About Us
It's not the destination, it's the journey
At Dardo Studios, we are more than just an art studio—we are a collective of over 30 passionate creatives and seasoned game developers dedicated to bringing your visions to life. With expertise across all art disciplines, we pride ourselves on delivering high-quality, innovative solutions tailored to your needs. Below, you’ll find a list of the people who strive for the highest quality bar for every project we undertake.
Leadership
team
Daniel Orive
Co-Founder
Head of Art
Senior Art Director
Daniel Orive, Co-founder and Head of Art at Dardo Studios, brings over 15 years of gaming industry expertise. He has held art leadership positions at renowned companies like Riot Games, Blizzard Entertainment, Phoenix Labs, and Ninja Theory.
Kenny Carvalho
Co-Founder
Head of Talent
Business Strategy
Kenny Carvalho, Co-founder and Head of Talent at Dardo Studios, brings over 20 years of industry expertise, leading talent acquisition at Blizzard, Riot Games, Wildlife, and Phoenix Labs. He has hired over 500 creatives globally and played a key role in assembling the influential global art team for “Project: Titan” the precursor to Overwatch.
Camila Loyolla
Production Lead
Camilla Loyolla, Production Lead at Dardo Studios, brings over 20 years of experience working as a producer and director in the ad agency world at prestigious Brazilian studios. Over the last several years, she has been an art production and outsourcing leader at Wildlife Studios.
Ed Laag
Art Leader
Viz Dev
Environment Art
Ed Laag, Art Leader at Dardo Studios, has been working for the entertainment industry for more than 14 years. Ed has worked at various animation, vfx, and game studios such as the MiLL, Luma Pictures, Warner Brothers, and Phoenix Labs. He has helped significantly contribute to several established projects such as Call of Duty, Marvel Series: I Am Groot, and Apex Legends to name a few.
Chris Campbell
Art Leader
Viz Dev
Character Art
Chris Campbell, Art Leader at Dardo Studios, started his career over 11 years ago at Riot where he significantly contributed to the creation of some of the most iconic characters in League of Legends such as Bard, Tahm Kench, Ivern, Illaoi, Ekko, Xayah, and Pyke to name a few. He was also instrumental and fleshing out the world of Runeterra by contributing significantly to various groups and ecologies around the world.
Patrick Faulwetter
Art Leader
Viz Dev
World Building
Having started his career as an exterior designer at the prestigious Volkswagen/Audi Design Center, he moved to the entertainment industry where he brought those foundations to help bring creative worlds to life having significantly contributed to the creative foundations of Project: Titan/Overwatch, League of Legends, Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars.
Jesse Baumgartner
Art Leader
Animation
Cinematics
Jesse Baumgartner, Animation Leader at Dardo Studios, brings over 19 years of breathing life into characters via animation. Jesse spent significant time at Insomniac bringing Ratchet & Clank to life before moving to Blizzard to be part of the influential Project: Titan animation team. He then joined Riot where he worked on League of Legends and various cinematics projects before joining Singularity 6 on the MMO Palia.
Howard Xing
Head of Finance
Howard Xing, Finance Leader at Dardo Studios, brings over 11 years of experience having had significant roles at John Deere, Counter Logic Gaming and Riot Games. Howard has helped head up finance at various game startups such as Notorious Studios, Night Street Games, and Frost Giant.
Sean Bender
Dardo Advisor and Investor
Sean Bender, Advisor and Investor, has participated in the video game ecosystem for the past two decades as a venture capitalist, executive at Riot Games and founder of Phoenix Labs.
What Our clients think about us
Working with Dardo Studios has been nothing short of transformative for our studio, and Daniel Orive, in particular, has had an immeasurable impact on our team. As an art outsourcing company, Dardo Studios not only delivers top-notch creative work but also brings a level of professionalism and dedication that is truly rare in the industry.
Daniel's expertise and leadership have been invaluable to us. His ability to understand our vision and translate it into stunning visual assets has elevated our project to new heights. Moreover, his direct inclusion in our leadership team has been instrumental in refining our creative direction and achieving our goals.
The partnership with Dardo Studios has been one of the best decisions we've made, and we look forward to continuing our work together for many years. I highly recommend them to anyone seeking unparalleled quality and a true partner in creative excellence.
Carlos Sánchez
General Manager at ProbablyMonsters
Dardo Studios has been a key partner for our creative efforts at Fantastic Pixel Castle. Their studio has the extensive experience needed to help our team find creative ways through the fog of war of the ideation phase, and have been excellent in strengthening the depth of our Prototype world explorations. Dardo's team of world-class principal and lead artists is partnering with our team in our North American time-zones, aligning to our communication rituals, and has had a tremendously strong start towards what we see as ongoing future collaborations as we head into production. They take pride in having an incredibly high quality bar for their deliverables, in addition to contributing to our brainstorming and valuable ideation on how to make an amazing and memorable product with their partners.
David Kubalak
Art Director at Fantastic Pixel Castle
Working with Dardo has been a great experience. Their team of talented artists has been instrumental in bringing our game’s artistic vision to life. From concept ideation to production, they’ve been invaluable in helping develop our characters, environments, VFX, and animations. Dardo’s team is open, passionate, and easy to collaborate with, making the early stage of our project smooth and rewarding.
Justin Thavirat
Art Director at Seeker Entertainment
Dardo Studios, Inc.
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15333 Culver Dr Suite 340 #2151
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Irvine, CA 92604-3051
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