I'll be honest with you. I don't really understand what the hell you do. I know it has something to do with faces and bodies and whatnot. Explain.

I would have thought you'd know by now. I'm the Lead Character Artist, me. I'm the guy who had the pleasure of designing, or least puppet-mastering the design of, the Mantel troopers and the Promise Hand rebels in HAZE.

I actually started off in 2d design. I made the dubious error of doing a graphic design course, assuming that I would somehow change the world with my scandalous and rebellious poster design. However, I soon discovered that my job was, in fact, going to be designing menus for crap restaurants. Also, into the mix, I was getting paid f**k all.

So, it was a mixture of poverty, desperation, and depression that drove me to the videogame industry. I took a deep breath and went on the dole, which gave me enough time to get my portfolio together. Back then Artists weren't expected to be able to work in 3D - they had technicians who took your work and slapped it into some kind of vaguely three-dimensional form. I started off doing 2d textures for a racing game - Destruction Derby 2. With the arrival of 3DS Max on Windows NT, I decided that it was time to learn how to work in 3D. It was commons sense really - it's better to have Artists doing the art, rather than having Artists directing technicians.

I spent a number of years just company hopping in the games industry wilderness. At one place, I spent an entire day being interviewed. It was like trying to get a job at the f**king Pentagon when all it was, was twenty blokes in two smelly port-a-cabins. It was around then that TimeSplitters came out. By this time I was nigh-on insane from spending years working on driving games, so the unique art style that TimeSplitters had going on was a major draw for me.

Without wanting to sound too sycophantic, how did Free Radical develop such striking-looking characters?

Well, on a purely technical level, we use a mixture of Maya and Z-Bush. They're our meat and potatoes. But the most important part of character design is having a firm vision. Way back in the beginning, the original idea we had for Haze was for it to be a mechanically driven future, but without the human benefits. That sounds a bit complicated, doesn't it? Let me put it another way - we liked the idea of the soldiers being physically weighed down, perhaps even overpowered, by all the technology they have to carry around with them. They'd have all the kinds of technological advancements you'd expect, but without the miniaturization. So they were lugging around there huge, heavy battle suits, with massive uncomfortable guns and backpacks.

But, as time went on, and as more people got involved in the debate about what Mantel should look like, we eventually moved towards making them sleeker. As well as that, we decided that they wouldn't be camouflaged, because these guys are supposed to be so arrogant that the idea of anyone being able to take them out is unthinkable. So, they don't think that hiding is a way to fight. It was another way to highlight the difference between the Mantel guys and the rebels.

Of course, the whole bees-insects thing was part of that. These guys are of one mind, like a hive. They don't think about their actions, they just obey in a big moronic swarm.

What is the biggest achievement you've made on Haze?

To be honest, there are massive hurdles to be overcome every time one encounters any new piece of hardware. The bottom line is that on this gen we're able to make things shinier and more detailed, which as an Artist is always going to be exciting.

For instance, back on the PS2, an in-game model would be a few hundred polygons, whereas now we've got character sculpts that are approaching 10million polygons, and an in-game version that's about 5,000.

The limits used to be in the hardware, now the limits are pretty much in the Artist. With that much more potential for detail, it makes character design a hell of a lot more challenging. You've got to maintain a high level of creative impetus right down into the minute details.

If we're talking specifics, my favourite part of the main character is the mix of textures - juxtaposing different surfaces and blending hard angular surfaces like steel and iron, with softer organic materials like cloth or rubber.

And, of course, I got to spend twice as long as normal working on the crotch plates. You should write that I'm licking my lips while I say that.