My Background and Ambitions

INTRODUCTION


For the past few weeks I have been actively putting out my life's geatest work and updating you about my portfolio and the general process of how a model is created. But I haven't really indulged into myself, my dreams, my goals in any real detail. It's easy to just say: "I want to work in the game industry and I am good at modeling!" It's a stance I can take without revealing too much about myself and who I am as a person. In an industry as the Creative Media, there is a huge deal to communicate and find a connection with the people you work with. The importance of letting other's know where you're coming from and where you're headed is kind of vital, in my honest opion. So, in this soul searching article, I will take you on a personal journey through my ambitions, strength and weaknesses. I will try to keep it as honest as possible. 


Even though you can read my lite background story on my profile page it could always be worth repeating, especially with little more details. For the moment I am a student, a.k.a. unemployed, and try hard to get recognition as a talented modeler and texturer for the Creative Media Industries. But as a student I can keep focusing on mastering and becoming better at modeling and texturing, work on project and gather experience from all turns and angles. By committing myself to an independent artist for a school-year is giving me the freedom to observe the market as a whole and build my portfolio for future reference. I can be given enough headroom to analyze and observe while not being tied to a contract or a complete project. This means I will work very hard on many things at once (i.e. school, internships, fishing for career opportunities, small projects, portfolio, etc.) and I will not have that much free time to relax anymore. Two years back, I wouldn't ever think I had the chance to become anything in the Creative Industry, I was lazy and sat around playing games all day. Now I barely play a game for an hour and keep wanting to go back and model something, it becaome some sort of a "healthy" addiction I guess.


Though I would prioritize the game industries I am keeping myself open-minded for other work. As long I can keep on modeling, I guess I am just as happy. On a more specific level I have looked at the huge gold mines, such as "Blizzard", "Bioware", "Bethesda Game Studios", "Avalanche", "Starbreeze", etc. But I don't really have any "dream industry" to work in. Some of my friends have always mentioned what big game industries they always wanted to be part of. I think I have the more freelancer mindset in this regard. I don't really care of the industry's name or reputation, just as long as I can be part of a project and not be unemployed. Maybe it's a cold and too heartless attitude towards such a career path, I would argue that it is also very dynamic and less naive. The media industry is filled with freelancer's and external groups of professional people that work on different stages of your project. The game industry is also now moving on to a more flexible structure, where loosing money doesn't necessarily means the unemployment of at least 200 people. I am all for this kind of thinking and very much like either be a part of a freelancing group or just a freelancer. I do understand that reality can be much harsher on me if I pursuit such a path, it can atract more vultures so to speak, but as long as I keep on walking the more I learn and the more it means I can do it.


This also takes up another good topic for me to discuss. I am not the most outgoing person in the group. Nothing I am at all ashamed to tell others about but it needs to be made clear here. Maybe I am more acceptible to freelancing and such because I am kind of a lone wolf, I like keeping things to myself. Not that I am bad at interacting with others or failing at communicating, it's just that I dislike to speak too much about casual things or pry into other's lives. I haven't really been confronted by any colleagues or bosses before, but if that happened I would most likely start a discussion over the problem and keep it as professional as possible. If the arguments get too heated though, well I am a very temperamental person unfortunately. Not implying I will start a fight or spouting childish nonsense, but I can keep a very hateful stance towards people who looked down on me or disrespected my intelligence. This leads me to my golden rule for people interactions: I treat others with just as much respect as I want them to respect me, this also applies in the other way around. As people are always bound to misinterpret others and misread others' intentions, this article should at least clear some of those mentioned misinformations about me.


So now you know what I am and what I want to pursuit with what attitude. But I haven't indulged you in myself that much, except my professional life. By just reading my blog you know I call myself Babel Tower, more or less an artistical name, but in reality it's Nicolas Lindbäck. For the moment I am stationed in, from city to country, Visby - Gotland - Sweden and I am in my last year of high-school on HgO (i.e. Högskolan på Gotland). I keep myself open-minded and always try to be a non-judgemental character towards others, as I really hate judgemental characters myself, but the focus in my life is modeling and work. For what it's worth, I am single and not interested in having a partner at the moment. Hmm, what else can be said about me? My private life isn't much to find any gold in, it's mostly about me sitting in front of a computer, working til I get tired and then sleep.


For my work-related history, it will be kind of short. I haven't worked on many projects before and even those are not the best examples to learn from. Still, I do my best playing my part of the role in  group and always tries to keep my problems for myself. The best example here is probably when I had two weeks to design, render and post-process a trailer for our game. I have never touched a single movie maker program before (except Windows Movie Maker, but that doesn't count) as well as other post-processing programs as Adobe After Effects or Illustrator. It was one of the most incredibly frustrating and late-night-working two weeks of my life. But that dosn't mean they weren't also intellectually stimulating and rewarding. I learn mostly bu experimenting and trying out, the hard trial-and-error ways of thinking, instead of sitting and reading long and tedious tutorials. I do think tutorials are great and sometimes I cave in and read some of them for specifics, but most of the time I can go many months doing things "my way" without knowing that there are better or worse ways of doing it. I have been better with tutorials, especially when I found out about video instructions and the like, they are both helpful and entertaining. I also prefer learning by examples, as I have it a harder time understanding the theory over an acutal practical us of it.


By learning and mastering programs and tools in 3D studio max, 3D Blender, Zbrush, Skulptriss, Photoshop and then mastering the different stages of 3D "creative content" like modeling, uv-mapping, sculpting, texturing and model optimization I will say I am a very competent artist with anything 3D related. I haven't that much experience in CG pre-rendered movies and trailers or Visual Effects but those areas aren't unknown for me either. In many level editors and game engines I have experimented with level design, particle effects, physics, materials and animations. Hopefully I will achieved a professsional career in the creative content area of the Creative Industry. For now I work at a company called ZEAL, as an intern, while also work for my friend Sonny on s different project. This will give me alot of experience of both the standard company structure as well as a freelancer. But if there's something I need to get used to is the jealousy I get whenever I see another competent or great artist's work. I usually get blown away a little too easy by other's artistical qualities and I can become sulky and ashamed of my own "incompetence and poor work". I know I am good, I know I am competent. But I guess I am fragile to these sorts of competitive enviromnents, I have always been good ab being a "bad looser" in the past. But the positive of my illogical jealousy is that it sparks motivational fires that can scare even myself. I always come out of the negative times of my life with an even greater desire to crush my "enemies".


So all in all, now when you read about both my shortcomings and better assets as a person and professional artist, the greatest obstacle I will now face in this last year of my school life is to actually land myself a career with a steady and reliable income. I don't feel my skills as an artist are unstable and rough, and I will always do my best as a part of agroup and these highschool years have truly taught me much how to interact with other characteristics and personalities and how to work around and steer the group in the "right" direction. Another challange to overcome, that is not as great or vital, is perhaps to take it easier on myself. I always think my work is nothing fancy and can easily be outdone by most other of my friends and colleagues. If that is the case or not I can't say, but I must try to learn to cope with that feeling. As good as that attitude is for motivation and mastering greater artistical levels of design and results, it will consume my mind and heart if I am not calming down or stepping back a little bit. But the reward for such mindenduring attitude will be indescribable. Truly astonishing. If I finally can think "This is amazing" about my own work, genuinely think I have done something that is very hard to do better, that day will be a life achievement for me.




INTENTION


As I have already mentioned, this last school year will be my chance to build my portfolio and to gather experience in the industry by internships and freelancing projects. With the skills I already have I don't think I lag in the artistical department for the creative industry. But what is truly needed is more knowledge how to work on a single project and adapt its own standards. To either lower or raise the bar, so to speak, for the quality of my work. So hopefully this year will a great learning experience if I can keep my internship, or even potential future career, or find other places to get into projects and freelancing opportunities. Either way is good for me, as long as it's career experience I get from it.


The real hard part is to find the opportunities. To find the available work and interest. I'll be looking alot on the different company sites and generally posting on my blog and portfolio so I can get recognition for my artistical skills as well as luring as many people in and get the right attention. Other ways are to seek more interships or freelancing work with emails and directly contacting employers of the company. I think this is a very sensible approach, something probably most people practice all the time, and I will keep at it with more content to show in the portfolio and more projects worked on.


But this will mean I will prioritize school and its events much less than past years. It has been very fun to be a part of its projects and minor assignments, the learning experience and great teachers. School has been good to me, by teaching me all about concept arts, 3D modeling, texturing and game design, but it's all nothing compared to "real life". I do intend to get through school, though, as I think it's still a good thing to have in the CV. 




AMBITION


Yes, so I want to get a professional career as a 3D modeler and texturer in the Creative Industry. This I have now mentioned many times before, but it doesn't mean I would necessarily limit my vision. I could easily delve into visual effects or level design, especially the latter, or even quality assurance, which mostly is about testing and reporting bugs in games under different stages of progress. I have played around with quite a few level editors in my life, like the map editors of Blizzard strategy games, the construction set of Bethesda Entertainment and the Undreal Development Kit. I can't really say I have an equal measure of experience with quality assurance or viual effects, but I can guarantee you I understand the principles and theories of them.


The proof of my skills and labor can be found easily on this blog. Just track back the archive and see all my work I have uploaded until now. Well, as this article will also be old and archived later, you probably already watched alot of my models before reading this. Most of the models are my own designs, though, but they can be implented into any game engine without much difficulty. Just want to mention this little fact just in case you don't believe me and missed out on my work.


But to get into the professional career I am trying to reach skills aren't everything. I do believe of course that understanding and communication between collegues and lead artists and the grunt artists are needed. As a simple modeler I also need to adapt to the team's design and way of thinking for the art of the game. I can't just model away as that will break the theme and consistency. Therefore the need of internships and more experience with projects and teamwork is needed for me. So the skills of modeling, sculpting, texturing, uv mapping, optimize the different stages and getting better at completing models faster, the required skills and competence are there, just not tested in a grand project for me.




INSPIRATION


The guuny, even ironic, part of this whole story is that I never was actually inspired by anyone to become a part of the creative industry and the process of making a game. I played games like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, Super Metroid or Doom and that made me wanting for my own game. I drew alot of pictures that was, more or less, boss designs, level designs and basic concept arts. I never found someone I took as a great example of a professional 3D modeler or even a game designer. Around fifteen years old I stopped dreaming of the game industry and lost my vision, because of the constant abusive saying of: "You usually never get the job of you dreams, just accept that kid". It didn't help I grew up in a creative oppressed eviromnent, where unique equals freak, so I just melded in with the grey mass of mundane and blandness.


Only when I had to choose a highschool did that old spark start a small flame in me. For about three years did I never ever design anything nor did I even draw that much, yet I decided to go to a Game design and Graphics course in Gotland. The ironic story gets better however, as I never dreamt that I would specialize so much in 3D modeling and texturing. Our first 3D course made me completely despise such a horrible practice so I just focused on the path of concept arts. It didn't work out. WHen surrounded by so many competent and great 2D artists, my own self esteem rock bottomed to olivion and I just... gave up I guess. For about one and a half year I did just that, nothing. I sat around and played games, staying ignorant of the fact that it wouldn't lead me anywhere.


This is the focal point of my life, the very moment I got had a revelation. This may be a thing all people have at some point or maybe it's just me, but I realized that 3D was acutally more fun to work with and I could wrap my mind around it much easier than the 2D aspects. It just clicked for me. And so I started learning for real, full time all day, about everything that has to do with 3D space, polygons, shaders, high-poly modeling and optimizations and level designs. I began consuming everything 3D related directly in to my brain, to put it literally.


Though I have gone on and on about my ambitions and dreams in this article, giving you a very detailed look into my background and general story of how I want to become a professional artist in the creative industry, I do acutally dream of one day becoming an actual game designer, or at least a project leader. I want to make a game with my own story and aesthethical design, rather than obeying other's. I have so much to tell and so much to show. I am always making up my own scenarios and stories all the time. But I have no idea if such a position would ever be possible to achieve without extended studies or project management, the things I would really dislike doing, but this is just a dream. Something I wanted to be when I was very young and naive. And some dreams are just what hey are.




CONCLUSION


My story has now been told. You know all about my goals and dreams. What I haven't mentioned yet is the goal of my last year of high school, what my focus on the actual studies will be. Though I have already talked at great lengths about the three career goals of internships, working on projects and learning more about teamwork I will also try to study my craftmanship in greater depth. I will learn even more on how to make complex models and the secrets of making great textures and meshes without wasting too many polygons. I also want to study more of the process in game design and some minor studying in level design.


I do think it's very important to me still to learn more about my specialiation. Even though I have boasted enough about how good I am and I have enough self esteem to fill a room, it's never enough. Nothing is perfect and nothing is never complete. I need more knowledge and I need more experience. If I think I can make any character or object in the universe than I better start proving I'm right. I still think it's also good to have a deeper understanding of the whole process of game design, to understand it's different stages and roles everyone has to take. It makes me appreciate more about the tasks my project colleagues does and the hard work everyone does. Studying level design is purely selfish pleasure on my part. I love level design and the results always gives me a satisfied smile in the end. Someday my modeling career will do the same.


Still, I don't have too much time to spare with all these study and career goals, I need to somehow with most of them together in a seamless blend of studying and work. By just interships I theoretically accomplish all the career goals in a single blow, but I also need to study the game design process of the projects I'm working on, as well as the level design. It shouldn't be hard to discuss these topics with co-workers and it could also drive a better communication for my part. I gather experience as well as knowledge! Everyone wins. To learn better modeling and achieve greater results I just need to make my own models. There's no way around it. Working on a project is rarely that ambitious to have every single detail in that kind of quality. I just need to take that issue in my own hands.


So the schedule will mostly be to work on my intern job on the days and the evenings be either freelancing work, pure study or working on the portfolio. The evening will always have two of these threee choices but the priority will be the intern and the freelancing. I really need to focus on getting a steady job with actual income. Can't live like a student forever. But generally this is good practice to get a balanced schedule. I can, in theory, later adapt to other industries workflow more easily. Things like working overtime, deadlines and under harsh conditions will all be good use for later when I either get a worse or better position elsewhere. The creative industry is infamous on these parts, you see.


Alright, I have gone on so long I could probably use this article as some academic essay for stuck-up professors, making it seam I am very intelligent and really knows what I am doing. Thankfully, I am mostly pouring my heart out and confess about my abilities and flaws so that you, as potential employer, can get a better understanding of who the hell I actually am and where I am coming from. Just as any other artist out there, I really want to be part of the game design process. I love games and I love making them. I want to see the wonderful media too infest our world even more and change everything we know. As melodramatic as it sounds, I do want to make games bloom and I really want to be there and witness it for myself, knowing some of it required my own sweat and blood to exist.




EDIT: This article will probably see a few changes as times move on, and there's alot to proof read. If anyone wants to chime in and give me some feedback on what's wrong and right about my story, just comment and I will read. Enjoy!