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About Me Premium Member 3D Modeler dallasrobinson28/Male/United States Recent Activity Deviant for 2 Years
9 Month Premium Membership
Statistics 99 Deviations
16 Comments
674 Pageviews

Meet the Artist

Mon Jun 9, 2008, 2:23 PM
Okay! Start of a new week! Hello, My name is Dallas Robinson. I currently work as an environment artist for the company High Impact Games. If you don't know what that is I'm the guy who makes all the backgrounds you run around in when you play a video game. It's a pretty sweet job. Pretty mellow most of the time. Anyway, I decided it's time for me to have an online portfolio for people to look at.

I have a BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA in Computer Animation from The Academy of art San Francisco. I've been working for High Impact for about two years now and have worked on the following games:

Secret Agent Clank (PSP)

Ratchet and Clank Size Matters (PSP)

You can look in my Gallery to see the exact Levels I worked on with notes form me and stuff. Feel free to write me if you have any questions or criticisms or whatever. Hopefully with work being so slow at the moment I'll have time to do more color work.

  • Mood: Neutral
  • Listening to: Sevendust

deviantID

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Devious Info

  • Current Residence: Studio City
  • Favourite movie: KiKi's Dekivery Service
  • Favourite band or musician: Seal
  • Favourite genre of music: Nu Metal
  • Favourite artist: Xu Xi
  • Favourite poet or writer: Jerome Lawrence
  • Favourite photographer: Mapplethorpe
  • Favourite style of art: Various
  • Operating System: Windows
  • MP3 player of choice: ITunes
  • Shell of choice: none
  • Wallpaper of choice: none
  • Skin of choice: none
  • Favourite game: Art = Chrono Cross, Gameplay = Gunstar heros
  • Favourite gaming platform: Playstaion 2
  • Favourite cartoon character: Braniac 5
  • Tools of the Trade: Photoshop, Maya

Comments


:icontearinx:
Hey man how you doing?

Anyways the reason why I'm contacting you is because I'm currently enrolled at a Art Institute and majoring in Media Arts & Animation. So basically my dilemma is that I still can't figure out if I want to work making video games, or stick with animation. I want to create the characters and/or levels. Now your current job is one of my dream jobs. I love all the ratchet and clank games. I just need a sense of direction. I cant really explain what or how just so lost kind of. I'd like to also create like the special effects in movies and/or characters/scenes in movies. So basically Im trying to figure out which will be more stable like money wise. Which is more fun. As you can see Im probably making no sense lol. thats why I cant figure out what to do.
Hopefully you can help me out by giving me some advice or something man. Thanks.
:icondallasrobinson:
Oh HEY! Thanks for writing! The great debate of games versus movies... honestly, I would say that they are about the same in terms of stability. Games is a little better because they tend to hire people more often for full time employment (which is great for health benefits and 401k etc. etc..) The good news is that now your really don't have to choose one over the other. You can actually have both :-). Just have a strong 3D skill set and you'll find that you can go back and forth. Myself, when I was in school I learned high end 3d for movies and Tv first then learned how to make things for games. doing it that way you'll find it easier to learn games stuff because even with all this 'next gen' stuff games is always a simpler version of high end 3d. (note: if you can do learn the Unreal 3 editor though. a lot of people use that for next gen stuff.)

About being an animator. I would say if you have a burning driving passion for it then do it. however do know that animators are really a dime a dosen so you really have to be good or have good contacts to make it. don't panic just know that animation is a tough route. For me, actually games was not my first choice in terms of work. It was my back up. I can't stress this enough! have a back up portfolio or plan! Take a good solid look at your skills. what do you do well? then, if you couldn't do that what's runner up? that's your "back up". I'm not suggesting you become 'Jack of all trades and master of none' just that I bet you can do more then just one thing so you might as well show it. Just know where your strengths are and focus in on those.

On that note, here's a little inside hint I can give you. Character artists are also a dime a dozen. however it's really hard to find environment/prop/User interface/special effect artists. It's not a glory job but it will get you work. so much art is needed to make a game but people forget that your character needs to run around in a world, interact with objects, you need to be able to select things from the pause menu, and you need cool fireballs when you blow stuff up. That's like 4-5 artists right there just to do that while you only need one artist to make characters. Again, if you have a burning passion to do characters then do that but understand that there is a large gab between passion and the needs of the workforce.

my final bit of advice would be what year are you in? If your just starting out and have a while before graduating i would say chill just focus on being a well rounded artist. those figure drawings and stuff really do matter. if your about half way done or near the exit door then i would say start looking at job boards and look at what jobs you like and which jobs are looked for the most often by companies. this should give you a good idea of where you stand.

i hope that was helpful. take what i say with a grain of salt. Just because i "made it" this way doesn't mean that you will, find your own path. trust yourself, be HONEST with yourself (can't stress that one enough). and really, believe in your dream cuz when your up at 3 am working on something sometimes only your dreams get you through ;-)
:icontearinx:
Thank you so much man. I actually just started at the Art Institute so I have plenty of time. I will keep what you said in mind. I swear that your words helped a lot! Thanks again man.

Games was always my first choice, but I just wanted to be sure that movies wasn't so that's why I entered the media arts and animation program, just to get a feel for it. Now most I might probably switch majors into game art and design; however, like you said I'm gonna chill still and check it out some more.

As far as software, what would you recommend I should be practicing with to get ahead of the game? and do you know of any good tutorials videos or anything?
(I use photoshop a lot to do photo manipulation if you check out my gallery so I think Im ok with that unless theres more I should know?)

I really appreciate you helping me out man, thanks again.
:iconadelyky:
beautiful gallery..i really really like it :)
Visit mine :D

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Imperfection has its own beauty!
:iconleomon32:
Hi^^

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:iconj-oel:
Great gallery. Would totally like to see your Skull Canyon worked into a game someday.

Curious, what's The Bunny Project?
:icongalvanizationx:
OMG!!!! You worked on Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters??? Nice to meet you.

I was thinking of working on my own videogames.
:icond00mg1rl:
You've done some amazing sketches with wonderful details

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:icondallasrobinson:
Oh! thank you! I'm kinda new to this site so your my first person to reply! thanks!

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