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"Blackstar" was quite a stylistic departure for me after SWG. The look was much more stylized, with almost no photo-sourcing for textures. I think I drew about a million panel lines in Photoshop. The result was a look I felt fell somewhere between graphic novel and anime (I actually found my inspiration for the texture style in old John Byrne and Jack Kirby comics). The designs from the concept department were fairly ambitious. One thing you can't see from these still images is that the ships articulated and moved around like animals, with the heads turning and wings and "legs" trailing behind as the ships maneuvered. The entire bodies would flex when they fired their boosters, and everything would splay out when they took damage or braked. Our animators did a great job with that stuff. On my end, componentizing the parts and organizing them such that they not only matched the concept art but actually worked as they swiveled and gyrated around was a unique challenge. It certainly made building a TIE fighter look easy!
This is a small sample of some of the weapons I modeled and textured for "Star Wars: Galaxies" and related expansions. By the end of the six-year run my final tally was, if I recall correctly, 93. Many were from the movies, some were concepted in the expanded universe fiction, and a lot of them I just made up from scratch. All in all they were fun (at least for the first 75 or so...).
I actually made a great deal of architecture, interior and exterior, for "Star Wars: Galaxies." Much of it, however, was intentionally non-descript player-housing-type material, meant to be decorated by players, not artists, and hence wasn't what I'd consider "portfolio quality." But despite my reputation as "The Ship Guy," I genuinely enjoy building and lighting architecture--even when it's not sci-fi (I swear to God that someday somebody is going to pay me to build a Cthulhu shrine...).
This is only a few of the many ships and vehicles I built for SWG. As I mentioned before, I've been pigeon-holed as "The Ship Guy" (though I think my capabilities far exceed that), and here are some of the reasons why. The top two images (of a Mon Calamari light freighter) and the bottom one (of an SUV-like speeder) were my own designs. The others most will likely recognize as being from the movies, and I like to think I really pegged them. Lots of photo-sourcing used for the textures on these. I even scanned some sprues from model airplanes and tanks to help with the greeble and other details (after all, that's how they built the original studio models back in the '70's).
I've been remiss in documenting my exterior architectural efforts. There was a large amount of it in SWG, but most was done on shoestring budgets and draconian time-frames, which made me consider them less than of "portfolio" quality. I think in this sense I've misjudged the utility a portfolio, so here are some samples.The rules of the day when building these were A) Get them done fast, B) Keep the facecounts low, and C) Keep the texture footprints small. Lots of textures were tiled and lots of trim was added with multi-purpose detail strips. Making the Naboo version of a cloning facility typically entailed simply making "Naboo" style versions of the textures and swapping them out directly, with minimal hand-adjustment.
Chris Douglas Senior 3D Artist
Austin, TX 78727
Email: Blacklake3d@gmail.com
Summary
Over 15 years experience as an artist in the computer games industry, with multiple titles shipped. Experience in all phases of product development: pre-production, production, beta, and post-ship.
· High quality asset creation
· Over 8 years MMO production experience
· Concept design experience
· Extensive collaboration with other disciplines
· Attention to technical detail
· Management experience
Spacetime Studios 2006 – Present
Lead Vehicle Artist – Blackstar
· Oversaw content creation pipeline for player and NPC vehicles for a sci-fi/fantasy MMO.
· Collaborated closely with game designers and concept artists to develop and execute unique and stylized visual solutions in-game. · Produced multiple rapid-prototyping assets, enabling early game concept validation
· Prepared technical documentations and production packages for outsource.
Sony Online Entertainment (Austin) 2000 – 2006
Lead Vehicle/Weapons Artist – Jump to Lightspeed, Rage of the Wookiees, and The Trials of Obi-Wan
· Oversaw content creation pipeline for player and NPC vehicles and their portalized interiors
· Reviewed work from outsource providers and junior artists for technical compliance.
· Produced multiple vehicles, buildings, interiors, and props
· Faithfully translated familiar designs from the “Star Wars” series of films into high-quality in-game assets
· Generated original concepts for multiple vehicles and props
Senior Artist – Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided
· Modeled, textured, lit, and executed technical set-up for multiple buildings (interiors and exteriors), vehicles, props, other environmental objects, a handful of droids, even a Jawa...
Kinesoft Development 1998 – 2000
Art Director – Crimson Order
· Executed pre-game visualization and concept design for multiple game pitches (from a pirate-themed adventure to a western shooter to a top-down sci-fi tactical game)
· Managed a team of artists during early stages of in-game asset creation.
Microprose (Austin) 1996 – 1998
Art Director – Masters of Magic II and unpublished Civilization product
· Conducted visual research-and-development and produced multiple concept designs for two projects in early stages of pre-production.
Origin Systems Inc. 1991 – 1996
Production Designer and 3D modeler– Wing Commander IV
Art Director and 3d Modeler– Wing Commander III
Concept Art and Visual Development – Wing Commander: Prophecy
3D Artist – Wing Commander II, Strike Commander, Privateer, Bioforge
Relevant Software Experience
3D Studio Max
Maya
Adobe Photoshop
Perforce
Alienbrain
Education
BA in Art with Honors, University of Texas at Austin, 1991
