Resume

Mission: To create beautiful, fun games with wonderful people, for wonderful people to enjoy

Objective: A rewarding position as an Art Director, Lead Artist or Senior Artist making innovative games with creative people

Areas of expertise:

  • Leading art teams: managing, motivating and mentoring artists, ensuring quality and consistency, scheduling, conducting interviews, providing aesthetic, technical and performance feedback
  • Outsource management: negotiating contracts, creating packages, reviewing work, providing timely feedback
  • Game art and pipeline issues: art integration, solving technical problems, inter-disciplinary communication and collaboration, game design
  • Building and maintaining pipelines: designing tools, inventing solutions for streamlining workflow
  • Character modeling, rigging, animation, motion capture
  • Hard surface modeling, technical animation, lighting, texturing, VFX
  • Learning, inventing, and teaching software techniques, tips, and tricks

Skills and knowledge:

  • Art asset tracking and management, scheduling, budgeting, communication & organizational skills
  • Highly developed skills and understanding of 3D animation concepts
  • Extensive abilities and expertise with many art and animation programs including Maya, Photoshop, Zbrush, Max, Mudbox, MotionBuilder, familiarity with many others
  • Technical writing – documenting tools and processes
  • Highly developed understanding of math and programming concepts including shader math, HLSL
  • Extensive understanding of game theory and game design
  • Extensive fine art, commercial art, and musical skills

Accomplishments

Employment history:

  • Sr. Technical Artist at Arctic7 – Oct 2022 – Present
  • Lead Artist at The Acceleration Agency Jan 2022 – Sept 2022
  • Lead / Principal Artist, Sr. Technical Artist / VFX Artist at Portalarium, Inc. Jan 2017 – May 2022
  • Sr. Artist at Maxplay, Inc Feb 2015 – Sept 2016
  • Sr. Artist, FX Artist at Red Fly Studio July 2014 – Dec 2014
  • Art Director at Merge Interactive Jan 2012 – Jan 2014
    • Star Wars Clone Trooper – plug-n-play TV game
    • Duck Commander – Duck Dynasty plug-n-play TV game
    • Zombie Hunter – The Walking Dead plug-n-play TV game
    • Field ‘n Stream Fishing game for Windows 8 and Mac
    • Big Buck Hunter Pro Adventure – for Windows 8 and Mac
    • Bass Pro Shops: The Strike: Pro Angler – for iOS
  • Lead Artist, Art Producer, Character TD, FX Artist at Red Fly Studio Feb 2008 – Dec 2011
    • Noddables – unreleased music game (iPad) – Primary Artist
    • Unannounced Next Gen Title (PS3, 360) – Art Producer
    • Thor: God of Thunder (Wii, 3DS) – Character TD, FX Artist
    • Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (Wii) – Character TD, FX Artist
    • Food Network: Cook or Be Cooked (Wii) – Lead Artist
    • GhostBusters (Wii) – Character TD
    • Mushroom Men (Wii) – Character TD, FX Artist
  • Lead Character Production Artist at Spacetime Studios 2006-2008
    • “Blackstar” (cancelled)
  • Lead Artist, Character Lead / Tech Art Lead at Sony Online Entertainment 2000-2006
    • Star Wars Galaxies – 1st release and expansions:
      – An Empire Divided
      – Jump to Lightspeed
      – Rage of the Wookiees
      – Trials of Obi-Wan
  • Senior Artist / Technical Art Advisor at Origin Systems/EA 1999-2000
    • Privateer Online (cancelled)
  • Senior Artist / Technical Art Advisor Bootprint Entertainment 1998-1999
    • Created gorgeous, mind-blowing demos
  • Senior Artist / Technical Art Advisor at Origin Systems/EA 1994-1998
    • Taught animation, modeling, and game art techniques
    • Assumed role as artists’ liaison to the programmers
    • Assisted with game design and story development
    • Lead Artist on two projects
    • Created art and animations for award winning games:
      • Wing Commander Prophecy: SecretOps
      • Wing Commander Prophecy
      • Wing Commander: Kilrathi Saga
      • Wing Commander 4
      • Wing Commander 3 – 3DO
      • Wing Commander Armada
      • Ultima 9
  • Modeller / Animator at DSI Inc. 1993-1994

Education and training:

  • University of Texas at Austin – BA in art with honors 1987-1991
    • 1 of 12 national recipients of John Dales scholarship
    • Painting, design, piano, music theory
  • Austin Community College 1986-1988
    • computer graphics, life drawing
  • Austin High School 1986 graduate
    • commercial art, fine art, music
  • Other studies include Maya and Alias master classes and workshops, MEL for artists, Intro to C++

Additional Endeavors:

  • Art Track Director for Austin Community College continuing education video games curriculum
  • Guest 3D teacher at local elementary school
  • Mural art on public schools – concepted and directed creation of two murals on two local elementary schools

Contact damon.waldrip@gmail.com