LeRoy Strauss

LeRoy "Lee" Strauss is an American video game Environment and Character Artist. Strauss worked at Retro Studios on Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.
Strauss was interviewed by the defunct fansite Samus.co.uk in 2004, while Echoes was in development, and again by Shinesparkers in 2023.
==Early career==
Strauss's career in games began in 1997. He had been studying illustration in university, but lost interest. When he saw the original Jurassic Park in 1993, he decided to pursue a career in CGI for films or video games. Strauss had played Metroid and Super Metroid in his youth and enjoyed their exploration-based gameplay, along with their science fiction sound and atmosphere.Shinesparkers. Interview: LeRoy Strauss. October 27, 2023. Retrieved October 27, 2023.
==Metroid Prime series==
Strauss joined Retro before the company's infamous layoffs of half its workforce, and was not involved with any of their canceled projects.IGN Staff. The Art of Prime. IGN. August 6, 2004. Retrieved August 4, 2022. He initially shared common skepticism about Retro Studios, an unknown developer, producing a successful Metroid game, but this turned to excitement upon seeing the studio's vision and talent.
Rooms created by Strauss for Prime include the Phendrana Shorelines, Reactor Core, Main Quarry and the Artifact Temple. Designers had two to four weeks to make the rooms, and would pool textures for artists to draw from, while also using general references from the internet. Strauss doodled his ideas on note pads and used PhotoShop to sketch them, before deciding whether to commit them to 3D modeling. He provided his notes and drawings to Shinesparkers.
Much of his work on Prime was building environments and textures, and occasionally adding particle effects and scripting. One highlight of Strauss's time working at Retro was seeing people play Prime at E3 for the first time, and enjoying it.Interview with LeRoy Strauss - Interview Questions. Samus.co.uk. Retrieved August 5, 2022. This quelled his earlier nerves about how the demo would be received.
After Prime, Strauss began working on the sequel, Echoes. Strauss had wanted to design characters for Prime, and could not because there were no open character art positions. This changed with the departures of Gene Kohler and Mike Sneath following Prime. Now on the character side of art, Strauss skinned the new Samus Aran model, which was the most scrutinized model in the game. Strauss also skinned and modeled Dark Samus, the Federation Marines and the Luminoth. He found the process smoother since he could work off of more concept art, including that of Android Jones. He passed on some of his techniques to the new environment artists.
==Subsequent career==
Strauss left Retro for Edge of Reality before Echoes completed production. There, he served as the lead character artist for Cipher Complex, and moved on to Vigil Games as an artist for Darksiders and Darksiders II. He has since worked at Riot Games on (League of Legends), Bluepoint Games (founded by his former Retro Studios colleagues) and Hi-Rez Studios. Strauss is currently a Lead Character Artist at Worldspark Studios.
==Trivia==
*When playing the original Metroid in 1986, Strauss took turns playing with his friends, passing the controller back and forth.
*Strauss alluded to an unspecified colleague at Retro committing a "very shameful, dishonorable deed", but did not detail the incident or who was responsible.
*He is flattered at Sequence Breaking techniques, and jokingly suggested that such players join Nintendo as quality assurance testers.Interview with LeRoy Strauss - The Interview [Page 2]. Samus.co.uk. Retrieved August 5, 2022.
*At the time of his interview with Shinesparkers, Strauss had not played Metroid Dread yet, as he was mostly a PC gamer. However, he had recently purchased a Nintendo Switch, and intended to play Dread in the future. He was pleased with the improvements made to the original Prime in Metroid Prime Remastered.
==External links==
*Portfolio website 
*Strauss on LinkedIn
*Strauss on MobyGames
*Strauss on IMDb
*Strauss on ArtStation
*Interview with Samus.co.uk
*Interview with Shinesparkers
==References==
ru:ЛеРой Страусс
Category:LeRoy Strauss
Category:Retro Studios employees
Category:Environment Artists
Category:Character Artists