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andy johnston

Lighting artist. Real-time environments.

Andy Johnston

Light decides what you look at.

Unreal Engine 5. Key, practicals, camera, grade. Greybox to finished plate.

Open to work · Tapitallee NSW · Remote / Hybrid

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02 · The work

8 projects

I light interiors and build environments in Unreal Engine 5. Project R3D is the clearest example: one set, one dressing pass, and a camera moved through a full day of light. Task Force 5-1 is the operator that set belongs to, drawn by hand. Beautiful Decay is built in engine, generated over in Leonardo, and finished by hand in Photoshop.

Away from real-time, Code Blue is an original crime drama I direct, set in Mesa Valley, a city with two authorities running it.

There is also brand and identity work for two apparel labels, and personal illustration. I built and still host four production sites, which is how I know the web side holds up.

The rifle on its bipod in profile on a white trestle table, lit flat and cool from an overhead fluorescent, three brass rounds standing at the base of the bipod and a laptop throwing blue light from the right.
cool key
The same rifle and rounds with the table washed gold by a low tungsten practical, the curved tent lining falling away into shadow behind, a laptop screen the only cool light in frame.
warm key
Three brass rounds standing sharp on the edge of the table with the rifle and its lit scope thrown out of focus above them, the tent almost black, a screen glowing blue at the right edge.
night practicals
The rifle reduced to a silhouette on its bipod with almost no fill light, the red scope lens and a distant blue screen the only things reading, the rounds barely visible below the barrel.
low key

The control

The rifle and the three rounds stay in frame across every state. They are the control. If the read on those changes, the lighting has gone wrong somewhere.

Project R3D · Unreal Engine 5 · straight from engine

A bolt-action rifle on a bipod silhouetted against an open doorway, bright sunlit ground beyond, three rounds standing on the table edge in the foreground.

all work

Manifesto

I light real-time environments in Unreal Engine 5.

The work is key and fill, practicals, post-process volumes, camera and final grade, taken from greybox through to the finished plate. Composition sits underneath all of it, because lighting only works if you already know where you want the eye to go.

Around the lighting I do environment work, concept art and art direction across original IP: environments, characters, faction identity, vehicle design, key art. Those are not separate skills so much as the reason the lighting lands.

Everything technical I know, I taught myself from documentation. I am based on the NSW South Coast and available now.

Tools

Unreal Engine 5 · Adobe CC · Affinity · Substance · Figma · React / Next.js · Vercel · Claude / Leonardo

Available

andystone720@gmail.com

Open to work · Tapitallee NSW · Remote / Hybrid