Tramell Ray Isaac

(Exerpted from an Interview on Breaking In)

My first job was at Tachyon. What? Never heard of it? It doesn't exist anymore. After school I got my demo reel together and sent it everywhere. It took me about a year to land that job. During that year I continued to draw and create new work for my reel, in-between working 2 jobs. Hard work and determination always pays off in the end. Tachyon was the greatest experience in my life (career wise). It was all new to me and I loved it. I just packed my bags and moved to California. I approached this job as a learning opportunity. I was determined to get the most out of my new career. I was on an amazing team. We worked well together and we always had fun. I was the animator on the team. It was my responsibility to create animations for the characters and scenery for Blood and Magic. My first game shipped and I worked on it from start to finish. Many people can't say that nowadays.

First I was a character animator (2D). My next project I was a character animator (2D) again. After that project I was a texture artist. Then I was a character animator (2D), scenery artist, and cinematic artist, pretty much a clean up guy picking up where others left off. Then I was put on project by myself to help get it out the door. This project was extremely late and no artists where available to finish except for me. On that project I had to do rendered stills, 3D character animation, interface art, localization, setup screens, effects, modeling and texturing. I made the best of a bad situation and learned a lot from that experience. I believe that's when I really understood what it took to complete a game.

For the next game I was one of the lead artists. I did almost everything on that game. I setup a system for the character animation (3D rendered sprites), modeled, textured, and animated game characters, rendered effects, worked on the opening cinematic, modeled and textured scenery objects, created tile sets, and managed 4 artists making sure everything was ready to go into the game.

My next project was a lot easier. I modeled, textured and animated game characters. After that title I got my opportunity to be the Art Director. Once again I had my hand in everything. I interviewed and hired, managed 10 artists. I reviewed the design and set the art style of the game. Once again I modeled, textured and animated 3D game characters. With the help of one of the programmers, I designed an effects/game content editor. Unfortunately that game never saw the light of day. Now I'm the Art Director on SOE's MMOFPS PlanetSide. I manage 12 artists and this time around I get to do very little game artwork. It goes with the job, I guess. Most of the time I'm checking over game ready art or reading the design doc. I have had time to do some modeling, texturing and animating, but not as much as I would like. As an Art Director I understand my job is to keep everything flowing smoothly. Building my portfolio will have to wait.