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Let's start at the beginning, how did you become an artist and at the time, did you think you would end up being an artist for games?
I had been drawing since I was 4. I remember calling up Nintendo when I was like 9-10 because my dad found a classifieds ad for Nintendo so I called them because I wanted to make games. The woman was very nice to me over the phone. I'm sure she thought it was funny. Little did she know!! Anyways, I never thought I'd make it into games to be honest. In college my art teachers thought "comic book art" was amatuer and that abstract and modern art was what I should've been learning. So I opted for graphic design/new media I also got heavily into music composition. I graduated into the 2001 recession crap and struggled until I realized that 3D wasn't scary and that I should just go for it. My best friend showed me CGtalk.com and i was like WTF I CAN DO THIS!! So I just dropped everything took a course at Seattle Community College "How to make a character in 3D Max" and started entering any competition i could. I feel like the competitions pushed me like no class ever could which is why i continue to enter them even after working in the industry for now 5 years (yikes!!).
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ComiCon must have looked like a hard challenge. Personally, why did you enter ComiCon?
I entered ComiCon because I wanted to make a cool comic book character in 3D. I think just about everyone does...the show out for the first competition was insane. ThatDon kept nagging me too!
Tell us about the process you undertake to get the results that you do?
Honestly, it changes every competition. Challenges are usually a good excuse for me to break away from my works' pipelines and try out new things. The difference in how i work between Comicon and Dom War IV was also pretty huge. However, now it's basically: high poly first , then retopo, then UV, last but not least bake in Xnormal (normal map, ambient occlusion)
What would be your advice for aspiring game artists out there? What type of training do you think would be helpful in becoming a successful 3d artist?
Honestly, don't be afraid to buy training DVD's or books. While we all have our habits sometimes they can be our biggest crutches. The time and money to learn from greats is really worth it in the long run. I make an effort on every competition to try something completely new. To challenge myself. The skills i learned directly influence the work i do at my day job, it's pretty awesome. IMO if you are trying to get into the games industry and not spending every moment of free time working on your portfolio you must not want as much as the other guy that is. Also, the minute you've decided to get into the games industry you really should be frequenting the forums like gameartisans.org, polycount.net, cgtalk, cghub, etc. The amount of networking that happens is priceless. |
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