On this week’s Wingman’s Hangar you’ll meet Star Citizen’s latest 3D artist, Jeff Cavitt. Jeff is currently hard at work building some of the pledge ships (including a tanker you’re familiar with!) and he’ll be answering all sorts of questions about that on Friday. Here’s Jeff’s interview:
How did you get started in the game industry?
In 2003, I joined an artist/animation group in Dallas called A Bunch of Short Guys. Through the group, I built up a network of colleagues and friends. They had various portfolio reviews and one of the members liked mine. That person was Bryan Brewer. He called me up while I was at a freelance gig in Florida. He was working at a animation/vfx house in Dallas. So once the Florida gig was up, I joined him for a quick freelance gig in Dallas. I continued freelancing at various jobs for about a year, keeping in contact with Bryan along the way. We had met game industry artists through the Short Guys group. Eating up any knowledge that they had time to share. In 2004 Bryan got an animation position with a local game company called Terminal Reality. One day Bryan mentioned that they had artist jobs available. Long story short he helped me get my foot in the door and I spent the next eight and a half years working with them. Bryan moved on to other companies and now Cloud Imperium Games, where we are working together again. What projects have you worked on?
Demonik – Which was cancelled and only made an appearance in the movie Grandma’s Boy.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Star Wars Kinect
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct
What will you be doing for Cloud Imperium? My focus will be taking the ships from concept to completed in game art assets. I will also be assisting in other areas that require 3d art assets. What are you most excited to see in Star Citizen/Squadron 42? I am excited for that first ship to ship space combat. Just like the trailer, leaving the carrier and jumping right into action. What are you playing right now? Right now I am addicted to World of Tanks. For a while I was going back and forth between Diablo III, League of Legends, and World of Tanks. Then last fall, I decided to focus on getting a Tier 10 tank. So I quit League of Legends and went premium on World of Tanks. Out of 20 tanks that I currently have in my garage, four of them are Tier 8. I am still working my way up. Occasionally I will take a break and check out other games.