Be all you can be!

Hi everyone, my name's Joe. If you're not already aware I have been on the Game Art Course at DMU previously. I started the course in September 2009 with my partner Sophia Leong, but in January 2010 Sophia suffered a stroke and was in hospital for quite some time. She is now in Melton Mowbry undergoing rehabilitation and is making outstanding progress. Basically, if there's a God, in January last year he decided to pull his pants down and take a dump all over my life! (Sophia's brain injury hasn't been the only crap I've had to deal with), but that’s another long story for another time. The one thing to note now is that what has happened to Sophia has been a massive shock to me, but with an amazing amount of support from friends and family I am beginning to see some light at the end of a very long tunnel. I always like to believe that things could always be worse no matter how bad they get, and to try and give myself some perspective on things I always try to tell myself that there is somebody, somewhere worse off than myself, (although every time I think that my mind jumps to the Fawlty Towers episode when Basil is told that, to which he replies, “is there? Well I'd like to meet him!”).

So here I am back on the course. I was initially drawn to Game Art and Design at DMU due to the fair amount of traditional artistic skills, drawing and painting etc., that are incorporated within the course and the idea that the course would help me to transfer these skills into the digital medium.

For me, right now, everything still feels a little 'up in the air' with everything else going on around me in life. So for now, I'd basically just like to work hard and make it through the year, but in the future who knows? I did at one point aspire to work for Naughty Dog at their Santa Monica studios, being a huge fan of their Crash Bandicoot and more recently Uncharted games. But, with the shit hitting the fan as of late, my life being the faeces in this instance, I'd basically just love to finish the course with a good degree under my belt, and thinking more practically, in the long term I've always thought I'd like to be an illustrator for children’s books, I think I'd really enjoy that. All I really want is to get Sophia home with me and take care of her, and having a job as an illustrator may give me the opportunity to balance work with whatever needs Sophia may have, and, I could possibly even work from home. Being realistic, having a decent education and a good, well paid job would be massively positive and beneficial for myself and Sophia.

As I mentioned earlier, my dream job would probably be working for Naughty Dog, possibly as a concept artist or environment artist. Naughty Dog currently have a few vacancies, six in total in their art department and one of the main aspects of the company that I find wonderful is how much they value the role of art within the industry, asking for skills such as 'a fundamental knowledge of art history, art styles and artistic principles', as well as, 'aesthetics in game and film', obviously values which I also feel strongly about and have an interest in away from the course.

I could probably go on but I think I'll leave it here for today, I'm running out of breath!

Glad to be back!