A twenty year veteran of the video game industry with extensive experience in the full cycle of video game software development; including early conception stages, prototyping, proof of concept, design, art bible creation, scheduling, all aspects of production, and bug fixing.

Summery of Qualifications

  • Possess a strong familiarity with how games get made including; short-cuts to work flow, techniques for describing different effects that are supported at the hardware level, and a good eye towards maximizing ‘bang for buck’ returns on art efforts.
  • Solid design sense with the ability to internally visualize 3d space that helps in the creation of puzzles and/or challenges, this tempered with an acute understanding of the fact that design is an ever evolving field and that there are constantly new things to be learned.
  • A wealth of experience from product testing, to founding a start-up, to internal Creative Director. Have also worked with a myriad of development tools from dpaint and text editors to ‘hacking’ quake C and using internal scripting languages.
  • A strong ability in problem solving combined with awareness that any problem can be solved in a number of ways and by a myriad of combinations of the various disciplines that go into software development.

Professional Experience

Maxis – Electronic Arts, Redwood Shores, CA

Art Director                                                                                                                     2012-Present

Worked as AD on The Sims 4, as a Technical Artist on a canceled Maxis title, and recently as AD on another canceled Maxis title.

Activision, Foster City, CA

Art Director                                                                                                                       2005-2010

First came on to created bonus levels for X3 from whole cloth with no engineering or design support. Helped bug fix a number of levels for X3. Have since re-built the internal art team from the ground up, shipped a Guitar Hero expansion, and developed several new visual directions for both the Guitar Hero and Band Hero franchises.

Electronic Arts, Redwood City, CA                                                                              2004-2005

Lead Artist on the next Bond game.

Built the ‘block worlds’ for all of the levels in the game. Set up the initial streaming for all of the level based assets for each level in the game, including arranging streaming to work around IGC assets. Finally was almost solely responsible for building out and taking to completion one of the game levels.

Crystal Dynamics, Menlo Park, CA

Art Director, Creative Director                                                                                         1998 – 2004

Went to Crystal to work on Blood Omen 2, helped set the game’s direction, set the art style and helped with production work flow. Worked in various capacities including; overall game design, level puzzles, character and level concepts, art direction, and storyboards for the various cinematics. After BO2 took a team that was fragmented, had no direction, talked management into giving me three weeks to show that we could do what Eidos wanted which ultimately gave us a strong direction and ultimately let to the development of Snowblind. There were some personal innovations that I’m particularly proud of:

  • Object Libraries – came up with the concept and pushed it through resulting in sharing assets across the game and, more importantly, massive time savings.
  • Terrain modules – pushed into use the concept of building terrain out of pre-fab ‘blocks’. All block worlds followed this approach making the art pass more streamlined.

Contract, San Francisco, CA

Video game artist/designer                                                                                          1996 – 1998

Worked for various companies including; Electronic Arts, Crystal Dynamics, and Sega Soft. Worked on everything from concepts to finished game artwork.

Products – Gex 2 (PS1), Akuji (PS1), Metal Fatigue (PC).

Caps Inc, San Francisco, CA

Designer/Director                                                                                                     1995 – 1995

Directed the development of a hybrid 2d/3d original title for the PS1. Duties included: total game design and flowchart, defining look and process for art generation, directed team efforts and scheduling, generated SFX, level art, characters using 3d Studio, and directed motion capture shoot for main playable character.

Head Games, San Francisco, CA

Owner, art director                                                                                                      1993 – 1995

Was a co-founder of a successful start-up that produced four titles in two years. We first rented office sweets to get started then signed a lease for larger space when we got to our final staffing numbers. Was personally responsible for all aspects of art production including scheduling, hiring, firing, and training.

Products – X-Men 2 (GEN), Taz 2 (GEN), Wacky Worlds (GEN), Pink Panther (GEN)

Contract, San Francisco, CA

Video game artist/designer                                                                                                    1993

Had several contacts at Sega and Electronic Art who wanted works done for hire. Worked with wife out of home doing everything from character design, maps, level layout, to final game art work. The most notable accomplishment for us was generating 90% of all of the art work for X-Men in three months.

Products – Chakan (GEN), X-Men (GEN)

Sega Interactive, Diamond Bar, CA

Artist, designer, art director                                                                                          1991 – 1993

Re-introduced to video game development, first worked on a game for the Turbo Graphics using NEC development tools. Then while working on design and art support for several Genesis titles was promoted to art director to help new hires learn how to use the various development tools.

Products – Dark Wing Duck (NEC), Batman Returns (GEN), Tailspin (GEN), Green Dog (GEN).

Miles Computing, Calabasas, CA

Illustrator                                                                                                                            1989

First foray into software development – was involved in everything including; product testing, creating sprite based animations, box and manual art, copy protection schemes, palette arrangements, and in charge of asset tracking with external developer.

Products – Lexicon (PC), At the Circus (Mac), Champions (Amiga), Galaxy Wars (PC).

References available on request.