Kees G•••

About

On the record

After completing my degree in architecture and working several years as a freelance architect, designer and comic artist I first entered the games industry by joining Intelligent Games in London in 1998. Here I quickly rose to the rank of Lead Artist working on PC and console games in a wide range of visual styles. Following IG's closure I joined Kuju Entertainment in London where I became best known for being able to handle any job whenever a specialist in that field was unavailable. Thus over the years I have worked on nearly every graphical aspect of video games: concept art, character design and creation, game and level design, GUI/HUD design and creation, creation of High and Low-poly models, texturing and shader creation, special effects, sprite creation and animation, environment art, lighting, FMV CG prop and background creation, video compositing and editing, in addition to art team management, training, pipeline creation/improvement and outsource management. In 2006 I moved to Tokyo and joined Grasshopper Manufacture, Inc. in early 2007. I was Lead Environment Artist on two of Grasshopper's Unreal Engine 3-based games, Shadows of the Damned and Killer is Dead. On these projects I functioned very much like an "old school" Lead Artist, and so my responsibilities really covered everything related to the game environments. In addition to overseeing the internal team and managing the outsourcing of environment assets, I was involved with level design and art direction, while still doing modeling, texturing, set-dressing and lighting. In 2013 I left Grasshopper Manufacture to co-found Implausible Industries, a new game development studio based in Tokyo, Japan. Specialties: Creative and technical direction for game environments; Art team management; Art pipeline setup; Outsource management of environment assets; Leading by example, problem-solving and decision-making; Deep knowledge of Unreal Engine regarding game environments and shaders.