I started in the video game industry in mid 2014 making stylized PBR pixel art characters for a small independent video game studio in Seattle. After sometime I was picked up by a major triple A developer in Florida in early 2015 and quickly made the transition to hyper-realistic characters. I worked at EA Sports in Florida for about a year before moving on to a simulation studio called Creative Veteran Productions.
At CVP I was able to learn a whole new world over government contractors, medical simulations and VR training. It was a great challenge that put me ahead of the competition and taught me great skills that would prove invaluable in this market. The people I met at Creative Veteran Productions were one of the most humble and granting people ever since I immigrated into the US, even offering to sponsor my Green Card while my student Visa expired.
In early 2017, while my Green Card got processed I left CVP and did freelancing for almost 2 years, which allowed me to work with a variety of projects, styles and cultures that taught me a lot in my career. Toys and collectibles, for instance, which has been a big passion of mine for a very long time were one of the markets I was pleased to be a part of. And also the possibility of going back to stylized characters, which is something I hadn't done since I started my career back in 2014.
After 2 years of freelancing I moved back to Florida in late 2018, with a Green Card, and did another year working on a photorealistic sports title in-house at EA Tiburon. The experience this year was incredible, both from developing my character art skills, as well as garnering leadership experience.
During this year working at a triple A studio I never gave up my smaller indie and toy related clients from the time I had been freelancing. So in my free time I worked in a more leadership role, hiring subcontractors to be able to deliver the work my clients required, on time and under budget. Weekends and nights.
Once my contract at EA was over in late 2019 I spent a few months consulting for a military contractor and research group on a character creator package, generating a character workflow that would make possible for them to scale up or down their team according to the incoming volume of work. In early 2020 I moved to Idaho to join Visual Purple's team as their Senior Character Artist.
At Visual Purple I started in production, creating photorealistic characters for VR training focused on the Air Force academic materials. But during my time at the studio my biggest contribution was spearheading the construction and implementation of a photogrammetry rig, as well as creation of a pipeline of efficient character art workflow that would provide scalability and systematic platform application.
As a senior I was tasked with mentoring and training younger 3D artists as well as creating documentation for workflows and processes. As of 2021 I started dedicating more of my time to an unannounced independent commercial VR title the studio has been working on.
In late 2021 I got an offer from Playstation Studios Visual Arts to join their Outsourcing Team and move on to a new challenge in my career. I would be the first Character Artist to join the Outsourcing Department, being brought in to assist in the transition of all outsourcing tasks and workflows between the Character Art Department and the newly established Character Outsourcing Department.
With the collaboration of the Lead Character Artist I was responsible for spearheading the creation of review boards, guidelines, benchmarks and strengthening the visualization of vendor production in an effort to shape and standardize the character art side of the Outsourcing Department.
In addition I was able to utilize my experience to aid the Prop Outsourcing Department with their tasks on a daily basis, offering support and mentoring to younger artists.