Sunday 16 October 2011

Introductions!

Hello! I'm Nizaam and I'm from Peterborough. Like most normal kids my afternoons after primary school were spent attempting to complete Sonic, Mario 64 and of course, Golden Eye. (Pokemon was also awesome). The escapism that the Sega Mega Drive, Nintendo64 and PlayStation brought through my youth was unmatched by any toy or board game.

Through my teens I had very little idea as to what I wanted to be, my dreams of becoming a footballer or a race car driver as a young child were soon crushed by the suggestions from mum and dad as there fingers pointed towards law and medicine.. As I got into 6th form I came to a realisation that Design had always been something I enjoyed. So I chose Product Design as well as one of my A level in hopes to one day embrace a career in it. This soon changed. My teacher for that subject had a Ba (hons) in Industrial Design and every lesson he would bring a stack of books, one which caught my eye was "Concept Design" by the likes of Scott Robertson, Neville Page and many others. This inspired me to find a degree that allowed for concepts outside the limitations of today's technology and ideas beyond the physics of Earth. And then I thought of games. 

As year 13 came to a end I applied for Game Art at DMU but hadn't had much of a portfolio because A levels hardly prepares you for such a degree, so there I was in a interview with Chirs (before I knew he was Chris) absolutely destroying my very lame portfolio. Now I knew what was expected, and he suggested the foundation course at DMU so I saw it as a perfect opportunity to improve my skills, and to explore my style.

Though I had been drawing my favorite cartoon characters (as you do - dragonball z anyone?) and doodling in class through my youth I never took Art seriously until around 2 years ago. I found myself drawing out of books, environments, portraits, animals and occasionally sketching in the back garden. Plus the foundation course really helped because of its freedom of briefs and weekly life drawing. We also went to New York to the Metropolitan Museum, very inspiring trip, and not to mention the V & A Museum in London.

So Here I Am! Through these years I really want to bridge that gap from "I can draw.. sometimes" to "yeh.. I'm pro.." Ok but seriously I do want to achieve a sense of discipline as an artist to constantly be developing and learning. As for a dream job in the games industry? I would say concept artist BUT it appears almost everyone wants that position which brings its difficulty level to around almost impossible/Chuck Norris... However that wont stop me from being the best I can be and I'm sure this course will bring the best out all of us sooner or later. 3D also looks very interesting and at this point for me I guess its not really what I want to do, but what I actually can do. It seems for most concept art jobs, although role may be centered around production paintings with 2D software, knowledge of 3DS Max as well as other 3D software is a very good bonus. Wether my thoughts of a dream job in concept art change or not throughout these years I will welcome 2D, 3D, Digital and Traditional with open arms because fundamentally, I guess they are one in the same.

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