Instagram story viewer> @aliakonis_art> Posts

Amalia Liakonis

@aliakonis_art

319

followers

478

following

🇬🇷🇺🇸 | CCS 26’ 💛🦚 | 3D Environment Artist🩵👾 | OPEN TO WORK!

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Heyo! 👾 It’s GDC season again and I’m excited to announce that I’ll be going again this year for the whole week! If you’re going as well please feel free to reach out and say hi 👋 Excited to meet some cool new people!
•
•
•
#gdc #gamesdeveloperconference #gameart by @aliakonis_art

31

2

7 months ago

All aboard! 🚂🚃🚃 • Finally a breakdown of my contributions to the Central Wonders project I worked on (App download link can be found on my website! Link in bio!)
•
During my 2025 fall semester I was offered the incredible opportunity to participate in a sponsored studio course in collaboration with Urban Electronics and 4thSpace Tech @4thspace.tech to create an augmented reality mobile game using Unity - Geospatial Creator surrounding Detroit’s iconic Michigan Central Station. The mobile game would have two main experiences: “History Express” and “Central Sweets Takeover”, the first of which I pitched, in which a big beautiful train circles the outside of the station compiled of a variety of themed train cars each of which visually represent and explore the rich history of the city of Detroit. For the first experience I designed, modeled, and hand painted the Eastern Market train car, Detroit Sports train car, and Greek-town train car. While each model was fun to work on I especially enjoyed designing the Greek-town car as I was able to explore my identity as a Greek American and add a few personal touches to the design. My favorites being the pictures added to the storefront window which include Greek-town’s Greek Independence Day Parade poster, my mother’s 1991 Ionian Village poster, my church’s Greek Festival poster, and a picture of my late Pappou 💙🕊️ who owned the restaurant Seros Waffle Shop in Detroit for years after immigrating here from Greece. It meant a lot to have my family’s history memorialized in such an incredible project. A special thanks to the College for Creative Studies and our project manager John Wolff @johnnyokami for their support and to my fellow classmates / teammates for their their hard work and dedication in bringing this experience to life!
•
•
•
#3dart #propart #gameart #stylizedart #augmentedrealityart by @aliakonis_art

53

4

8 months ago

The moment you’ve all been waiting for! 🎋🐲🌄
Deep amongst the secluded peaks of the Jade Forest, beyond the main settlement of the Tian Monastery lies what the monks call, “The Illuminated Shrine”; a place where one may go to train mind and spirit over body.
•
This piece was not only inspired by the in-game lore of the Jade Forest with a heavy focus on Asian inspired mythology, but also by real life monasteries which are built amongst high peaks in complete seclusion to draw one away from earthly distractions and closer to enlightenment. Places such as Meteora in Kalabaka, Greece, which I had the incredible opportunity to visit just this past October, and was a heavy source of true to life inspiration. One of the main reasons I was drawn to the Jade Forest in particular was the stark contrast of the bold red buildings that pop amongst the green background of the lush peaks, all of which in my scene are fully hand painted. The warmth of the sunset sky and golden hour lighting also nods to the title of “illumination” as both the shrine itself and the minds of those who chose to come here become illuminated in its glow. I am so proud of the outcome of this project and of myself for completing it in time (and before the Game Developers Conference let’s gooo!!) This was my first attempt at a major contest like this and I am so glad I participated as it allowed me to challenge myself, grow as an artist, and reconnect with fellow College for Creative Studies Alumni and previous contenders.
•
Thank you to my friends Sarah @sarahkrystallia and Daria @slooppey for their encouragement and inspiring me to participate in this contest myself. You guys are the best! And thank you to the incredible CCS community members such as Daphne Fiato, Kayleigh Danieli, Lena Wachs, and Fred Osborn for their support. I’m so grateful you took the time out of your busy schedules to give me feedback, and I’m so lucky to be part of such a strong and talented community
•
•
•
#worldofwarcraft #wowstudentartcontest #3dart #gdc #gameart by @aliakonis_art

82

10

8 months ago

T0-B Diorama! 🤖🌿🦋 As always you can check out the full breakdown on my ArtStation
•
I’m happy to finally share this project that I’ve been working on for my senior thesis! Introducing T0-B (pronounced Toby) a little robot who, after the great AI uprising, explores the post apocalyptic world he inhabits finding beauty in the bleakest places. The goal of this project was to have my environments and models feel more alive and I accomplished this by pushing my lighting, environmental story telling, and materialization by learning and implementing substance designer textures that were touched up with hand painting in photoshop. For that added bit of oomph I animated T0-B in Maya as well as learned Unreal’s Niagara particle system to create the butterflies that T0-B is so infatuated with. A big thank you to Daphne Fiato and Sangsu Ha for their advice and recourses regarding this project, and to my senior thesis professor David Bentley for all his support!
•
•
•
#3dart #3denvironment #3denvironmentartist #gameart #stylized3d by @aliakonis_art

52

5

9 months ago

The day is finally here! 👼💘📂✨

After two semesters of development and a whole summer of waiting our class game project, Corporate Cupid, is finally out on steam! This was such an incredible experience and it’s insanely cool to have my work actually be tangible and playable. Baby’s first game credit let’s go! 😆

It was such an honor to work together with my graduating class on this project. We all worked so hard on this and I’m so stoked that you all get to play it now. Check it out on Steam!!!
•
•
•
#ccsdetroit #ccsentertainmentarts #gamedev #gamedesign #gameart #environmentart by @aliakonis_art

74

5

a year ago

I’ll be at Lightbox Expo 2025 this year on Friday and Saturday! If you see me feel free to come and say hi! Can’t wait to see all y’all amazing artists soon! 💡📦 @lightboxexpo
•
•
•
#lightbox #lightboxexpo #lightbox2025 #lightboxexpo2025 by @aliakonis_art

48

4

a year ago

Been a while!🌷🌿🌼

Over the summer I’ve had the incredible opportunity to be mentored by the one and only Daphne Fiato! @invaderroxas

With her guidance I have learned new tips, tricks, and programs that have helped me further develop my skills as an environment artist. One of the main areas in my art that I wished to improve on was my ability to render and assemble foliage. This post in particular showcases many multi-petal/leaf flowers and ferns on a single foliage sheet, which I hand painted entirely in Photoshop. Beforehand I really struggled with how to go about rendering foliage, especially when it came to knowing where to add highlights in places that made a flat, low poly card feel more dimensional. After everything I’ve learned over the course of this mentorship I am fully confident in my foliage hand painting abilities, and I’m excited to create more for future projects.

While I am proud of how far I have come in such a short time, there are a few more techniques I wish to develop further before I showcase everything Daphne has taught me. This includes learning more about programs new to me such as Substance Designer and 3D Coat (Woohoo! New tools in the tool belt!)

I hope to showcase it all in a future full scale environment soon. Think of this as a teaser for what’s to come :)
•
•
•
#art #3dart #gameart #stylizedart #environmentart #womeningaming #myart #foliage by @aliakonis_art

63

9

a year ago

Finally managed to finish this before GDC! I wanted to take all of the skills I’ve developed through my previous projects and test them out by making a full scale outdoor environment. I used previous methods, such as custom made tiling textures through ZBrush and hand painted ultimate trim sheets, while also learning new skills, such as utilizing runtime virtual textures to achieve a soft stylized look for the grass and dirt. I also really wanted to have a simple video to show movement in the wind and foliage to make the environment feel that much more alive. In the end I’m super proud of how this turned out!

This model is based off of @watkinimation incredible concept so go check them out as well!

Please also check it out on my ArtStation!
•
•
•
#art #gameart #3dart #3dmodel #environment #environmentart #stylizedart #womeningames by @aliakonis_art

81

17

2 years ago

Look familiar? 👀🧙‍♀️🧪🌿
A little witch’s house interior for alchemy, potion crafting, and other witchy shenanigans. This stylized environment is all my design and was initially made for my Game Art 2 class final back in 2024. I made it so I could see how much my art style has changed since my first project in Game Art 1. I recently went back to this project over winter break after my independent study and retextured it for two main reasons. The first reason was to ease out of my semester burnout. Art school can be very demanding at times, burnout can be very hard to go through and even harder to break out of, and this little retexturing project was the perfect way for me to re-ignite my passion for environment art. The second reason was to see how much my texturing skills have improved since taking my independent study with Adam Serhane. It’s incredible to see what a few months of practice can do. If you would like to see the original please feel free to check it out on my instagram in the posts below :)
•
•
•
#art #environmentart #gameart #gamedev #stylizedart #womeningames by @aliakonis_art

53

4

2 years ago

Check out my ArtStation and Website for more a detailed breakdown of this project! 🎨🌇🌿

Introducing my final project for my independent study with my professor, Adam Serhane @mrfido3d
This model is based off the incredible concept art by Tiffany Lam Almack for Spider-Man: Across The Spider Verse. @tlamdoods

For this project I wanted to further develop my modular kit skills, especially when it came to tiling textures and trim sheets. This project also introduced a lot of firsts for me. The brick and plaster materials were my first attempt at hand sculpting and hand painting tiling materials with ZBrush and Substance Painter, which I ended up having a lot of fun with. I am especially proud of how my brick turned out considering it was the first tiling material I made. I heavily referenced Valorant textures throughout the process of creating this as one of the many challenges Adam set up for me was to try and fit the style of another existing game while also staying truthful to the original concept art. In the end I find the style to be a little bit of both Valorant and the concept art but still 100% me.
Another challenge this project introduced to me was the use of the ultimate trim sheet technique, which is very different than normal trim sheets as it utilizes built in bevels in the sheet rather than being a repeating texture. The cool thing about using this method was that even though none of the models had bevels, they all appear to have them when rendered with PBR information in Unreal Engine. Every asset shown on my first construction shot sheet is textured using this sheet.
The last thing I attempted on this model for the first time was the use of vertex painting, which I utilized to create the strip of chipped paint at the top of the building. I noticed when going through Valorant environments was their used of vertex painting, especially when it comes to adding elements of wear and tear. This one took a lot of trial and error, but I’m proud of the final result.
I am very happy with how this project turned out, and I’m more confident in my modular skills than ever before!
•
•
•
#art #3dart #gameart #gamedev #3dmodel #modularkit #stylized by @aliakonis_art

60

7

2 years ago

This year I was incredibly lucky to be able to take an independent study with my wonderful professor Adam Serhane @mrfido3d (https://www.artstation.com/mrfido)
For this project I wanted to focus on further developing my hand painted and stylized texturing technique along with pushing my skills in environmental story telling by creating this environment diorama.
I wanted to make an environment that had a variety of individual assets so I could practice sculpting ZBrush and hand painting in Painter on a range of things rather than just one prop. I also wanted these assets to have drastically differing materials so I could develop working on both organic and non-organic stylized textures.
When ideating what kind of main prop I wanted to make I was stuck between making a mailbox and making a shrine. Eventually I thought, “Why not both?” landed on the idea of making a mailbox where you send letters to spirits! I was heavily inspired by the structure of vintage Japanese mailboxes and ended up incorporating the mailbox structure with a traditional shrine lantern to have it look old, yet recognizable. I Also had a ton of fun sculpting the little ghosts and having them read the mail people sent.
I had an absolute blast with this project and I am super proud of how it turned out!
•
•
•
#gamedev #gameart #stylized #stylizedart #handpainted #3dart by @aliakonis_art

50

8

2 years ago

Tadaaa!!! Witchy potion crafting environment is complete!! 🧙‍♀️🧪👻
This stylized environment is all my design and was my final for my Game Art 2 class. I wanted to see how much my art style has changed since my first game art project, which was also a potion crafting environment diorama (last picture for comparison)
It’s so cool to see the difference between the two and how much I have improved! I can’t wait to see my skills grow even more in the future 💪 by @aliakonis_art

42

11

2 years ago