Rob Cunningham Interview
An interview with Rob Cunningham, Relic’s Art Director. The interview was conducted by Pax in January 2000.
1. For the benefit of the people listening behind the mirror, please state your name and official position at Relic.
Rob Cunningham, Art Director
2. What exactly does your “job” entail? You don’t have to sexually service anybody, right?
Only our IT guy Frank who must wish for an assistant just to look after my machine. My services must not satisfying to him — I guess my heart just isn’t in it! My “job” involves alot of different stuff - element/unit, environment and cinematic design for the most part. “Big picture” vibes and such. Basically it involves alot of imagining, talking, drawing, typing, production work (like making backgrounds on HW) and diplomacy. I’m lucky because I get to work with alot of different people who rock in their respective areas. Most of the time I work closely with my evil-genius partner (Lead Artist Aaron Kambietz) and the rest of the art team on game’s actual art elements, but I also get to work with the designers, programmers, Maestro Captain Paul and Relic’s own admin team. It’s inspiring to witness the awesome powers all these guys have.
3. I’m going to avoid the overasked question and instead ask whether there were any influences you specifically avoided when doing some of the HW design work? I know I try to avoid watching Tremors 2: Aftershocks when doing any kind of creative work.
We did want to avoid Star Trek’s curvy-smooth streamlined look and it’s wild story concepts. Homeworld wanted to be more of a blunt nuts-and-bolty kind of feel for both the unit and scenario designs.
4. How’d you get hired at Relic? Did you have a private investigator follow one of the higher ups, take incriminating photographs, and than use them to extort yourself a position? I know that’s how I ended up posting on Relicnews — Pike has some odd “habits.”
Alex was one of my drawing students at DigiPen (an animation and programming school that was here in Vancouver). We got along really well and stayed in touch. A few years later I was working for a different outfit when Alex began to hassle me day and night about joining his new company “Relic” and this mad thing he was calling “Homeworld”. I had no idea what he was babbling on about — something to do with Battlestar Galactica and the final battle scene in Return of the Jedi - but he was very excited and it was contagious. At first I was skeptical, but after our first presentation to Sierra it was clear that it was going to be a true story. I joined Relic as soon as I could soon after that.
5. Would you describe yourself as “buff” or “shirt-rippingly huge?”
“Nuff” would be better.
6. Do you support the Zapatistas in their struggle in Chiapas? Or are you one of the bourgeois neoliberalists?
So those pesky Zapanistas are at it again down in Chiapas are they? Well go figure — of course, to understand the full story I’d have to research a lengthy, complicated and unglamorous historical context… sigh …surely that’s someone else’s job isn’t it? Can’t trust anyone these days can you? Like they say, “If you want a job done right…”
7. Is there any way I could trick you into revealing what you’re doing at Relic right now? Perhaps a potent brew of hallucinogenics and alcohol?
Alcohol won’t work and hallucinogens will yield mixed results. You’d be better off hiring a violin-wielding gypsy harlot and have her seduce the info out of me.
8. Did you ever want to beat fellow art guy Aaron Kambeitz to a bloody pulp with a blunt object due to some kind of wacky misunderstanding?
The attached picture sums this up quite nicely. Those are my tonsils on the right.
9. What other arty stuff are you involved in? Have you ever produced any work that might be classified as one of the perverted arts?
No-one will ever know what else I have produced. I’m sure you understand.
10. Has overexposure to HW ever made you want to projectile vomit? Or is it still cool?
It was quite exhausting at times, but it never got dull. There was always something new and exciting happening. It’s still cool because I’m still learning new stuff about it. It’s especially fun to watch other people play it who haven’t seen it before. You sort of see it fresh through them and that’s ace.
11. From my extensive watching of Da Vinci’s Inquest on the CBC, you Vancouverites seem to have a disturbing number of murders involving people living on the kinky side of life? Is this accurate?
I don’t know about “kinky” but yes, something like thirty prostitutes have been murdered over the course of a few years in Vancouver. It’s a disturbing story — the kind you might expect more from a bigger and more dodgy town. Vancouver is such safe and friendly place compared to some places I’ve been, but I suppose there’s always going to be some psychos out there.
12. Where’s the love?
Believe, brother!
13. The NSP is like…?
…a dream you wake up into.