The Latest

So, it's been a long time since I made a blog post. I think it's partially because nothing exciting has really happened and partially because I haven't felt the need to write a whole blog post about anything. In related news, I made a tumblr because it seemed like a better way to make quick art updates rather than posting here. You can find mine here: http://chrixeleon.tumblr.com/

Let's see, what's happened since last June... Last summer mainly consisted on working on the Virtual Joust project for the Higgins Armory and searching for jobs (which, I admit, should have been done before the summer!). I feel like I used the end of college and this project to prolong job searching and working on my portfolio, which was a big mistake! Towards the end of the Virtual Joust project, which was completed in October and is now installed in the museum, I buckled down and started really working on pursuing my goal of getting a job in the game industry.

For the month of September I decided to make at least one piece of art a day and post it to tumblr to practice my skills. I also worked on making a game called God's Tower for the Super Friendship Club forum's Mysticism Pageant to get more experience with flixel. In October I ordered some nice business cards from 123Print.com which I am very happy with. Also during this time I kept working on making my website better and now I'm finally satisfied with it (you can check it out here: http://chrixeleon.com/). November was pretty uneventful and December was full of holiday preparation and celebration. Starting in October and continuing through January I was in (and got pretty far through) the hiring process of a local game company but didn't get the job. I was pretty bummed but it was my very first job hiring process experience (and real job interview) ever!

With New Year's 2012 came new resolutions and an increased desire to get a job. My resolutions are mainly about increasing my skills and breaking into the game industry: get better at art, get better at networking (and talking to people in general), get a job! In mid-January I remembered iD Tech Camps, of which I had been a student at one point, and decided to apply for an instructor position. By February 1st I had a job offer and some definite employment later in the year. It was great to finally have something, but I still wanted to be working sooner. Also in January I participated in the Global Game Jam (GGJ) at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab. I met a bunch of new people, got some excellent game jam and art experience, and helped make a game called Canopy of Shadows in a weekend. It was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again next year!

GGJ was sort of a confirmation that my life was moving in the right direction. I got introduced to a small game company in Boston that was looking for an art intern and someone looking for a pixel artist for their indie project. Shortly after GGJ (and completely coincidentally) I saw a job posting for a position at a game company I applied to in August but was put on file because they weren't hiring then. Long story short, they offered me a job! It's a contract position that starts at the end of March and I'm excited! Since the beginning of February I've also been doing some concept art work for the company I was introduced to after GGJ and can hopefully provide some more help until I start working full time. As for personal work, I made a small game called Proximity Mime for the GDC Pirate Kart.

That brings us to right now. This month will hopefully consist of working on more art, starting my first game industry job, and getting ready for PAX East and it's preceding Made in MA party. Any personal art I make will be posted on tumblr and PAX East will get recap posts here as usual. I might make a post just about preparing for PAX, too, as I'm planning on doing some hardcore networking this year. It looks like a lot of great people and companies will be there this year and I'm greatly looking forward to it!

So, long story short (or TL;DR), things got better, things are going well, and things are looking up.

Updates + Summer Plans

It seems that it's been about a month since I last posted. Well, anyway, here's what I've been up to.

Updates

First off, I'm still creating art for the Higgins Armory Virtual Joust project along with Alfreda Smith. In March I refined and created some UI elements for the game. This included altering the existing art for the "heraldry creator" as well as creating heraldic emblems. I also created a prototype logo for the game which will be polished in the near future.

This past month I worked on creating 2D audience members to populate the stands with Freda. I did this by digitally painting sketches of cartoony people I drew and scanned into Photoshop. The people were then arranged together and placed on planes with transparency. When these planes are stuck in the environment, they'll give the game more depth and detail. Moving forward we'll be working on polishing existing aspects of the game.

Another project that I've been working on this term is a small Flash game for the WPI Game Development Club's Development Team. I didn't participate in C-term for various reasons but I made a point to help make something in D-term. The GDC Dev Teams don't have the best track record for putting out games or keeping projects alive (something I experienced last year), so I tried to keep it going this time. Luckily, the team picked one of my game ideas allowing me to work as a designer instead of just an artist.

Our game is called Building Bashers. It's a beat-em-up game where you control transformed robotic buildings and fight other robotic buildings, causing much chaos and destruction. Other than providing the idea I created a design doc at the start of the term, created some art assets, and even did some coding towards the end (menus and particles). We used flixel and various art tools to create the game; Andy Wolff was our programmer, Joey Chipman made player/boss and robot enemies, Dillon Lankenau made menu screens and some enemies, Graham Leto was our project manager and also made sounds, and I created a player and enemy robot, some GUI stuff, and particles. As with most small game projects, we didn't get to implement everything we wanted to but we have a playable game we can show off. You can try it out here!

Summer Plans

So, school is officially over and I'm going to be graduating in less than a week. That means I need to get an actual job now! I feel that I have most of the skills needed to get a job but I don't have enough to show off my skills. That said, my plans for the summer are to make some nice pieces of art and games to showcase in my portfolio and then start applying for jobs. This includes fixing up my resume, tweaking my website, and looking for places to apply. My goal is to start applying by July, which gives me about 2 months to get my act together. I also plan to update my blog more frequently with art, games, and whatever else I work on so stay tuned!

Becoming a Professional

It's about that time now: time to prepare myself for finding post-college employment! To get myself presentable for game companies, I have some main goals:

• Overhaul my résumé
• Tweak and fix up my portfolio site
• Purchase a domain name
• Find and obtain web hosting
• Design and print business cards

Other smaller goals are to make more art and games to present on my portfolio and creating a definitive style that is consistent throughout my portfolio, résumé, business cards, etc. Oh, and I'd like to have all of this done by PAX East 2011. I think I've gone long enough feeling like I'm not prepared to get a job and I want to start networking for real! I'll be home for about a week right before PAX, which is good. Then again, Pokémon Black & White come out at the beginning of that week, which might be bad. :D

I've been reading around Darius Kazemi's blog to get hints about writing a résumé for game companies, effective networking, and more. I suggest checking it out! Which reminds me, I've been meaning to put together a post of helpful links for fellow game development students that I've been hoarding in my bookmarks folder. Look for that soon!