Art Test from Naughty Dog

Some time between 2 and 3 pm yesterday, there were a couple of bugs in our database that needed to be updated as they had been sitting there untouched for quite a few weeks now. I needed to get them closed off. But I just wasn't feeling up to it. So I thought to procrastinate a little bit. I had exhausted all other means of procrastination when I said "Hey, I know! I can check my email!"

Which I did, without realizing the surprise that was waiting for me. There was an art test from Naughty Dog in my inbox. I had applied to an environment artist position with the team a few weeks back but I didn't think I was going to get a callback because

1) I'm Canadian
2) I don't have experience
3) My cover letter said "Dear Rainmaker"

A few days earlier I had received a "We are reviewing your qualifications" and thought, oh it's just another one of those. So yeah, DEFINITELY surprised that they wanted to take my application process to the next step. I told a couple friends on MSN, one of who flat out didn't believe me (not that I blame him).

Cause I mean, this is the maker of UNCHARTED, only among the best looking games ever! What in the world would make them want to look at little ol' me?! Well I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. So today I get started on the art test. I have 2 weeks to do it, strictly modeling. Wish me luck!

New Home!

So I've moved out of Port Moody, finally. I've been aching for this kind of freedom for a very long time now. From little things like mother coming into my room unannounced with the laundry, to not having the living room to myself because brother and his girlfriend are occupying it, watching TV or whatnot. I've been confined to my room recently, as it has been my only place of solace.

That changed when my friend at work Mike, asked me if I was interested in moving in with him and his other room mate Jamie, who also works with us. I was a little nervous at the prospect of leaving home because this was my first time doing so. I wasn't sure what kind of a room mate I would be, what kind of unwritten rules there would be to abide by.

I requested leave for the week of May 110th to work on my portfolio - completely forgetting that I'd planned to make the move that week. I ended up moving the first of my belongings over on the saturday before, and spent that week settling into my new place (which saves 45 minutes off my commute to work every morning.)

The Deep South

I went to Atlanta, Georgia for Christmas Break from Dec 26 to January 3. Touched down in Atlanta at night at around 10:30. Taxi ride in a van with a driver from Jamaica who had been living there for some time. Told me where I was staying was a safe part of the city with police 5 surrounding police outposts. Bums were the biggest problem but it's not like they were dangerous. Around 1 AM went out to look for some food and found a karaoke joint called Metro City where the people singing inside could be heard around the block. Had beer and chicken wings there - alone - but it was still delicious, all while listening to the people sing downstairs. Little bit later, walked back to the motel to get some sleep.

The next day I woke up early at around 8 something. I wanted to spend some of the day touring and trying out the local cuisine. For the first few hours I looked up local restaurant Benihana, the Coke Factory and the aquarium, and worked on my Balamb Garden scene for a few hours. Later in the afternoon, I went to the nearby Marriott hotel and found a Starbucks where I bought my Starbucks Atlanta cup from. Another one to add to the collection!

recent developments

I'm typing this as I'm watching Roswell. It's a pretty interesting show and I never got into it back when it was running. Since my last update I've joined 3 online mods but to be honest, the first one I don't think I'm going to be doing much work for as the guy doesn't seem to know what he wants and I don't like the kind of direction the producer is trying to take his project. the second one wants to make me their character modeler but I don't have any concept art or anything to go by, but I'm making the most out of what I have. But it's a struggle, I admit. The third one seems to be the most organized, gave the most professional image I've seen. They got me making some trees and vegetation. Considering I've never made a tree in my life, I seem to be doing a good job. So far I've gotten no negative feedback but it's hard to tell considering I just started with them.

Workwise, word seems to be that I will be transferring back to Artworks after skate 3 is done. I couldn't be happier at the news. The first person to give me an inkling was Karl. A little bit later I spoke to Marv who had moved down to IHOQ from CTU. He didn't seem like his usual cheerful self and I attribute it to him being transferred from CTU down to WWQA. I felt the same way when I got transferred. I'm enjoying working on Skate 3 as a POC, I've been given more responsibility than I've had in any of my past jobs and I seem to be handling it better than Kat expects, which only makes me happy. So the wait to return to Artworks will not be long and agonizing even though I am excited to return. Because another thing I'm looking forward to is seeing this project through to the end - the first triple A title to have my name on it.

POC

After Golive, things turned out for the better. I remember on one of the many beer nights with Kat and crew, mentioning that i was interested in more responsibility after the drone jobs i had with fifa and Golive. I asked for responsibility and did I ever get it. Becoming a point of contact for the skate 3 team is probably one of the best things that can happen to me here - and the worst at the same time. Good because I get the experience art testing for blackbox, bad because i'm new to it. it's nothing like testing for EAC. pre-integration and post-integration are one in the same. the job requires me to stay with the artwork from concept to integration, keep up to date with all the districts and lots, write reports and help direct testing efforts. I work under kat, and alongside carly. my main art responsibility is the environment.

ARGH

I tried signing into this account by making a typo in my email address like I usually do. Work sucks. I didn't want to get transferred to Mass Effect 2 because I want to enjoy the game as a game. Very bitter about being transferred to the team until Marv called me back up to artworks to work on NCAA while Katie was off on vacation. I ended up taking Emily's position but all the better for it because she's brand spankin' new to the company and i'm not sure she could have handled the stadiums and renders thrown at me. Hell i'm not too sure i even handled it the best way, i just sort of winged it. But Jason and all them seemed happy with the work i was doing so i just kept on doing it until told otherwise.

Monday came around and Katie returned from her vacation and replaced me on that team. I updated her on what we were doing and tried returning to mass effect where i belonged, until i found out that they actually replaced me with new testers citing our conversation last week. Pretty much I told them it looked as if NCAA wanted to keep me doing their work, but this was out of their jurisdiction although I'm not sure mass effect knew that. So for an hour or so, i was a rogue tester with no dedicated project, until yavar put me on the go-live team (and in all honesty i hate it) because i'm not doing any work - just attempting to repro issues users are having so that devs can make a patch and I start at 6:30 in the morning. The only perk is getting off work at 3:30 pm but it really doesn't make up for an overall shitty situation.

This experienced has further firmed my resolve in getting out of VMC QA and looking for a QA job with a company that 1) pays me what my job is worth and 2) gives me opportunities to climb up the corporate ladder. It gives me hope that this company i'm at is the only one that does things like this.

Latest Developments

It's been a solid few months since I've updated this blog. Too much has been going on in the professional, personal, and social scene. Here's the jist of what's happened sofar.

1) Personal: Grandpa hasn't been doing too well for the last few years, health is steadily going downhill. I thought about taking a trip to Singapore to visit him but because my job is doing a good job of keeping me busy, I decided not to go. That was until Grandma, on the other side of the family was diagnosed with cancer of the liver or gallbladder variety - still not sure as to what the details are. So in July, I took 13 working days off Tennis and headed to Singapore to visit the ailing grandparents. The country was hot and I had a horrible time with the weather although I ended up being able to see the grandparents and catch up. Also met a few of the cousins' friends. Overall, a decent trip and some much needed time off.

2) Social: Pretty much CL - she's the girl I've pretty much made all my mistakes on. We've known each other since we were 13 which means as off this writing, about half our lives. So because most of our relationship involves us fighting and bickering, naturally she bitches about me, but I had no idea to the extent. Turns out she pretty much turned her parents against me (although whether or not she intended to is questionable.). One fine Sunday about 4 weeks ago I went over to her house and when it was dinner time, they invited me to join them for the meal, which was a nice thing to do. Dinner ended up consisting of me having to endure her mother's verbal abuse. Would have talked back, except I was in their house eating their food and by talking back, would have made things worse. Next time I see her however, it will be on the street and shit will hit the fan and I will hold nothing back. Decided to cut off contact with CL as I don't see her changing anytime soon.

3) Professional: Tennis got canned about 4 weeks ago, around the same time with the trouble with CL. They decided to move me to FIFA which has so far been the absolute worst project I've ever been on and most of my co-workers (and other friends in the industry) agree with me. It's been 4 weeks - I'm on my fifth week now - of hellish kit verification and I would rather slit my wrists. Experience is experience however and I'm definitely glad I went through this, so I can appreciate other projects more. Unfortunately plans with the project involving mountains (I'm not at liberty to discuss the specifics lest I get fired) didn't pan out. They were given an extension which means need for Artworks QA testers won't come for months. So I will be moved to one of two other titles involving an EAX title or a Bioware title. I'm not too thrilled about the move. Yes, it will be a change from FIFA and yes, I'm sure I will have fun. But the reason for my unhappiness is that my role won't quite be the direction I want to take my career in. And suddenly this job is starting to feel like a dead end.

That's catches me up to the present. Still hoping everything turns out for the better cause if I have no hope, I have nothing. Oh yeah, and I'm trying to quit smoking.

Another Job Opportunity ... maybe

It's been just over a year since i graduated and luckily I'm still here at EA. Somehow managed to miraculously survive the layoffs. Lee just got a job here as a marketing assistant tft. He gave me a heads up the other day that Artworks is looking for a head artist and I'm definitely going to apply when i can get a good head done next. Chances of me getting the job I would say, are slim to none. But I will still try. Here's hoping I can pull it off since it's been about 2 weeks since I've touched my portfolio. Lots of catchup work to do.

So after John left, I started kicking the networking into high gear. Eric, as I mentioned in my previous post gave my portfolio a quick critique and promised to get a meeting set up with one of the directors of artworks. I had to pop by his office to remind him a few weeks after the fact - also considering around that time a bunch of artists were let go from the department so i figured lying low until the situation boiled over would be a good idea. Eric scheduled a meeting with julia, the director lady, who then gave me some insight into what working in the department was like, how they would hire me and who would be doing what evaluation. Turns out Brandon will still be reviewing my stuff, since as Eric put it, he is somewhat of an artistic gatekeeper to the department. So if he's telling me to work on hands, feet, and drapery, that's exactly what Josh's is gonna have to do!

Was talking to Dad about the English language the other day, and started telling him about all the strange words Xine, Andrew and me made up that we use regularly like tpaha and ESL. I guess not so much strange words as redefining acronyms as actual words. It got me thinking how I kinda miss them both.

Posted some of my games I never play anymore for sale on craigs list on monday. Figured I had too many video games lying around that mean nothing to me - like GTAIV which there was a big hoopla about yet after buying it, found there was very little incentive for me to keep playing. It was just boring - the characters, the environment, the music. Don't get me wrong, realistically beautiful ... but about as exciting and adventerous as real life. Actually, less so because I'm sitting in front of a TV all day.

Another was I put up on sale was Assassin's Creed. Again, beautiful graphics, excellent mood, but the gameplay was boring as ever. It pretty much consisted of 1 mission with a series of objectives to complete, after which you were rewarded with a new ability. Do that nine times with little to no story/character development each time round, and you've got the entire game.

The original Skate. That one went on sale. Mostly because I liked Skate 2 much better and can safely say I will never touch the original game again. Sorry Gord.

Bought Too Human last week. Played it about twice, both in the same day and realized I didn't give a damn about that game either. Reading about it, it sounded to me like a game I'd be all over. I liked the unique blend of Nordic mythos set in a sci-fi world.

New Year

Well I haven't updated this blog in awhile so I guess its time to give a rundown on what has happened since my last post. Andrew and Christine came back this christmas, the latter returning a day after the former arrived. When Andrew got back, we went for sushi with jocey at this japanese restaurant in poco called ... i don't remember but i was damn good especially for the price. New years sucked because it snowed the whole time, and it was pretty much the worst new years of my entire life. I spent midnight walking home from Andrew's house all the way uphill, but we did have some good times at St. James Well drinking and eating. Only went there twice but there will be fond memories for sure.

Got back to work on January 5th and it was pretty much the same old thing, except maybe a little busier than before. I was assigned to Tennis but although the pay for my headcount in CTU is being supplied to tennis, I'm pretty much doing whatever CTU wants me to do. Identity crisis much?

Eric from work took a look at my portfolio and gave me some useful feedback. He encouraged me to apply to whatever artist position comes up, and I'm thinking SSX is the next thing I'll try and apply for because no doubt they'll be needing modelers. Whether or not I get the job, I'm not holding my breath but I don't think I have anything to lose by trying.

Chinese New Year sucked, as usual. Attended a dinner with family and friends that I didn't want to go to in the first place. I only ate a fraction of the 300+ dollar meal and i thought it was the biggest waste of time and money. Got home and made myself some dinner made of leftovers which filled me up right away. I guess some good came out of it though, I did get 320 dollars this year.

Vamsky from ff.net finally contacted me and we had our first live conversation that didn't involve email. I never thought this day would come but I managed to convince her to download msn and now we talk on a regular basis, trading story ideas, getting more ideas for future chapters in our fanfics. It's awesome to be able to talk to one of my other big influences on writing aside from Louise.

More layoffs at work, and it was announced at a meeting that i was late for because i got lost. And when i got there, i still didn't know what was going on as I walked in on my manager saying "...and i regret to have to tell all of you that." So I'm sitting there going "what did he just tell us?" but i found out after soon enough. Katie took me aside and talked to me in private in the rockband room about the kind of shit that hit the fan. people got let go from the company that I worked with, which was a little hard to take. Later, mike came up to us and told us he was leaving too - a fact that katie conveniently left out. But i guess i would have found out sooner or later.

There's a lot to talk about, not all of which i can recall that this moment, but this has pretty much been a rundown of what's been going on the last couple of weeks. This update has probably been the quickest update I've done to this blog, and the most number of words written in such a short span of time.

OUT.

The New Job ...

So yeah, working up on the 4th floor now - pretty exciting concept, being embedded with the artists. But since I share a cubicle with Katie, we're kinda cut off from everyone else (as they are all cut off from each other) via the cubicle walls. There's this one guy who i pass by, and everytime i walk by, he's always doing some kind of character work in maya and it takes all the effort in me not to go up and be all like "Hey, i love your stuff. show me some tricks!"

There are these meetings every morning where the technical artists from every project get together and update each other what is going on and what they need to get done that day. I was thrown in without any knowledge of what was going on, but after 2 weeks of daily scrums, i've pretty much got the idea how its run and perhaps some ideas what I can contribute in the future, if its even my place.

The first week was spent mostly testing the online software development kit, or the website because there simply wasn't work being delivered to the artworks section. I got to know the guys sitting in octo pretty well. And i like them all. corbett gave me his opinion on the ihoq guys and there seemed to be alot of tension going on between development and contracted qa. I made a passing comment the next day to katie about what corbett said and she told me to just ignore him, which is the best i can do if i didn't want to get involved in any of the politics.

last friday the entire CTU team got together to play dodgeball, which was pretty fun. I don't know how many times they did that before i joined in on it, but this was my first time and i got nailed pretty bad in the face by Chris once, and another time by Craig. The jerk tossed a ball in the air to confuse me and nailed me with the other ones he had in his hands, while i was trying to figure out what was going on. But i realized as the ball struck ...

All in all, I have to say the CTU team is pretty fun to work on. Usually I work up in the artworks section with Katie, but every once in awhile, we'll get togetehr with the rest of the team, since we're scattered throughout the office building. Last week we went for sushi, and there's another dodgeball event planned this upcoming week.

New Job

Yeah, I didn't see it coming at all. In fact today started out like any other ordinary day with me waking up at the crack of dawn heavily considering calling in sick just so i can sleep in. I was so tired this morning that i canceled any overtime shifts i had scheduled for myself this week. At least i was working for the day - and i'm so glad i was. Where do i start ...

After 3:30 break, Alex was saying how HR was harassing him about transferring him to EAX but he didn't want to go because it was inconvenient for him. I wondered why they wanted to move him when he filled out our 6 person online team, otherwise we'd have to go find someone else to replace him. And he was adamant about not going so I offered to take his place at EAX on the repro team - that way i'd be working alongside the developers and me and jeff could go on smoke breaks together, lol.

From out of nowhere, I got an email from Matt York with the subject "Please come and see me". The email was blank, and I'm thinking shit, I'm in trouble. So I reluctantly walk over to his office and ask him whats up. At this point my mind is racing wondering what it was he had to tell me, was in trouble, what did I do ... So the first thing he said was

"It's looks like we're going to have to let you go on Monday." Swore i felt my heart break, but all I managed to do was nod and let him continue talking. And then he adds something about me getting the artworks job I applied for last week, the job that Stacey forwarded my name to. He briefly explained what the job was about - quality control stuff in the artworks department, how i'd be embedded with the developers. And the whole time, i couldn't stop smiling. My body was shaking and all I could say was thank you. He said how I mentioned to HR that i wanted this and this was my chance and not to fuck it up. And I'm said "no, i will do everything in my power not to fuck this one up!" I'm not sure if he knows how much this opportunity means to me.

I don't remember much after that. i was still shaking, mind was racing, remember Trish hugging me, hahaha, and Duane asking "Oh, so you are an artist?" So i go back to the team and tell them the news - first i told Alex i wouldn't be able to take his spot at EAX anymore and he says it doesn't matter to him because he was not coming into work tomorrow. Stacey had threatened to fire him. Then I explained what had happened to me which was a little awkward after hearing what Stacey had told him. So our cozy online team had been brought down from 6 to 4 in 5 minutes.

Then I got an email from Stacey to come to the office but by this point i pretty much knew what to expect. So both HR ladies congratulated me - even clapped, which had me blushing pretty bad - and I profusely thanked them both for what they did for me. So they dismissed me and i headed back to my desk, only to have Yavar come up some minutes later and fill me in on the details of this new job.

He explained that it was going to be a 3 week contract with VMC, with the possibility of being kept on for longer. But that would be up for my performance, and EA to decide, based on their needs. Freakin told everyone on MSN, Cody and gurn seemed pretty supportive ... so we'll see what happens next. I guess theh rest is up to me huh ...

RPD

i wasn't sure if i could ever look at another picture of the Raccoon City police department's main hall. It was probably 2 years ago around this time that i started working on one of my earliest 3D projects. I've gone back before to try and clean up the scene but cleaning it up was taking way longer than I expected, and it'd be faster to just start over a new one. I wanted to start over but decided that i'd had enough of looking at the reference pictures and just leave it be.

And now, two years later, I decided that i want to get back to it again. I've just started working on a new RPD today, which could also stand as a testament to my environment modeling abilities despite the fact i've stuck the character label on myself. And surprisingly, in four short hours, I've gotten the main shapes of hte station down pat. I jsut need to add the finer details like doors, props and railings (which I estimate are going to take awhile.) I love the fact that now i have a laptop, i can take my work around with me wherever I go. I can finally get started on all those projects I always wanted to work on but couldn't because i wasn't at home on my computer.

There's Shaniqua who still needs to be made as well, and i need to finish off the bust of Cranky's head - I'm not sure how much farter I want to take that piece actually, it might be better to just start over but i haven't decided yet.

New Laptop

Yeah, first post on my new laptop. Just bought it yesterday and I'm trying to get used to the controls. The keys are a little more flat and closer together than what I'm used to but as I'm writing this, I'm starting to get a good feel of just how to work this thing. Also there's no mouse yet but i plan on getting that fixed tomorrow when i go buy some accessories for this thing.

There's not much to update on the work front. managed to land another meeting with a lead artist but this time it's going to be focused on environment art. so hopefully if EA is looking for any prop artists, they will be looking to hire me. Or at the very least, consider me.

skate.2 is really eating up alot of time. working overtime 3-4 times a week (except this last week because of the whole laptop fiasco, cause the bank wouldn't let me purchase it because of my debit limit so i had to go back the next day, thus missing a second day of OT, and pick it up). Thursday night - the night i got the laptop, they decided to reward us at work with free beer and pizza with all the progress we've made in knocking out the QA issues with the game.

And then i had one more beer tonight when i went out for dinner with matt and nicole. the last time i saw them was just after i got hired at this job - sometime in april i think. we went to gleneagle after and watched 2 of dixons metfest plays, and i gotta say, it was definitely nice seeing dixon again even though i was apprehensive at first, because its been so long since i stepped foot onto the grounds of my old highschool.

Birthdayness

Wow its been awhile since I updated. I know, when I first started this, blog thing, I was honestly wondering how long I'd be able to keep it up. Turns out the answer to that is less than a year! There's a bunch of stuff to update this thing on and I'll try to hammer them out one by one.

1) Jade Empire. Yes, I downloaded the game just to see what it was all about. Cost a bit of money - my guess is 14 bucks or so, but I really don't know since Microsoft uses those stupid points that you have to buy to put towards a game. I thought initially those points was something you earned in game, not that you actually have to pay real money for it. Anyway, Jade Empire is awesome - an RPG similar to Mass Effect as far as building your character is concerned. The fight system is nothing I've seen before, letting the user chain attacks from different fighting styles into one combo.

2) Work - I've been transferred to work on Skate2 - a game that needs some help right about now. It's coming together, but with final submission in about 2 weeks, there's still a long way to go. And the team has been pulling 12 hour week days and 8 hour weekends for some time now. It's an ambitious game I will say, and the more ambitious the vision, the bigger the QA team. There's about 40ish people on the team right now, half online half single player mode. Each team is split up into minor teams taking care of individual parts of the game like challenges, modes, interface, etc. I'm for online interface (offline interface is someone else). I've been intending to save up for a laptop and working as much overtime as my body will allow and made some decent money as a result. Saved about half the money i need for my laptop sofar. But I'm starting to wonder whether i want one anymore considering I can't get XP for it.

Just got my contract extended last ... Thursday was it? Or last Friday, one of the two. Anyway, it got extended all the way till Apirl 14th. Talked to Ding about it and he checked the schedule for Wii Tennis and lo and behold, that was the end date for Wii Tennis as well. Which means I'm not sure if they're planning on firing me after that or what, but I hope to be able to climb the QA ladder, as a backup if in case I don't make it as an artist as I work on improving my artistic abilities.

Sara also got let go and this was our first week without her. Damn, I miss Sara and her sass already. And midway through the week, we find out that Jeff got moved over to the Vancouver location so there's hardly anybody left anymore. Trish is still trying to decide whether she moves back to Ontario or stays here since her contract was extended too.

I also told Nate I was gonna get some more logos done for him for his Tshirt business venture but I haven't yet as of this writing ... oops. As a reward for last time, he got me Army of Two , cause I chose it. Got home and played it a couple times but I've reached the conclusion now that it's really not that great of a game. Cody even msged me and told me it was bad just as I was getting into it. I'm not sure if its opinion that tainted mine of if it's legitimately bad game but as of right now, it's not my favourite. Mind you it's not that bad either. Still waiting for my free copy of Dead Space which comes in 2 weeks according to Yavar.

Yes, and that copy of Dead Space comes as a result of our work on FaceBreaker Wii which got a 1st time pass on 3 different levels of QA!! This is a big deal for me because a) it's my first QA project ever and b) I was one of two responsible for compliance issues on the core team which made it past Nintendo no problem and Nintendo is supposedly really anal about their compliance issues and c) this is a new title that EA was taking a real gamble on. So at least on the quality part, I did my job! So Mike Richardson (the lead QA guy of the entire place, i think that's his name anyway) threw a first time pass party for the team and everyone involved in the QA process was there from the QA label team, the core team, the Shared Services team who worked on the game, even Yavar, Mathieu, Sanaz and Stacey were there for hiring us in the first place, lol. They were making a pretty big happy deal out of it all. The champagne they brought, Mike said it was "non-alcoholic" but he seemed to have gotten it mixed up. Cause after a few small cups of champagne, I was starting to feel a bit woozy, and then realized after the bottle I gotten mine from said "12%" alcohol.

Also on Friday, to congratulate the skate2 team for finding x amount of bugs in the last 2 weeks, matt decided to throw a forget it friday event specifically for our team. Had like 2 beers and practically conked out for overtime that night. But I think I worked well drunk because first of all, I hid it quite well. Found about 4-5 bugs in 2 hours. But in the last hour of overtime i couldn't work anymore, too tired so I jsut sat there and free tested the game until it was time go to home.

3) Becoming a Professional Artist - Just last Friday i was browsing the forums at work and there was a posting that someone wanted a concept artist for some new IP they were working on, but they didn't say anything about whether it was for an in-company thing or a project on the side. They had posted the message about ten days before and I'm regretting not having replied until now. Not that I can be considered good enough for the job in the first place but i rather do it and say that i tried than not doing a thing about it at all. Emailed Brandon with my basketball player and bust models but he had pretty much the same thing to say "draw draw draw and learn the basics" so that's what I've been doing for the last little while, whenever work allows some time for it.

No More NFS ...

Starting to get the feeling the QA department at work is starting to wonder what to do with me. After testing basketball for 3 days, they moved me and the remaining members of the original facebreaker team over to a "fresh eyes" testing team for NFS HD. That would be fine and all normally ... except the NFS QA team is probably hands down the largest in all of EAQA existence and adding us to the mix won't really change much. Sofar we have't found many bugs, less than 10 between the 4 of us. And we've already been on the project for a week and 3 days as I write this.

The parents are renovating the basement, finally. They've been talking about it since before I graduated but now that I have, and gone out and gotten a quasi-job and the whole bit, they're actually acting on it. Which kind of sucks because that means the computer has to be moved upstairs and I'm not sure for how long, and the state that my room is right now, probably couldn't hold much more. So I decided to get a laptop instead. It'll be useful not only because it'll allow me to work on my personal projects while the renovations are going on, but I will also be able to work on them wherever I am instead of being chained to this desk all day at home. My only issue right now is I'm not sure as to the tech specs of the laptop I will need. Lots of friends to advise me on the matter though, so I'm not expecting it to be much of a problem.

To save up money for said laptop, I volunteered to do OT this weekend. At first I was tempted to do Saturday and Sunday, but then realizing I'd be doing 12 days of work straight, i turned sunday down but am still working on saturday. I'll see how i'm feeling then, and then decide on what's gonna happen on Sunday if its not already too late. Just gotta be careful not to go over 45 hours of work or the government will tax my sorry ass.

Maybe not getting fired?

Just a quick update since I have to get to bed real soon cause I've got work in the morning. So last wednesday they transferred us over to NCAA basketball to run through a list of scripts. I'm not sure what state the game is in an the moment, or what milestone, but we were just filling a work order sitting in the WWQA department for about 3 days. The first day, Wednesday, wasn't so bad although i'll admit the game was boring as shit though. We were just running through screens and testing controller pulls and the like.

Dave was pissing me off as usual and i was taking it out on donovan which made me feel bad - but come to think of it, he's also done a few things to get under my skin. doesn't matter though - i ended the day by pretty much flipping on dave and giving him a piece of my mind at the expense of looking like a bad worker to Jeff. Talked to Ding, turns out he doesn't like Dave much either, hehehe. So now that he's not my ATC, the real dirt comes out, love it.

Thursday i called in sick. the truth is I wasn't really sick - i was feeling under the weather, yes, but that's not really odd since this job is seriously robbing me of sleep. But I had a dentist appointment at 1130 but they called to make it earlier at 11. by the time i get out of the appointment it would've been too late to show up for decent hours at work anyway.

Friday i went back to work feeling a little sick for real, but decided to suck it up because it was payday! And as usual i forgot to pick up my paycheck at lunch so i went over to sanaz's office but interrupted them in the middle of deciding who to fire - which was awkward. Yavar sat us down and told me, donovan dave and rocky that we were going to be moved to NFS HD on monday as a "fresh eyes team", meaning we were to approach it as a group of end users judging the game for how it is, not tainted by any of the core team members' opinions. Too late for that, lol.

Nate also recommended me to a friend of his, the development manager for Wii tennis. I also have Ding helping to pull me into the project. If I get in on this project, that means I'm guaranteed to stay till at least summer of next year, which is quite a long time to get my nose farther into the EA art department. Here's hoping everything turns out well.

About to get fired

Or let go, i should say. The game's coming to an end. We're finalizing today. Although the contract is supposed to end in October (my guess is to make room for any errors and must-fixes), our game's been hitting its milestones on time and WWQA wasn't able to find anything that had to be fixed that we haven't already logged into the system. Jacob was able to find some compliance issues that slipped through me but I don't think they're anything too noticable.

So because everything is on time, hopefully the powers that be will see that our team is valuable to keep around, plus me since i have knowledge and experience in Nintendo compliance. However, even though that is what i'd like, I doubt they'll be keeping me on because projects are winding down. And if they do keep me on, it won't be for much longer.

It's okay though - i'm exciting to be able to dedicate lots of tome to working on my next character, complete with skin shader, YEAH! And I've made enough contacts I need over here at EAC who I plan on communicating with on a regular basis - doing those logos for nathan and updating my character progress with Brandon so hopefully if he sees enough promise in me, he'll ask me to come on as a co-op guy if the opportunity arises. Also i don't have much time left with Charina so i'll be jumping on every employment opportunity she throws at me. Dave tells me they're should be letting us know what happens to us today but i wouldn't count us that lucky.

In other news, I just got rockband 2 today - nate was nice enough to buy it for me using his discount even though i gave him my own money, lol. Can't wait to get home to play it. gonna be getting it for cody cause there's none at the EAX store.

I'll update this as soon as i find out what's going on. i have nothing better to do here at work anyway.

Updates

So I decided to start working on a new character - I started the weekend after meeting with Brandon, and I'm gonna be putting Tammy on the backburner for now. She was coming along nicely but to be frank, I'm quite sick of her. This new character isn't going to be anyone special, just your average 6 foot tall white guy with different clothes, most likely going to be a basketball player so I can apply to EA with something relevant.

Work's been more or less the same, with some interesteing twists this week. On Tuesday and Wednesday they had me working up in Phase II for a bit, doing compliance scripts there. I got to meet one of the programmers to test out the bird minigame - more specifically, testing the fixes that he made. And then there were some hair clipping isues with Romeo which was themost interesting bit.

Reg came up to me and told me they needed some help up at the artworks department which was pretty exciting because I get to actually walk into the artwork station! I didn't realize who i'd be talking to until they led me to a workstation and Tam was there. Then he introduced me to Colleen, who i've seen on the list of employees before and knew she was a modeler that way. But I didn't realize she was a character modeler. So some changes were made to teh build and while we were waiting for it to load, I figured it'd be a good time to ask Colleen some questions about character modeling but didn't want to come off as being too forward.

Then Tam stepped in and told me now was a great time to ask some questions and then that's what Colleen realized what was going on, so I started talking to her about modeling, meshflow, z brush and what not. the other guy who was there - the one was helping with the hair clipping issue started giving his own tips too. Said he was a teacher at BCIT, teaching Maya. Asked him to check out my website when he had the time and told me his name was Elliott - the art lead for the team. I couldn't believe my luck!

Elliott promised to check out my site and get back to me on it. He hasn't done so yet as of this writing but I hope he will soon. I also forwarded the same email to Colleen and she hasn't got back to me either. That's okay, while I'm waiting I'll be working on Frank - my new default basketball player, lol. Almost done modeling him, just got to get his clothes on there, ears, feet, and then I'm ready to UV. Hopefully I'll be done by early next week so I can start applying to EA.

Probably among the worst days of my life

Well this week was probably one of the more depressing ones. First off it poured pretty much all week - gray, cloudy and cold. Alex left on Thursday to go back to school for a few semesters. He's hoping to come back next year as a programmer and I wish him all the luck. He was a great ATC. Ding's gonna be taking over for Alex in managing our team. I notice he's a little bit more of a hardass but not enough to warrant me hating him. I'm actually quite partial to Ding, he's a nice guy.

I finally had the meeting with Brandon Jackson - an Asian guy, which was kind of surprising but not really important I guess. More important was what he had to say about my work. Pretty much told me i wasn't good enough to land a character artist job.

Funny that's the first thing I remember because he gave me a lot of compliments where he felt they were due. But for some reason, maybe it's in my nature, but I only remember the negative. But it's a pretty big blow when you have your dreams swiped right out from under you. Getting into the character artist field, I understand it is really competitive. And I realize that I have a lot to learn especially when I've only really been doing 3D for 2 and a half years when I've been drawing my whole life. He said I had a lot of things going right in my drawing but i'm keeping too much to my safe zone, not to be afraid to do more exploration. More importantly is to do more life drawing which I admit I haven't been doing enough of.

Looking back at my character models, they clearly aren't anywhere near the quality of professional realistic models. I shouldn't feel as disappointed as I do because everything makes sense, really. I just have to hunker down and get better. Practice, practice. It's easier said than done. But I have to really want it, and I do - and I can't get discouraged. Part of the desperation is to be independent and I guess i'm trying to get better for the wrong reasons as a result. But I feel i can do this. I look at the professional models and it's like ... I FEEL i can do it. But for some reason the work I pump out isn't reflecting that.

I have to prove it to myself first before I can hope to convince other people of what i can do. Maybe that's what's stopping me. there's alot to consider as to the reason of my short comings. Or maybe, I shouldn't even bother thinking about it. Just keep doing it and it will come to me naturally. After all that's what I've been doing my whole life, right?

Hmm ... i think i'm onto something here. That kind of reflects what Jackson was saying to me earlier about drawing. Just draw. Kind of like modeling, texturing and everything else I love doing. Don't think, just do. That's advice i can follow. I mean as it is, he says he sees potential. I may not see it myself, but the fact that someone that accomplished sees it, I can have faith in what they say. Believe in myself - at the risk of making this entry sound incredibly corny.

Sure I can do it now. But I can do it tomorrow. And if not that, then the day after that. It's like quitting smoking. I'll do it tomorrow, or the day after that, and if not, then the day after that. There's no reason I can't apply that to my artwork as well. YEAH.

Suddenly I'm starting to feel better. Not today, but tomorrow. Everyday is a new day, and a new chance to improve.

I'm going to be okay.