I Live!
*dusts off her journal* Wow. The last entry I wrote was three years ago.
*looks through her icons* Wow. These need to be updated.
So I'd probably start with all the things that have happened between now and *checks her calendar* three years ago, but I seriously can't even remember that far. Graduated. Twice. Yeah I've gone from artsy college nerd to employed Master of Science in Interactive Entertainment in one entry. Still an artist though. Not sure where the 'science' comes from. Maybe the chemistry of Imagination?
I have to constantly resist the urge to write 'we', and no, I don't mean the egotistical royal 'we' but rather the my parents have spawned off a duplicate at my birth and now we maintain an empathy bond that no word, action or intention can break (cheesy) kind of 'we'. I still respond to Tammy's name sometimes. I guess I just got tired of telling people otherwise, and besides, Tammy would probably have the same thing to say.
Anyway.
So we've been living in Orlando florida now as a pair starry-eyed, green about the ears game developers. I have to say that we were incredibly lucky. When we graduated from FIEA (Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy), I thought my dream job would be to work in some triple-A company such as Valve, SquareEnix, Bioware, etc, but ever since I've set foot in Iron Galaxy, I've been pretty happy. I hop around from project to project (been here about a year now and I've worked on three projects already!) working on all kinds of stuff. I've done 3D and 2D, environments and characters, particles, fur, concept design, and a crap load of polish. None of this probably would've been possible if I had gone to a triple-A company and been a cog in the machine, churning out assets or, even worse, looking at hexidecimals to change colors. *shiver* One of the professors as FIEA, Rick Hall (awesome fella) put it pretty clearly. All triple-A companies want you to do is stay shut up in your little cube and pump out models/textures/whathaveyou from the tiny mail slot at your door to any passing programmer.
That's a little cynical, but yeah. IGO may not have all the amenities and stuff but I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing. and god forbid, I'm getting paid for it. I mean, I never expected to do character concepts (there's a reason I don't pursue concept artist positions, you normally have to be insanely good and you never stay on for the duration of the project, I imagine they mostly grab contractors) but I've done a bunch of those already.
And by the way, if you haven't already, check out Dive Kick on Steam (currently in greenlight, VOTE IT UP!). It's still an ongoing project so i've gotta be hush hush on at least the stuff that hasn't been released yet. I don't even like fighting games, but this one is so ridiculous and amazing that I have picked up a controller and tried playing it myself. (Tammy beat me in a couple rounds...and we both suck). The amount of work I've actually done in it is virtually invisible, since it was mostly polish on the environments (which someone else has done) but just being able to see my work out there feels pretty amazing.
Dive Kick did exceptionally well at PAX East. Stole the show even. Hell, we had the former design of Epic, Cliff Bleszinski, play the game and tweet that it was the best of PAX East! Don't believe me? It's pretty amazing.
All the positive press we're getting to is very good for morale. XD
Anyway, see ya later for now (you singular person who may or may not read my journal)
:D
HERE HAVE A PUPPY.
*looks through her icons* Wow. These need to be updated.
So I'd probably start with all the things that have happened between now and *checks her calendar* three years ago, but I seriously can't even remember that far. Graduated. Twice. Yeah I've gone from artsy college nerd to employed Master of Science in Interactive Entertainment in one entry. Still an artist though. Not sure where the 'science' comes from. Maybe the chemistry of Imagination?
I have to constantly resist the urge to write 'we', and no, I don't mean the egotistical royal 'we' but rather the my parents have spawned off a duplicate at my birth and now we maintain an empathy bond that no word, action or intention can break (cheesy) kind of 'we'. I still respond to Tammy's name sometimes. I guess I just got tired of telling people otherwise, and besides, Tammy would probably have the same thing to say.
Anyway.
So we've been living in Orlando florida now as a pair starry-eyed, green about the ears game developers. I have to say that we were incredibly lucky. When we graduated from FIEA (Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy), I thought my dream job would be to work in some triple-A company such as Valve, SquareEnix, Bioware, etc, but ever since I've set foot in Iron Galaxy, I've been pretty happy. I hop around from project to project (been here about a year now and I've worked on three projects already!) working on all kinds of stuff. I've done 3D and 2D, environments and characters, particles, fur, concept design, and a crap load of polish. None of this probably would've been possible if I had gone to a triple-A company and been a cog in the machine, churning out assets or, even worse, looking at hexidecimals to change colors. *shiver* One of the professors as FIEA, Rick Hall (awesome fella) put it pretty clearly. All triple-A companies want you to do is stay shut up in your little cube and pump out models/textures/whathaveyou from the tiny mail slot at your door to any passing programmer.
That's a little cynical, but yeah. IGO may not have all the amenities and stuff but I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing. and god forbid, I'm getting paid for it. I mean, I never expected to do character concepts (there's a reason I don't pursue concept artist positions, you normally have to be insanely good and you never stay on for the duration of the project, I imagine they mostly grab contractors) but I've done a bunch of those already.
And by the way, if you haven't already, check out Dive Kick on Steam (currently in greenlight, VOTE IT UP!). It's still an ongoing project so i've gotta be hush hush on at least the stuff that hasn't been released yet. I don't even like fighting games, but this one is so ridiculous and amazing that I have picked up a controller and tried playing it myself. (Tammy beat me in a couple rounds...and we both suck). The amount of work I've actually done in it is virtually invisible, since it was mostly polish on the environments (which someone else has done) but just being able to see my work out there feels pretty amazing.
Dive Kick did exceptionally well at PAX East. Stole the show even. Hell, we had the former design of Epic, Cliff Bleszinski, play the game and tweet that it was the best of PAX East! Don't believe me? It's pretty amazing.
All the positive press we're getting to is very good for morale. XD
Anyway, see ya later for now (you singular person who may or may not read my journal)
:D
HERE HAVE A PUPPY.