3DTotal: Hi Gavin, it’s been a while since we’ve had to chance to chat to you and it’s great to have you back! Ok let’s kick start this interview. Could you introduce yourself and tell us at what moment in your life you started taking notice of 3D and realized that’s what you wanted to do for a career?
Gavin: Hey! Yeah, it has been a while but I’m glad to be back! My name Is Gavin Goulden and I am a character artist working in Boston, MA.  I have roughly five years of experience in the industry and have worked on a few different titles that span multiple genres including F.E.A.R.2, Dragon Age, Damnation, an unannounced RPG from Big Huge Games, The Bigs2 and Dead Rising 2.
I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember and I’ve also been doing something artistic since I could hold a pencil, so I think this career was a natural choice. After high school, I started weighing different career options and game art was the only one that really had me interested. The town I’m from is pretty small and the industry in that area is non-existent, so getting information on this industry at that time and place was very difficult. I created a portfolio, got into college, became frustrated with college, dropped out and moved to Vancouver (the best career decision I ever made outside of freelancing for a year). From there I continued to work on my portfolio, got a job testing games and eventually worked my way up to the position I am in now. I have just recently moved to the United States, returned to the East Coast and am working with a games company there.		  
    3DTotal: So how come you decided to try your hand at freelancing for a year?
Gavin: Well, the project I was on previous to my freelancing stint was cancelled after almost two years of work. Feeling somewhat frustrated, combined with numerous offers to do some freelancing gigs, I decided to take a break from studio life and try out being self employed.
Eventually, I went back to a studio as working alone became kind of boring. On top of that, there are a lot of things freelancers need to take care of on their own that sometimes get in the way of actually making art.  A lot of my time was spent talking about what I would be doing next, since I wanted to avoid downtime at all costs. Plus, you need to keep track of all your income, where it’s going, who owes you what, etc. It was a juggling act.
3DTotal: You’ve been working in the games industry for a while now and you’ve worked on some really cool games. Out of them all which one was the most enjoyable to work on and why?
Gavin: Freelancing gave me many opportunities to work with great companies on various projects. Each one was a different experience and they were enjoyable in different ways. An interesting aspect of freelancing, at least in my experience, was not being married to a project for an extended amount of time and being able to explore different art styles.  
Bioware has always had a place in my heart from spending countless hours with Baldur’s Gate, so Dragon Age was an honor to create assets for. Big Huge Games has a great project and art style so they were a lot of fun to work with. F.E.A.R.2 and Damnation were also interesting – both are fun shooters, Monolith is a great company and Blue Omega’s Damnation is a fun idea. Overall though, working with Garage Games on Legions was probably the most enjoyable. A great team, a fun project, lots of creative freedom and easy communication.
    
 
3DTotal: So with working for these different companies you must have picked up a few new tricks along the way. Which has been the most beneficial to your current work flow?
Gavin: Yep! The different companies I worked for all seemed to do things just a little differently and
through that I picked up a lot of different tricks. On one of these projects, I actually learned how to properly layer normal maps (adding a fine detail pass to the texture without killing the detail underneath), which was something I had never really needed to do before. As simple of thing as that is, it actually opened my mind and made me understand how they work a lot better.
I was also given a lot of opportunities that I normally wouldn’t have had as a character artist in a studio. For example, I did some prop work for F.E.A.R. 2. Normally, I wouldn’t be given this type of task but because of freelancing I chose to do it. I learned a lot about their technology, creating nice environment work and enjoyed the break from character work… but only a little!
    
     
 
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Chunkymunky (Forums) on Tue, 08 June 2010 1:19pm

What a superb artist! All of those artworks are amazing, flawless attention to details, gorgeous lighting and incredible texturework resulting in truelly awesome final renders and compositions. A really good read this.
Milad on Fri, 11 June 2010 3:53pm

I want to know gavins email address please.



THANKS
Chunkymunky (Forums) on Sat, 12 June 2010 12:43pm

Ask a member of 3Dtotal staff then lol

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