I have always loved video games. I even flunked gym in high school to work on my “career” at the local arcade. It was very convenient that we moved from the UK to the USA in 1990 so my high school was so close to such a “learning facility.”

In any event, I did finish high school in spite of gym and went off to college to start on my 3D career. My first 3D job was working as a 3D artist on the V-22 Osprey computer training program for DP Associates in Jacksonville, NC. While this was using my 3D skills, it was not doing games. So, I moved to Raleigh, NC where I worked as a Marketing Artist/Game Tester for Octagon Entertainment.   During that time, I also started teaching an evening course “Intro to Maya” with a game modeling slant at Wake Tech Community College. So I had two game-related things going --Game Testing and teaching. While I enjoyed both, testing had no future and I felt that I needed industry experience to be a really effective teacher.

I continued teaching for 2 years and pursing whatever game related experience I could find. My teaching schedule expanded since they were trying to get a Game Design Degree started and I was more than happy to be paid to hone my skills. So, I taught classes titled “Intro to Maya Animation,” “Game Modeling using Maya,” and lastly “Unreal Editor and Maya.”  Besides the teaching gig, I began working with a small indie company on their 2nd PC game called “Ultimate Duck Hunting.”  My role as an environment artist morphed into Lead Artist as more responsibilities came my way.  (the hilarious GameTrailers review on YouTube!)

After finishing up the “Ultimate Duck Hunting,” I moved to N-Fusion Interactive in Manalapan, NJ as a Level Designer working on “Hour of Victory” using Unreal Engine 3.   Living in NJ was an "experience" for 18 months. Once Hour of Victory was completed, I moved onto Gearbox Software to work on Aliens: Colonial Marines during my time at Gearbox I was extremely fortunate to work on the multiplayer portion of Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway. The Gearbox tale came to an end at the end of this year with the much publicized layoffs.

What am I doing now? I'm effectively using my time off, finishing up maps that I started but never finished, learning new tools, cooking dinner for my wife every night and playing games that I didn't have time for.

Contact info:
Email: gizmosan at gmail dot com

Lee's web site