looking for real professional designers

[Pyramidhe@d]

anyways, i need to do like an interview with a designer for a school assessment and i need to analysis on his work and ask him about the industry and stuff.

the cateory i am going for is creature/character design in gaming.

are any of you hivers working professionally in this profession? or do you know a person who does such a thing

can you please let me know. cos i really have no idea who to begin with.

if this doesnt work, i might send an email to blizzard to ask for interview/Q&A with one of the new zerg designers or something


Edit:
questions i am going to ask in general concerns...
*the research method--inspirations or source of research
*people involved in the production, people like 3d artists/modelers, illustrators, photographers, the client etc
...and some other professional questions

i also need some development work related to the project. this is for me to analyse the working process of the designer. just few pages showing major steps involved in the design; initial brainstorm, initial concept and major concepts made during the prodution, sketches, alterations made during development, alteration made after consulatation with client and final product

after analysing, i would also need to ask more questions related to the analysis i just made.

 

[Xezko]

well, try asking to CRAZYRUSSIAN, i think he is profesional artist in a game of Aztecs or something

 

[Mechanical Man]

Or Syleona.

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

i sent a facebook message to Dustin Browder, the head of SC2 development. WTf was i think? well i wasnt really thinking much. i still gotta wait for reply but i doubt he would care for some kid. just wishful thinking i guess

anyways thanks guys, i vmed CRAZYRUSSIAN and Syleona so i gotta wait and see

 

[D a w n]

you could ask TDR aswell

 

[Pyritie]

He's not a professional (yet) I don't think. I know he's tried out for jobs several times though.

 

[Mechanical Man]

I think that TDR has no plan to enter in game industry, more like generic CG.

 

[TDR]

I think that TDR has no plan to enter in game industry, more like generic CG.

I'd like both actually .
Don't know how much I could help you with this though, Pyramidhe@d. I have no experience in a production environment.
Xaran Alamas is good friends with Chris Metzen as far as I know, maybe you could ask xaran to get you in touch with him. Don't know if he's active anymore in these parts of the internets though, so try sending him a note on deviantart: http://xaran-alamas.deviantart.com/

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

Xaran Alama's last activity was about 11 hrs ago so i sent him a vm and i also sent a note on dA.
TDR, thank you very much. i hope this all leads to somewhere.

 

[CRAZYRUSSIAN]

Hello.

My friend it is impossible!

Because I was at this year GDC (game developers conference) with a $2000 pass for one week.

I was talking to Valve, Blizzard, activision, lucas arts, and other art directors.
Basically, You need to be a godlike artist with exceptional ass kissing skills, and match their game art style one to one, and have working experience with epic portfolio.

And when you have all that, those companies are not hiring, because they out source the work to smaller companies for cheap labor, and blizzard is the WORST one.

I was talking to their art lead, and he told me to match samwises art style, I told that art lead that samwise's art is pathetic and I dont like their anime style.

Blizzard has an art contest, If you win 1st. place then you have a dinner with blizzard owners and have a chance to suck their dicks under the table for a job. If you dont win anything, your art work and concepts are all belong to BLIZZARD and they can use it all they want. Basically they get thousands free art works.

If you just starting up then you MUST understand that for couple years you will have to work in the industry for free or dirt cheap pay before you can get your foot into the door.

Then with experience and skill and connections you can move on higher.

I mean, read Iain Mccaig's Bio.

It takes a long time, unless you are -ART GOD- have unlimited $$$ or blizzard's president is your fahter or brother.

In fact Blizzards art is CRAP, some of it is strong, but for 90% of it it is CRAP. Magic the gathering art is 300% much better and stronger.

In my opinion, Try it out, If it works COOL! If not, then work harder and try something else, like an independent game studio, go to the GAMASUTRA to find jobs.
CG society, and Gnoman workshops are the best paths into the game industry.

Anything else? Good luck. I'll see you in the industry someday!

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

If you just starting up then you MUST understand that for couple years you will have to work in the industry for free or dirt cheap pay before you can get your foot into the door.

why is life so goddamn hard! maybe i should just ditch everything and do bloody land development like my dad thinks i should.

i hope chris metzen is nice enough to give me what i need

CRAZYRUSSIAN, what exactly is it that you do btw? if all else fails, can i interview you or is it the wrong category?

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

Update
YAY \(^_^)/. Mr Keith Thompson decided to help me and sent me few of his sketches. thanks for all your help guys!

 

[Pyritie]

Wow awesome

 

[Mechanical Man]

Heh, from what I hear, it looks like working in gaming industry isn't worth the effort. Seems that is better to get a standard IT job instead (system administrator, database manager, application developer, ...), better pay, less work and the job is easier to get, even in my puny Slovenia (where da fu*k is that?).

I agree with CR, Blizzard art is pretty crappy, the success of this game actually lies in a simple gameplay and good, easy edtor.

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

but system admin is boring
i still do IT so i guess i could go that if i screw up my life

 

[Pyritie]

Heh, from what I hear, it looks like working in gaming industry isn't worth the effort. Seems that is better to get a standard IT job instead (system administrator, database manager, application developer, ...), better pay, less work and the job is easier to get, even in my puny Slovenia (where da fu*k is that?).

Uuurgh. IT is one career path I'd hate to get into. It looks like it's just about maintenance and helping people with their "printer is not working. did you turn it on. no. well there you go." or "why is my router not working. call your isp." problems. (As if I don't get enough of that already! D

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

Uuurgh. IT is one career path I'd hate to get into. It looks like it's just about maintenance and helping people with their "printer is not working. did you turn it on. no. well there you go." or "why is my router not working. call your isp." problems. (As if I don't get enough of that already! D

i lol'ed becos its tru +Rep. you have a new green gem now

i want to have IT as a backup but i hope not because i like creative stuff

 

[Pyritie]

And yet my mom wants me to work for my neighbourhood during the summer doing jobs like that. D: (Although even if the problem takes like 5 mins to fix they still give me £10 sometimes. Lol)

 

[Pyramidhe@d]

preying on the ignorant i see >
you should really take your time looking all serious and ask for a cool lemonade as well.

 

[TDR]

The best solution is to start up your own studio, with friends. But you must have balls of steel, extreme determination and god-like ideas. It's really hard, but in the long run it will be worth it. I'm trying to do this, but so far we failed because of shit university.

 

[Dr Super Good]

You can always try applying for character designer for modern 3D movies and simlar. Those I believe are a lot less fussy compaired to game companies and need really a lot of them. But really there is no money in art nowdays unless you become internationally famous.

There are more artists than there are places for them, so the laws of suppl and demand state that they will get poor pay and be highly faught over.

Software design on the other hand is a different ball game. Yes they have a simlar grunt problem resulting in low pay, however it is so diverse that if you become good at something obscure (beyond the expertiese of the normal grunts) people will litterly beg you to work for them and offer really high pay.

Thus my advice? Art is a dead end as there will always be the same artists with same skill levels and same pay, programming however can be like that but if you are good you can really make pots of money.

Starting up a company now is not too advisable however you can always start the framework to one. You need to gain fame, popularity and potential employees and then when you actually have large numbers of potential buyers become a company.

 

[Syleona]

Hey there. Do you still need anything from a Designer standpoint? As in, relating that interview thingy...

I could help if you still need it. I've recently started working full time @ Ubisfot. If you are interested in some detailed talk, we could chat on MSN. Just PM me your address and we'll get on it. =)