This forum's going to be active for the next couple of months while the challenges are open, but will still be around even after submissions close.

Based on current registration numbers, there could end up being quite a few people in here, so lets get some intros going.

The games industry may be huge, but the dev community itself can feel surprisingly small. Between networking events, conferences, meetups and just moving around between studios, you'll meet a lot of the same people.

The people in here are from universities across the UK and Europe, all studying and working in similar areas. You're all part of the same generation of the games industry & most of you are probably going to be bumping into each other in future. This time next year you could be working together, a few years on you could be recommending each other for new roles. Later down the line, you might even be running your own project & be looking for someone you know to join you on it...

Some simple intros to begin - who are you, where are you from & what made you decide to get into game art?

So, I'll start..

I'm Dan, I'm your main support contact for Search For A Star & the voice behind the Grads In Games account. I've been doing marketing with Grads In Games & Search For A Star for nearly 4 years, doing a lot of the behind-the-scenes work for the challenges. If you come along to the showcase event in April, I'll probably be the one making sure everything's in the right place & calming down nervous finalists.

I don't really do game dev aside from sometimes messing with Unity or Gamemaker, most of my creative work is in weird audio & sound design. Luckily, I (and by proxy, you) have access to a network of hundreds of professional game devs & artists to help out with SFAS.

I try to be as helpful as possible, so if you need anything you can either get me on the support forum, email me at dan@gradsingames.com or find me on Twitter.

I'll make my introduction as well!

Hi there! My name is Emily and I'm a 3rd year Game Art student studying at Futureworks in Manchester. I'm mostly interested in characters, but I'm realising I should work a bit more on props too as there are far more jobs in this for graduates. 

I'll admit I went into university with grand dreams of being a concept artist (like most people on my course) but realised I enjoyed 3D modelling more and it's a far more sensible choice job-wise. 

I entered Rising Star last year and made my first fully sculpted and retopologised character through that! It was pretty stressful last time (think i only had about 2 weeks to make it) so I'm glad I have more time this year to make something I'm proud of.

Feel free to have a look at my artstation page, just bear in mind that I only decided to focus on characters less than a year ago so I don't have a huge amount!

Hello everyone! 

My name is Julian Hofman, and I am studying Visual Art at NHTV University in Breda, The Netherlands. I'm currently in my 3rd year, and internship is close, so I am improving my portfolio and getting in contact with the game industry. This is why I am happy to have this opportunity! 

My artstation https://www.artstation.com/julianhofman contains all sorts of work, but I want to specialize in 3D Environments. So hard work and great lessons are ahead of me. Feel free to contact me on discord if you need a fresh eye or some feedback, i do believe the best art is created together!
 

Hi all! I figured I'd better introduce myself now rather than later.

The name's Xavier as I'm sure you can see but feel free to refer to me as X, Xav or Prof X  if you'd like. I'm also open to new nicknames as well so fire away, go crazy! I'm from Peterborough but my parents are from Japan (Mum) and Jamaica (Dad).

I'm a Final Year student at Leeds Beckett University on the Games Design course and my speciality is character art. I find it to be a bunch of fun and there's always so much left to learn and explore. I do hope to someday have a job in it, that is my goal and is certainly something I'll be pushing forward with! If you wish to see my Artstation feel free however there is nothing really on there yet, just started it and left one work in progress character there, I will update it as time goes along though. https://www.artstation.com/xaviergibbons

I got into game art mainly because of my love for games as I'm sure is true for a lot of us, characters specifically drew me to games, the ones that I've met and the ones I have played as have all greatly inspired me. I also find modelling and designing characters really fun, thinking up histories and cultures for each one is always a long process but I learn so much from doing it, plus I love the process of realising the characters through sculptping and modelling. It is truly something I enjoy through and through and would be love to continue with it as a career.

As for more about me, I do play games when I can. I'm mainly into fighting games such as Street Fighter, Tekken, GuiltyGear XRD, MVC, SkullGirls and Smash Bros, not that I'm any good at them though. I'm also huge on my platformers, Sonic is my man! Rayman is pretty cool with me too, Megaman, Kirby, Mario, TY and all that are also great and so are plenty others. I also love my JRPGs, wish I had more time to sink into them though. I play music games a fair ammount too, I play Stepmania pretty often and Singstar. I generally like competitive games like Chambara, Lethal League, Starwhals and Rocket League, it's always fun to get some time in with those. I also like Animal Crossing, it's pretty chilled. By the way if you live in Leeds you might recognise me as the guy who always wears a Sonic or Pikachu hat around town.

When I get time I like to work on game projects, so far it's mainly been Jams and small mobile games but it's always good to keep in practise. I also sort out small sculpting Jams with my friends. Sometimes I make mod items too but not very often.

Outside of games I enjoy all sorts of animations I love Disney and Pixar movies and am also hugely into Boondocks and Black Dynamite, those shows are hilarious. I also watched Gravity falls whilst it was on and Samurai Jack . I'm big on my Anime; Space Dandy, Gurren Lagann, Tatami Galaxy, Lupin III and Nichijou are some of my fav's as well as the Ghibli anime movies, Satoshi Kon's work and Yuasa, I have watched hell of a lot of anime though, I'm a bit of a "weeb". I don't really watch live action TV shows other than Comedies like Community but I really enjoy well shot live action movies, cinematography is very important to me.

In my spare time I also do a bunch of 3D printing, I have 2 printers at home and they are a delight to mess about on. Being able to realise your objects through printing is very satisfying and it's cheaper now than ever! For anyone who hasn't got one I'd highly recommend trying it out.

On the side I also like to produce films with a friend of mine, they're always a lot of fun and it's cool being able to freely play around with genres. Additionally I also have a small job as a web developer, it's not what I want to go into but it's helped a lot through my Uni life.

My musical tastes are super varied, I love my funk, soul, jazz and all that but I'm also really into hip-hop, rock, nu-metal, j-rock, j-pop and some of that weird experimental stuff. Generally I like most music that's thrown at me.

If anyone wants a chat feel free to drop me a message and such. I'm sure we'll all be pals here, I can imagine a lot of us have similar interests. Also I think I may have met a couple of you at Brains Eden before, if I have give me a shout out, it'd be nice to link up!

Finally If you want to talk to me on my casual accounts on anything my user name is pretty much always 'TatamiChaos'.

Lets all have fun and create some awesome art and games!