http://www.michaelkingery.com/index.htmlBlog EntriesenMichael.Kingery@cox.netCopyright 2007 Michael Kingery2009-09-19T18:50:36-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:15:22 -0600Michael.Kingery@cox.netSkyVu2009-09-19T18:50:36-05:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/600c9d0eb7b8d1d96970b131850fc2c4-9.html#unique-entry-id-9http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/600c9d0eb7b8d1d96970b131850fc2c4-9.html#unique-entry-id-9
SkyVu has been awesome, I am developing more then I ever thought I could in such a short time, and even more so, am learning huge amounts of information. Between the work that goes into pitching a movie, to writing up game design documents and creating game assets I am stupefyingly blessed.

Our game “Battle Bears” (www.battlebears.com) did better then I ever could have hoped and if it wasn’t for Madden would have been the number one selling iPhone game! We were in the top 3 paid application ranking for a good two days on the iTunes store and are (at this time) still the number 1 paid game in both the action and adventure categories!

We are now hard at work getting a large update out the door for it, and we are still as a company switching gears from film over to games. Its a crazy path to take, but I am loving every minute of it!

Personal work has suffered more then I could have imagined, but maybe sometime soon I will get back into creating art that I will be able to show!

Until next time...]]>Michael.Kingery@cox.netBlog2009-04-19T17:50:50-05:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/GDC2009.html#unique-entry-id-8http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/GDC2009.html#unique-entry-id-8NOTE: due to the extreme amount of content in this journal, I have broken it up for you mix and matching pleasure!

EMPLOYMENT:

Two months ago, a friend of mine informed me that an animation studio was opening up in Omaha Nebraska (where I live) and that the guy starting it was one of the previs artists on the movie Coroline. He was to speak after the premier of the film in town and to an animation class at the school I graduated from a year prior. I went to his talk, knowing I wasn’t qualified for the position, but wanting to get some perspective and insight as GDC was a month away. I talked to him briefly, went home and typed up 3 pages of my life story in an email and sent it away. The following day I got a text asking if I could meet up with him and it just spiraled into employment from there.

Knowing full well that I was planning on trying to get a job at GDC, he offered to pay me for 4 weeks to come in part time around my other job and learn the few things I wasn’t strong in, all the while dealing with the companie’s investors, trying to secure me a full time position. Those 4 weeks were insane. I was working 12 hour days, Monday through Saturday, all the while preparing for GDC. It literally came down to 13 hours before I left for San Francisco that I found out I had the job. As of today I have worked two full weeks at Skyvu pictures and it is amazing. Most of what I do there I can’t show, but I hope and pray that one day you can see all the cool stuff we’re working on. I also hope that I will hone my talent there. Unfortunately, I don’t think I will ever be able to use a regular tablet again. At home im already using a Cintiq 12wx but at work… at work I have a Cintiq 21ux

It truly is something you should experience o______o

GDC 2009:

Knowing that employment was secure, I left for what was now essentially a vacation. A vacation with the ability to network with amazing people. I left with my friend Case and flew up (over?) to San Francisco to stay with a mutual, yet equally fake friend Bryan.

He turned out to not only incredibly light but also normal, and although he had classes and boring stuff, his roommate gave Case and I the guided tour of the town.

It was there that I also met up with and hung out with Kai Lim (of Imaginary Friends) and while he had important art rock star stuff to do on most of the expo days, I still had him long enough to lure into a seedy looking mexican restaurant and get him food poisoning. (those are lies)

The expo itself was pretty fun, and I did set aside a day for the career pavilion which I will sum up in greater detail then the regular show floor.

GDC / SHOW FLOOR:

It was pretty fun.

GDC / CAREER PAVILION:

This was what I was banking my future on before I got the job at Skyvu. And in retrospect I was pretty stupid. If you didn’t have industry experience, your business card went into the trash, or more tellingly, they told you flat out that they didn’t take physical media and to apply online. I assume that If I were to pass a certain threshold of awesome, that I would be asked for such things, but I am not so I wasn’t.

There were a few exceptions that I would like to point out in case somebody gets a google trackback to this page and that is the Insomniac booth, and the Ubisoft booth.

At insomniac I spent 1-2 hours standing in line just to mob one of the two artists there who were actively taking portfolios and critiquing them. These guys should be up for some sort of award. Not only did they have no life that entire day as far as I could tell, but they offered the most sincere and helpful critique somebody could ask for. 99% of the people in line were aspiring 3d artists, but I still learned a great deal

As for ubisoft, the booth was fairly big, but I did talk to a equally helpful man who was over all just a huge encouragement to me.

The rest of the booths for the most part were fairly daunting and impersonal, but you can’t hold that against anybody, and it mainly went to confirm my feelings of inadequacy :D

THE BACON CHEESE PIZZA BURGER:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGCCWInBfRM

This is how we closed off our time at GDC

MOVING OUT:

I am typing this up from my newly settled one bedroom apartment. I’ve been moving over the course of the past week and finally got situated today. It is my hope that the migration to normal life will begin from this point on. Im not sure how drawing all day will effect my desire to draw at home, but we will see. I suspect I’ll still go in my normal cycle.

Again, sorry for how long this took to get out. I wish all of you the best, and if you have any further questions please ask me!]]>Michael.Kingery@cox.netGDC2009-03-21T23:52:34-05:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/f48b94e9e3acb0528ceca0efb5a055fa-7.html#unique-entry-id-7http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/f48b94e9e3acb0528ceca0efb5a055fa-7.html#unique-entry-id-7Michael.Kingery@cox.netLifeGDC2008-12-31T23:59:27-06:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/bdcaaf19f49019e5147fd6f1ca83e2b5-6.html#unique-entry-id-6http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/bdcaaf19f49019e5147fd6f1ca83e2b5-6.html#unique-entry-id-6
Hopefully i’ll get a last minute entry in before i head out to San Francisco in regards to my plans and schedule at GDC.]]>Michael.Kingery@cox.netLifeGDC2008-11-05T16:29:28-06:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/468faa99222feafd8ad038143ff78a59-5.html#unique-entry-id-5http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/468faa99222feafd8ad038143ff78a59-5.html#unique-entry-id-5
If anybody has suggestions pertaining to how I should present my portfolio I would be much appreciated. At this point I don’t know if I should bring bound portfolios or lose images in a binder…

If anybody plans on attending let me know - I’d love to meet people there - in the mean time, I suspect I wont’ update until GDC approaches.]]>Michael.Kingery@cox.netLifeGDC2008-07-22T12:32:53-05:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/327d897a37ba735641ddf15f1d43626c-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/327d897a37ba735641ddf15f1d43626c-4.html#unique-entry-id-4As most college graduates will tell you, the first few months post graduation can be pretty rough. For me, the apathy that struck me manifested itself in a complete absence of any real work done artistically for nearly 4 months. Being coaxed along by freelance work, I am now free of that trap, at least for the time being.

No longer contending with my lack of drive, my plans for the future are as follows:

-Travel to the San Francisco area in March to attend the 2009 Game Developers Conference. Because it’s easier for me to assume I won’t have a career by then, this is my next concrete attempt to show somebody what I am capable of, and being able to talk to somebody in person I feel is an advantage I need in order to express how I work and how I think. So in the mean time, I will be filing my time with freelance and hitting refresh on my inbox, looking for open positions I can fire off applications at.

-In close proximity to the conclusion of GDC09 I have a larger decision to make. Assuming again I don’t get a job or internship (in order to validate further planning) I will either be attending the concept design academy, or I’ll try entering a company via QA. This will require somebody in HR who will hold the job for me as I relocate myself from Omaha Nebraska, for a position usually open to locals.

In the mean time, I will continue to juggle my job at Target and my pseudo career of commissions.

On an oddly creepy note, i wrote a blog entry exactly a year and 12 hours ago...
]]>Michael.Kingery@cox.netLife2008-03-01T15:01:24-06:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/84f73b498a11b4d767ca492e364d4bc7-3.html#unique-entry-id-3http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/84f73b498a11b4d767ca492e364d4bc7-3.html#unique-entry-id-3A lot can happen in 7 months. Since my tour of valve I have been grinding out as much art as possible and my drive has only seen a speed bump in the last few weeks. I have just graduated with an associates degree in Digital Media from Metropolitan Community College, and have not only transitioned into working at Target full time, but also have sent out dozens upon dozens of internship and job requests. Chances are if you’re reading this, you might be one of the recipients of said emails.

It seems like I’ve lived my entire life with graduating college ahead of me, and now that its behind me, I have to change gears to a full time career hunt, while working full time at a job. In the mean time, hopefully I can find a good balance for personal artwork, as I don’t think I will be able to parachute into a concept artist position.
]]>Michael.Kingery@cox.netLife2007-12-01T22:31:19-06:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/81a48ae741464f1475adfe9c3cac214a-2.html#unique-entry-id-2http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/81a48ae741464f1475adfe9c3cac214a-2.html#unique-entry-id-2Multiple months have passed since my trip to Seattle and Valve. To consolidate it into as few words as possible it was amazing, and infinitely worth the money and time… in retrospect I couldn’t imagine having any chance or direction with my art had I not gone. The past few months have been ones of motivation and drive… I’ve quit EVE online, and XBox live has expired… all for the sake of art!
As classes end up here in 3 months and I near my graduation my next major milestones are mass portfolio spam to game companies, and if that fails, moving cold turkey to the Washington area and seeing if I can start at the bottom as a game tester and claw my way up and out! - in slightly related news, my animation final group project turned out way better than i could have hoped! it has also taken my knowledge of Adobe After Effects from "passing" to "proficient" http://youtube.com/watch?v=v7Ys8GlfKiE enjoy!]]>Michael.Kingery@cox.netLife2007-07-22T00:51:51-05:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/83a7591b881bd64830140bd6f751b260-1.html#unique-entry-id-1http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/83a7591b881bd64830140bd6f751b260-1.html#unique-entry-id-1
Currently I have a tour of VALVE lined up (words can’t convey how valuable this is) and am trying to get a few more in the works as well as a few school tours. Ultimately if I don’t get a job straight out of college (which is a pretty large possibility) I’d like to take further schooling up in that area to be within striking distance of future jobs and this is my first step in that direction!
]]>Michael.Kingery@cox.netLife2007-03-06T02:40:21-06:00http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/66147b5f9a9265e0d443a6020d824ade-0.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.michaelkingery.com/blog/files/66147b5f9a9265e0d443a6020d824ade-0.html#unique-entry-id-0Lack of updates can be attributed to two things of note. One, nothing too exciting is happening at the moment, all with school out for the summer and all. And two, nobody really reads this yet! That being said, this next month holds a really vital place in my future in that I am traveling up to Washington State in order to get a better grasp of my future.

Currently I have a tour of VALVE lined up (words can’t convey how valuable this is) and am trying to get a few more in the works as well as a few school tours. Ultimately if I don’t get a job straight out of college (which is a pretty large possibility) I’d like to take further schooling up in that area to be within striking distance of future jobs and this is my first step in that direction!
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