Projects
VR Surrealist sketching and asset creation
VR Surrealist sketching and asset creation
I am going to be drawing and painting in my style with a meta quest headset and seeing what this medium can do with my work.
Ultimately as I am a creative director of a games company I will be trying to work out how to make individual assets like trees, grass, and chains look like how I would normal paint them digitally. The ultimate goal would be to make an immersive scene in my style in VR.
Explore
£5,000
I aim to use my headset to learn how my art style translates to the medium of VR by using 3D programs within the headset to draw and sculpt the way I usually do in traditional mediums.
Aims of the project
This project explores virtual reality as a new medium for my illustration practice, focusing on how my hand-drawn, surreal style can exist within immersive 3D environments. Using a Meta Quest headset, I will experiment with both sculptural and drawing-based approaches – creating assets such as trees, grass, and organic forms, while testing how painterly textures and line work can translate into real-time space.
The other route would be to go 2D and draw how I normally draw but in a 3D space, this may be more directly obviously my work as it is not a sculptural process. Ultimately I will be weighing up which method works best.
Lastly I think I will be experimenting with scaling and tracing of 2D digital drawings I have done to trace in AR onto my studio walls. This is a process I have done before, but ultimately want to experiment much more with.
Alongside this, I will investigate a 2D-led process within VR, drawing directly in three dimensions to retain the immediacy and character of my existing work. By comparing these approaches, I aim to identify a visual language that feels authentic to my practice while remaining viable for game development and interactive storytelling.
A further strand of the project expands into augmented reality, where I will experiment with scaling and tracing digital drawings onto physical studio walls. This builds on previous mural processes in my practice, using AR as a bridge between digital illustration and large-scale physical work.
Ultimately, the project aims to develop new methods for creating immersive, stylised worlds – laying the groundwork for future game environments and expanding the possibilities of my visual language across VR, AR, and physical space.
Meet the artist
Tom Mead
Creative Director
he/him
Tom Mead is an illustrator and creative director with over 16 years’ experience working across traditional media. His practice spans fine art, publishing, murals, and games, and his work has been exhibited throughout the UK and internationally.
Working primarily with drawing, he brings a handcrafted, atmospheric quality to each project and is fascinated with expanding into a larger world within his art style.
Working under the name Mr Mead, he is drawn to the uncanny, poetic, and the surreal, creating images that sit somewhere between narrative and dreamlike. His work often explores ambiguous characters, symbolic landscapes, and moments of tension that invite interpretation rather than resolution. This approach carries across both personal and commercial projects, giving his work a distinctive, offbeat sensibility that is recognisable yet adaptable.
He is the lead creative at Spiral Circus Games, where he shapes visual worlds that blend atmosphere, narrative, and experimentation. His role involves developing visual direction, building cohesive artistic languages, and collaborating across disciplines to create immersive and emotionally resonant experiences. The studio’s work reflects his interest in mood-driven storytelling and unconventional visual structures.
Alongside his studio work, Tom continues to produce personal projects, exhibitions, and commissions, maintaining a strong connection to traditional techniques while exploring new contexts for his work.
