William Kitchen
Stoke-on-Trent,Staffordshire
Summary
With just over 5 years of game making experience, I strive to create environment, assets and worlds that allow players to break free from reality. During my time in the industry I have worked on a plethora of games ranging from hyper realism with the Forza series to more stylized games like Cheftastic and Ghostbusters. I have double AA Triple AAA and Indie experience working with teams varying in different sizes. I have a wide range of skills such as great communication and work ethic that inspires and motivates to Strong modelling and texturing skills in both Realism and Stylized art styles. I have strong knowledge in all 3 major modelling programs and have utilised multiple engines. In my personal time i enjoy making art, exercising. cooking and watching the occasional movie.
Main Soft skills :
- Communication - Providing feedback and outsourcing work to partners
- Team Building - Motivating, Onboarding and assisting my Team
- Adaptability - ability to quickly jump on different tasks to hit deadlines efficiently
- Leadership - Guiding and providing feedback to new members to the team and games industry
- Problem-Solving - Deep knowledge of many programs to efficiently find and solve problems
Overview
5
5
years of professional experience
5
5
years of post-secondary education
1
1
Certification
Work history
Environment Artist Grade II
Playground Games
Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire
11.2024 - Current
- Provided Feedback on Assets ranging from Props to Infrastructure pieces
- Briefed and planned large assets for creation
- Quality checks on marked assets
- Created and documented workflows for entire features which were then actioned by the team
- Handled POI ( Point Of Interest ) assets keeping them grounded to the real world example
- Communication with members from all around the world to efficiently keep to deadlines
- Problem solved complex issues and questions with Outsource partners and internal team members
- Worked on Scene Composition to bring the world of Forza alive
- Key Story telling, Roadside prop and signage placement
- Fixed visual and performance bugs on assets and Scene composition
- Onboarded new members of staff onto the project and team
- Asset Creation and modification
- Utilised and efficiently learned the in house engine, workflows and tools
Environment Artist
nDreams
Farnborough
08.2022 - 11.2025
- Responsible sections of a key level for Ghostbusters - (Taking white box with no concept to a fully dressed level)
- Props modelling and texturing
- Working alongside another artist to help create various levels for Synapse. (communicating on changes and feeding back to both them and the lead)
- Pushing ideas forward to concept and coming to a consensus (Shattered Architecture changes)
- Use of modular assets in multiple levels
- Rock placement and anatomy of cliffs. - Key to making the game feel grounded in realism)
- Use of Houdini tools to merge assets.
- Vertex painting in UE5 for snow blending.
- Map analysis for holes and other various bugs/mistakes
- R&D – Foliage deep dive – Speedtree, utilizing scans and building atlases.
- R&D – Looking into key workflows for Foliage for the use in the VR medium + Minor optimization ( Imposters )
- R&D – Created various props for in house Design Kit
- R&D – Created modular kit for designers – ie – Walls, floors, windows, corners. All fitting to gameplay standards – Cover height, door height etc.
- Worked on Both stylized and Abstract Realism
- Use of Jira, Slack and Openblend
Environment Artist
Not A Goose
Derby
09.2020 - 08.2022
- Started company during Covid
- Remote work online
- Helped with the legal side of company setup through HMRC
- Idea generation around popular games alongside analysis of gaps in the game market
- Took the role of leading the Environment side of development
- Time management and organization
- Ability to self-critic work and spot mistakes or problems (Scrapped initial idea of the game and started again)
- Level design for thegame + Rigorous testing
- Oversaw and worked towards the completion of 75 levels
- Worked across 3 biome types
- Video editing – Did the trailer
- Presented at EGX for 4 days
- Pitched and enticed the game to like-minded gamers and possible business partners.
- Dropped modules at university to update the game.
Education
Bachelor of Arts - Games Modelling and Animation
University Of Derby
Derby 09.2018 - 05.2022
Btec - Graphics and Interactive Media
Newcastle-under-Lyme College
Newcastle-under-Lyme, STS 09.2016 - 05.2018
Skills
- UE4/UE5 ★ - World Building, Foliage, Material Graphs, Landscape tools, Blueprints, Lighting, Unreal Modelling tools, Composition
- Substance Painter ★ - Creating tileables, Realism and Stylized texturing texturing, Resource creation, workflow creation
- Substance Designer –Texture packing, Tileables, Setup from Zbrush to Designer, Foliage Atlas creation
- Zbrush - Tileable materials, Stylized sculpting, Realistic Sculpting
- Blender ★
- Maya ★
- 3dsMax
- Davici Resolve - Colour Correction
- Speedtree – intermediate
- Photoshop
- Marmoset Toolbag
- Adobe Premier
- Houdini ( utilising Inhouse tooling )
Certification
- The Rookies - grade A certificate - 2023
About me
Hobbies
- Music – Festivals and gigs
- Gym and Hiking
- Movies – Horror mostly
- Games – Digital + Board
- Cooking
- Lord Of The Rings – it deserves its own spot
Favourite games
- Super Mario Sunshine – ( It got me into games )
- Pokemon Platinum
- Sea Of Thieves
- Minecraft
Personal Information
Nationality: British
Extra Accomplishments
- Presented at EGX 2021 - With my team, we took our game to EGX that we developed during COVID-19
- Achieves a Grade A on the rookies award for 2023
- Did some professional environment modelling for my university which contributed towards a COVID-19 study that was published and showcased across the globe. This was my first bit of professional work
- Released my First game at age 22 on Steam
- During my graduation, the Dean of the university personally mentioned myself and my team's Accomplishments while at Not A Goose
Timeline
Environment Artist Grade II
Playground Games
11.2024 - Current
Environment Artist
nDreams
08.2022 - 11.2025
Environment Artist
Not A Goose
09.2020 - 08.2022
Bachelor of Arts - Games Modelling and Animation
University Of Derby
09.2018 - 05.2022
Btec - Graphics and Interactive Media
Newcastle-under-Lyme College
09.2016 - 05.2018