A bit about me...

First entry, so I believe an introduction is in order. My name is Rachel Cox, I'm 20 and from Thurnby, Leicester and have an unhealthy love for leopard print. I'm a student studying Game Art Design at DeMontfort University, in hopes of hopefully moving on to a career as a character artist or concept artist. I mainly chose this course because of its industry credibility as well as the statistics presented displaying the prospect of employment upon graduation, as well as the fact that I adore the design aspects of the video game industry, looking at how concept art adjusts and progresses into the final model, and how the progression of time has allowed more intense and interactive gaming possibilities, as experienced through my childhood of watching my Dad, brother and sister (albeit from her floor) play Quake, Doom and Final Fantasy 7. I feel that even having the opportunity to join the industry would be a dream come true.

For this year, my ambitions are to improve on my overall drawing ability, mainly focusing on areas which I consider myself to be weak in such as environments, perspective and tonal qualities in addition to this learning the basics of digital 3D modelling. Over the duration of the course I aspire to not only become more confident with my current abilities, but new ones I develop as well as being able to displaying, discuss and requesting critique without feeling anxious about my skill level. In addition to this, I aim to do the more obvious and develop them to an industry standard.

My sister, myself and my aunt

Aside from the obvious interests of playing video games and drawing (mainly fish people) I enjoy kicking butt in Tae Kwon Do, of which I started March 2006 with my older siblings. Currently I am a 1^st Dan black belt currently preparing for 2^nd Dan as well as training for competitions, favouring the performance of patterns to sparring and destruction however not overruling them. I could insert a long, endless section about how doing Tae Kwon Do has helped me bloom into a confident flower but I'll save the you sob story. In addition to this I have the more passive interests such as baking cakes, customising clothes and listening to punk rock.

There are quite a few companies of which I would ideally like to work for, these including Bethesda, 2K Games, Lionhead studios and Bioware, of which are the creators for some of my favourite game series’ (such as The Elderscrolls, Fallout, Bioshock, Borderlands, Fable, Mass Effect) – and as Lionhead are currently putting together a graduate programme, their willingness to accommodate towards education leavers makes me believe the studio is one with a friendly environment.
Currently, Bethesda has an opening for a Character artist, where the responsibilities lie on the construction and texturing of creatures and characters. The requirements for such a position are excellent fine art, modelling and texturing skills, prior experience with 3D Studio Max and Photoshop; these being skills I will be developing or furthering over the Game Art course,  and experience playing previous Bethesda Games Studios games which is a skill I already have. Their desirable skills are animation experience, Zbrush experience, a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts, Graphic Arts, or 3D Design and game industry experience.