MY PASSION:     To design and create 3D environments – both architectural and natural - which are visually compelling, have edge and atmosphere, and push technology and art to the next level.

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERTISE

·         Skills range from creating initial concept art, to building 3D architectural and organic environments for games and animation; custom texture and shader creation; atmospheric lighting; and animation.

·          Have designed and built the following 3D environment types:  Exterior architecture, interiors, trees, vegetation, natural terrain landscapes, combinations of natural and built environments, and molecular-based environments. 

·         Created 3D environments for 6 shipped next generation titles, and 2 game lobbies:

• At Electronic Arts:   Godfather2.

• At Microsoft Game Studios:  Forza2 Motorsports, Mechwarrior4: Vengeance, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator.  

• At Amaze Entertainment:  Lord of the Rings Tactics.

• For Sony PlayStation Home/Millions of Us:   3D lobbies for Far Cry2 and SOCOM.

·         At Lockheed Advanced Simulation, built 3D environments, vehicles, and special FX animations for ground and flight simulators on the pioneering SIMNET project.   

·         Art tools:  Maya, Photoshop, ZBrush, Premiere, proprietary level editors and lighting tools, Mental Ray, some 3D Max, Photography, watercolors, pen &ink. 

·         Platforms:  Xbox, Xbox360, PS3, PSP, PC on several different art pipelines.

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

3D ENVIRONMENT ARTIST  •  CONCEPT ARTIST • TEXTURE ARTIST

Escapist Imagery,  Sausalito, CA  (and Seattle, WA)                                        7/2006 – present

Creation of 3D environment art on a project basis.   Current:  3D environment art for proposal for independent game group.  Eveo, Inc.:  Concept art, shader and texture development, and lighting of molecular environments.  Stratogon Entertainment :  3D environments  and concept art for casual gaming website Jamine Club.  Sony PlayStation Home /Millions of Us:  3D game lobbies for SOCOM and Far Cry2.  Electronic Arts:  Buildings, materials, lighting, LODs for Godfather2.   Amaze Entertainment:  Lighting of all levels  for LOTR Tactics.    Maya, ZBrush, Photoshop.

 

FACULTY MEMBER:  GAME ART AND DESIGN, 

Art Institutes of Seattle and California, Game Art and Design Departments

Seattle, WA and San Francisco, CA          (PT evenings)                                    6/2004 – 6/2008

Taught 3D environments creation, architecture and modeling, and color theory; mentored students. 

 

3D ENVIRONMENT ARTIST • CONCEPT ARTIST • TEXTURE ARTIST

Microsoft Game Studios, Redmond, WA                                             1/1999 - 4/2004; 10/2005 - 7/2006

·         Forza2 Motorsport:  Creation of 3D environments for realistic Xbox 360 racing game.  Modeling and texturing of trees, vegetation, buildings, fences, and racetracks.   Custom, high resolution material creation for buildings, trees, race day vehicles, and skies.  Painted most of the skydomes in the game.  Art pipeline problem solving, teamwork.  3D Max, Photoshop, Deep Paint3D.

·         MechWarrior4:  Designed, built and lit all alpine and swamp environments in game.    Painted textures, skies, and backgrounds.  Rendered light maps for levels.  Worked with designers in designing terrain to support game play.  Created unique landmarks for navigation.  Developed tool feature specifications for in-house level editor.  Team won PC World’s Sci-Fi Game of the Year.  3D Max, Photoshop, proprietary level editing tools.

·         Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator:  Modeled destroyed buildings and aircraft; painted accompanying textures.  Tools:  SoftImage/XSI, Photoshop.

·         Microsoft Flight Simulator:  Modeled and textured landmark buildings, including the National Gallery of Art and Italian villas.  Created aerial terrain textures.  Technical duties of getting art into the game engine.  Tools:  SoftImage/XSI, Photoshop, DOS scripts.

·         Mythica:  Created detailed 3D terrain environments and dungeons for Norse mythology-based MMOG game; modeled, textured, added lighting and atmosphere.  Helped write specs on proprietary level editor.  Maya, Photoshop, proprietary level editing/pipeline tools.

 

3D VIRTUAL WORLD DESIGNER • 3D MODELER • ANIMATOR

Lockheed Martin Advanced Simulation, Bellevue, WA                                1987 - 1998

Created 3D virtual worlds for pioneering SIMNET networked simulation project.  Built structures, vehicles, vegetation, terrain and FX animations for real world locations.  Developed techniques for increasing virtual environment realism.  Created prototypes using experimental methods.  Unix, proprietary 3D software tools.

 

EDUCATION

BA, Fine and Applied Art, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA.

BS, Marketing, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

Masters, Education, focus on digital art technologies and fostering creativity. City University Albright School of Education, Bellevue, WA.

 

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

- Member, Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

 

ART EXHIBITIONS AND ART PUBLICATION

- Faculty Show, Art Institute of California, 2/2008.

- Digital art show, SeaCompression (Seattle Burning Man event), 12/2005.

- Vertical World, paintings of Northwest climbing destinations, Seattle, WA, 5/2004

- Cornish College of the Arts Alumni Show, Cornish College, Seattle, WA, 9/99

- 11th National Computer Art Invitational, Eastern WA University, Cheney, WA 1/98

- Metropolis Gallery of Contemporary Art, solo digital art show, Seattle, WA, 1/95

- Washington DC Apple Pi Magazine, digital work featured, 10/95

- Computer Graphics World Magazine, Portfolio section featured work, 1/93

- Defense News Magazine, virtual reality image showcased, 3/93

- Eurographics '91 digital art show, Vienna, Austria, 9/91

- SIGGRAPH 1987, digital art show, Anaheim, CA, 7/87

 

GRANTS:  NEA-sponsored grant, through Seattle Art Museum’s OpenStudio Project, to learn HTML, mentor others, create website and online gallery, www.escapistimagery.com.

Website designed and created by Karin, including all background textures.

Calendars and Prints