The Artist's Journey with Dela Longfish & Rafael Grassetti: The Myth of Breaking into the Industry

Dela Longfish has been working for over 15 years as a visual development artist in video games and film for clients including Santa Monica Studio, Lucasarts, and ILM. He is currently the Lead Character Concept Artist at Santa Monica Studio where he is working on God of War Ragnarok.

Raf Grassetti is both a digital and traditional artist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over 17 years. He is one of the best-known digital sculptors in the world and contributed to some of the most successful franchises in the world, winning many awards over the years including best Art Director, best Digital Sculptor, and Video Game of the year awards. Grassetti launched his career as a traditional sculptor, but he then transitioned to digital sculpting after discovering the power of immortalizing his subjects in digital stone.

Raf has already made a name for himself in the NFT space with some high-profile sales, and was one of the top-selling artists in Christie's "Proof of Sovereignty" Auction and Sotheby's "Contemporary Curated" Auction. Currently located in Los Angeles, he is working as an Art Director at Sony Santa Monica’s God of War franchise, as well as working on his personal art book, exhibition/gallery work, and crypto art.

As Education Lead, Beau is responsible for developing the curriculum for Gnomon’s VFX courses. Beau makes a continuous assessment of the visual effects industry and ensures that Gnomon’s scholastic pursuits are meeting these technical and artistic standards. Through exposure to industry professionals as well as a decade creating curriculum for postsecondary technological art-making institutions, Beau helps foster a high-level specialty skill-sets, while still providing a broad view of the production pipeline so students understand their own integration into a visual effects team. Beau also provides mentorship to students and works with Gnomon’s faculty to foster communication across all programs. He has over twenty-five years of experience as a CG Supervisor, artist, and instructor. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design from Ball State University and a Master's degree from the University of Kentucky in Instructional Systems Design.