MCA Illustration students will participate in Dali Community Day with the Brooks Museum of Art on Saturday, April 26. Students will set up demonstrations and explain the process of their work to other event attendees.

Come check it out!

I think from the very beginning of my gaming days... at least when I finally sat down and got serious about it, I think that I was drawn to being a video game artist. I can still remember sitting around with buddies playing old super nintendo games like Earthbound and Final Fantasy 3 / 6 and my (to this day still) second favorite game of all time: Chrono Trigger. I would think then that it's safe to say that I always wanted to do something in the video game industry.

My first real experience with video game art that I can honestly say drew me into the world of video game design was probably the cover art for Chrono Trigger:

And also the character portraits:

Initially I wanted to be an environment artist for the silly reasons that I didn't want to animate, that I thought environments would be simpler, there would be less competition for this type of work, etc. The reasons are insignificant, because it's much more important to A) have a clear goal up front, and B) to never compromise because "It's easier." As the saying goes, nothing good comes easy. And I whole-heartedly agree, because if it were easy, everyone would be doing it and it wouldn't be worth the time. This goes into a very different rant that I could go on and on about how a majority of the public looks down upon artists. But I'll save that rant for a different time.

Like I said, pay attention to yourself early on. I was interested in the character designs from the get-go, and I didn't listen to myself. Fast forward a tiny bit (not much) and you get closer to what I really wanted to do: character art. Baldur's Gate was probably my first real experience into what makes good character art.