My name is Georgina Lambert. I’m a nineteen-year-old Nerdfighter who comes from Saddleworth, England. I am a gamer, but besides games I make costumes and props for LARPing and cosplay competitions as well as dabbling in special effects makeup, photography, story writing and tabletop role-playing games. One particular favourite hobby is one of research – I’ve been known to hit upon a subject and take time to get to know it, taking myself to libraries and websites and researching for fun. Most recently I’ve read into Atom Punk, and Googie architecture. I found the architecture of John Lautner particularly interesting.
Right now I’m starting out on my first year of Game Art and Design at De Montfort University and I’m working hard on improving my 3D modelling skills as well as my drawing and rendering techniques at the moment. By the end of the course I hope to have learnt a wide range of skills in digital and traditional drawings as well as 3D techniques. Though I most enjoy figure drawing and character creation, what I am really looking forward to is creating environments and places –it’s something I’ve never really done before but I’m excited to give it a go. Improving my skills in landscape art and environment is going to be a challenge but I think it’s going to be a lot of fun; already I’m seeing big improvements in my perspective drawings and rendering techniques.
I have never been the sort of person to have a dream job. The first job I wanted as a child was to paint the scenes and letters onto the narrow boats that sailed along the Huddersfield Narrow canal near my home. Obviously that’s a rather selective field and since then I’ve entertained many dream jobs (Everything from teacher to comic book artist) The only thing that I was really certain of was that no matter what I did, it absolutely had to be linked to my love of drawing and creating.
But I wasn’t just interested in art; In A Levels I took Biology and Ancient History alongside my art subjects and it became apparent to me that I couldn’t leave the academic side of me completely behind – Fine art wasn’t my thing, I’d always preferred a more scientific approach to things and so I set out to find a university course with that in mind. In the end I looked at more or less every creative discipline from illustration to fashion, but it wasn’t until a presentation of show reels from the De Montfort Game Art Design student’s final degree show that I finally sat up and took notice – something about the interactive, realistic and immersive nature of the art was really inspiring and from there I had decided what I wanted to do; I wanted to create art that took people on a journey, told them a story and let them do this all by themselves. Games are a genre like no other, and that’s what I wanted to be a part of.
Ideally I would like a job on the character side of games, like the game artist position at Hernstat & Company, which calls for knowledge of Photoshop, illustrator and After Effects as well as a strong 2D portfolio in multiple traditional disciplines and styles. I am well-versed in Photoshop and coming from a fine art background I’ve spent a long time studying traditional techniques (From pencils to Acrylic paints and many others) however I need to build up an understanding of Illustrator and After effects. They request an employee who is driven and this position asks for a lot of expertise and knowledge in various fields and whilst I don’t have a lot of experience right now, I’m committed to getting myself some particularly with the prospect of internships later on.
Or, the character concept artist position at EA, which requires me to be skilled at both traditional art as well as digital painting, with fluent expertise in Photoshop and illustrator. As I said, whilst my Illustrator skills are lacking I am familiar with Photoshop and many traditional techniques as well as Composition, narrative and colour and lighting theory – Other valued skills for the position. The position calls for detail-orientated adaptability in art style, and a problem-solving nature as well as at least three years of experience and as a bonus, a proficiency in Maya. I’m hoping to develop and cultivate all of these things in the coming years.
