, Poland

Digital Dragons 2018
Gave a presentation to games industry professionals about the environment art pipeline on Overwatch, using the map Junkertown as an example. Video available here.
Year: 2018
Location: Kraków, Poland

Adidas Future Gallery
I was invited to present my VR experience Sampa VR at an Adidas event in Sao Paulo. It was a great experience to see people from all kinds of life trying out the demo, and being inspired by new technologies. Promo for the event. Gizmodo feature.
Year: 2017
Location: São Paulo, Brazil