DesignSessions: Notes on Game Dev is written by guest authors, including game industry professionals, educators, and writers. Posts include news, industry interviews, career advice, how-to’s, and technology topics related to game art and design.

Authoring for DesignSessions is by invitation only. New authors are added to our masthead each month, so visit again to see who has been added to our list!

Ee-Leng Chang [Read all posts by Ee-Leng]
Project Coordinator, Bluetongue Entertainment
thegamersdiet.blogspot.com

In 2005, Ee-Leng Chang started her career in the games industry as a tester at Melbourne-based Bluetongue Entertainment. After a year and a half in the QA Department as Lead Tester, she was promoted to the newly created role of Project Coordinator. Her responsibilities include overseeing and assisting in the management and production of Bluetongue games. Ee-Leng spends her free time musing about the games industry and food on her blog at midget-giraffe.blogspot.com. She plans on being the first winner of Project Runway that can’t sew.

Adam Capone [ Read all posts by Adam ]
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Texture Artist
www.caponeart.com

Two and a half years ago Adam moved from the UK to the Netherlands to join a game partnership studio. Before this he spent several years in education attending both graphic design and videogame art courses. He chronicles his development and offers tips and ideas through his blog site at caponeart.blogspot.com. Adam has been fortunate enough to work on a dozen games so far including Gears Of War, Unreal 3, and Overlord.

Abby Goldsmith [ Read all posts by Abby ]
Artist, Black Lantern Studios
abbygoldsmith.com

Abby Goldsmith is an animator and writer located at Black Lantern Studios in Missouri. Since 2001, she worked her way up to the role of a senior art manager at WayForward Technologies, a game developer that specializes in Nintendo DS, GameBoy Advance, and other handheld systems. Her job encompasses art direction, recruitment, animation in 3D and 2D, modeling and rigging in 3D, and a touch of project management.

Wes Jenkins [ Read all posts by Wes ]
Artist/Director
www.wesdotcom.com

Wes Jenkins, B.A., B.F.A and a D.U.I., has been an imaginary cowboy since the 50’s. In addition, he is a friend to all animals. He is also Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent…

Wes Jenkins is an artist-writer-director hyphenated kind of guy with a 30-year career in Interactivity, Print, and Broadcast. He has 6 Years with Lego Products, 6 Years with Mindscape, 6 Years with Stanford University, 6 years in radio comedy, 6 years of Freelancing, 3 with California Academy of Sciences, 3 with Winterland/Bill Graham Presents, and 1 year with Neil Bush. After all of that, he is now semi-retired and presently freelancing.

Marc Mencher [ Read all posts by Marc ]
Founder, GameRecruiter.com
www.gamerecruiter.com

Marc Mencher is a specialist in game industry careers who has helped thousands of jobseekers land positions with the hottest gaming companies. Before founding GameRecruiter.com, he worked for such game companies as Spectrum Holobyte, Microprose, and 3DO. Marc is the author of “Get In The Game!” — an instructional book on careers in the video games industry. He has been an Executive Producer on several games. He is a curriculum advisor to colleges offering Game Development degrees. Marc speaks at many of the Game Industry conferences around the world. His firm, GameRecruiter.com focuses on unique and un-advertised game industry jobs.

Doug Oglesby [ Read all posts by Doug ]
Concept Artist, Red Storm Entertainment
www.redstorm.com

Doug Oglesby is a founding member of Red Storm Entertainment, and has worked on eleven game titles in some capacity, nine of them at Red Storm and four as Lead Artist. He received his degree in Communication Arts, with a focus in graphics and illustration, and worked for five years in television, during which he received an Emmy and five Emmy nominations, as well as three international awards from the Broadcast Designers Association. Mr. Oglesby has also worked as a freelance illustrator, a potter, and a children’s book illustrator, and is currently in pre-production for an unannounced tactical action console game.

Ian Pottmeyer [Read all posts by Ian]
Web/Puzzle Designer, Studio Cypher
www.studiocypher.com
Ian Pottmeyer is the chief web/puzzle designer for Studio Cypher. Ian started in sound design but transitioned to working on the front end of web design. The studio’s most recent flash game MILO included light Alternate Reality Game components.

Ian Schreiber [Read all posts by Ian]
Columbus State Community College
Ian Schreiber has been in the game industry for 7 years, first as a programmer and then as a game designer. He has worked on 5 published game titles, including Playboy: The Mansion and the Nintendo DS version of Marvel Trading Card Game. He has also developed serious games to train salespeople at two Fortune 500 companies. Ian first started teaching game design and development in 2006 at Ohio University (although he had been mentoring college students informally long before that). He is currently an adjunct at Columbus State Community College.

Jeremy Vickery [Read all posts by Jeremy]
Lighting Artist, Pixar Animation Studios
www.jermilex.com

Jeremy is currently a freelance artist, but has over 10 years experience in animation, film, video, and concept design. After graduating from Full Sail Real World Education in 1997 with a general degree in digital media, Jeremy got his first job as a digital modeler/texture artist and concept designer at Big Idea Productions in Chicago, working on several of the popular kids’ animated videos Veggie Tales. He later worked at Fathom Studios in Atlanta as a CG generalist and became the lighting supervisor. He joined Pixar Animation Studios in 2003 and has worked as a lighting artist on such films as The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille and Wall-e.