Blizzard Games

Best known for blockbuster hits including World of Warcraft® and the Warcraft®, StarCraft®, and Diablo® franchises, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI), is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industry's most critically acclaimed games. Blizzard Entertainment's track record includes sixteen #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards. The company's online-gaming service, Battle.net®, is one of the largest in the world, with millions of active players.

Four members of Blizzard's award winning Cinematic team, Seth Thompson, Kenson Yu, Yong Hyun Kim and Alvaro Buendia will be demonstrating how ZBrush allowed them to easily create an army of highly detailed Zerg creatures for the cinematic movies of "Starcraft 2:  Heart of the Swarm".

Seth Thompson

Seth has over thirteen years of professional experience in the video game industry as a cinematic artist with expertise in environment and set design, modeling, surfacing, lighting, and layout. Seth grew up a traditional artist on a farm in Virginia with big dreams of one day working on video games at Blizzard Entertainment or Square-Enix. He has had the luck to see both of these dreams come true, working for over ten years on the Cinematic team at Blizzard Entertainment and for three years on Square-Enix’s Visual Works team in Tokyo, Japan.

Seth currently works as Blizzard Entertainment’s Cinematic Environment Modeling Supervisor in Irvine, California, and has created and supervised assets for various game Cinematic including Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Final Fantasy 12 and Final Fantasy: Advent Children.

Seth will be demonstrating how to use the powerful new features from ZBrush 4R5, such as Panel Loops, Polish by Feature and See-Through Mode to quickly create detailed and complex props and sets.

Kenson Yu

Kenson is currently a lead character modeling artist in Blizzard Entertainment's Cinematic Department. Beginning his career as a tracker for a VFX post production company, Kenson evolved his skills to highlight his true love of character and monster creation. This evolution was noticed by Blizzard where Kenson landed his dream job as a character and creature modeler where he contributes daily to two of his favorite things, movies and video games! Kenson has worked with Blizzard for over 11 years and his resume includes modeling, surfacing, look development, character concept and set design for the cinematic movies of Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, and Diablo 3.

Kenson will be demonstrating skills he has developed in ZBrush for creature creation with a focus on the Primal Zerg beast he made for "Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm" In-Game Cinematic.

Disney Animation Studio

Walt Disney Animation Studios brings imagination to life through traditional and computer animated films. Our crew is filled with diverse talent from all around the globe whose passion is to create beautiful and timeless films through the art of storytelling, the magic of animation and the science of cutting edge technology.

Zack Petroc

With a commitment to driving the digital entertainment industry forward, Zack Petroc continues to develop new techniques that redefine how digital tools impact the art and design of storytelling. In 2005 he opened Zack Petroc Studios to focus on the development of unique new content and one of a kind training tools. In addition to his online training courses, he currently enjoys spending his days as Model Supervisor at Walt Disney Animation Studios, interacting with some of the most talented artists in the industry.

Zack will be presenting an overview of what it means to be a modeler at Walt Disney Animation Studios, through a behind-the-scenes look into the making of Wreck-It-Ralph.

Epic Games

Established in 1991, Epic Games, Inc. develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company is responsible for the bestselling "Unreal" series of games, the blockbuster "Gears of War" franchise and the groundbreaking "Infinity Blade" line of mobile games. Epic's award-winning Unreal Engine technology has won dozens of awards and is available for licensing. Epic is continually recruiting top talent for its studios located in North Carolina, Washington, Utah, Poland, Korea and Japan. For more information, visit http://www.epicgames.com and follow @EpicGames.

Wyeth, Kevin, Mark, and Mike will be talking about the Character Art Pipeline at Epic Games Inc. and how ZBrush has and continues to make a direct impact on it over the years.

Wyeth Johnson
Art Director, Epic Games, Inc.

Wyeth is a 13 year veteran of the game industry with artistic and managerial contributions to more than 17 titles across multiple platforms and game technologies, including the Gears of War series and franchises such as Unreal Tournament, Counterstrike, Star Trek and Sin. He has a strong focus not only on technical art, visual language, and design, but also on creative leadership and what it takes to ship games and not kill each other in the process.

After shipping Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment, he helped drive the UnrealEngine 4 real time Infiltrator demo, and is now acting as Art Director on an unannounced and awesome new project.

Wyeth, Kevin, Mark, and Mike will be talking about the Character Art Pipeline at Epic Games Inc. and how ZBrush has and continues to make a direct impact on it over the years.

Mike Kime
Senior Character Artist, Epic Games, Inc.

Mike Kime is a Senior Character Artist at Epic Games in North Carolina. Mike's created a vast amount of high resolution characters for games utilizing the Unreal Engine. When not creating monsters for Epic, Mike is creating art based on his own personal ideas.

Mike has been using ZBrush to build the majority of his art for almost 10 years.

Wyeth, Kevin, Mark, and Mike will be talking about the Character Art Pipeline at Epic Games Inc. and how ZBrush has and continues to make a direct impact on it over the years.

Santa Monica Studios

Santa Monica Studio was established in 1999, and is focused on creating the most immersive, enjoyable, compelling and playable experiences for the PlayStation® consumer. The studio is credited with resurrecting and perfecting the action/adventure genre for fans around the globe, with the success of "God of War®" and its sequels, most recently God of War: Ascension® released in March of this year.

Santa Monica Studio is an open, creative and integrated games production studio, employing the industry's most talented and dedicated professionals, designing, developing and delivering the highest quality AAA PlayStation® product.

Santa Monica Studio inspires employees to do their best work in an environment of respect, collaboration, and support.

Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is an Art Director at Sony Santa Monica and was the Lead Character Artist on God of War 3 and God of War: Ascension. He has been a professional artist for 15 years working on several game franchises including Ratchet and Clank and Resistance: Fall of Man.

Patrick Murphy will discuss SONY Santa Monica Studio's process for general character creation and character creation pipelines.

James Van Den Bogart

James Van Den Bogart is currently a 3d character artist at Sony Santa Monica where he contributed to work on God of War: Ascension. Previously he was a character artist in Bellevue where he contributed to work on Guild Wars 2 for Arenanet.

James Van Den Bogart will be discussing how sony used ZBrush to create hard surface elements.

Katon Callaway

Katon Callaway is a Senior Character Artist at Sony Santa Monica where he has worked on God of War: Ascension and God of War 3. Katon also teaches a course at CG Workshops and how now been working in the industry for 9 years.

Katon Callway will show how essential polypaint was for the production process. From texturing character to making and mask selections.

Jared Krichevsky

Jared Krichevsky's inclination to create characters was evident from a very young age.  He began putting pen to paper at the tender age of five years old.  Eventually, Jared traded in graphite for pixels and enrolled in the Gnomon School of Visual Effects.  While at Gnomon, Jared cultivated his CG skills through an internship with the Aaron Sims Company.  In 2010, he graduated from the CG certificate program at Gnomon and accepted a position at Aaron Sims where he currently works as a CG Generalist and Concept Designer.  Jared is a new member of the faculty at Gnomon School of Visual Effects, facilitating tutelage of creature design and ZBrush.

 Jared's work has been featured in 3D Artist magazine, as well as such Internet portals as CGHub and io9.com.  His ever-expanding list of credits includes  The Wolverine, Maleficent, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Jupiter Ascending, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as well as the lauded short film Archetype that is currently in development for feature film production. 

Jared will be building cities inside of ZBrush 4R5 using insert mesh brushes, projection master and dynamesh.

Joseph Drust

Joseph has over ten years of experience working in the video game industry as a character artist with a focus on modeling and sculpting. He has created character assets for games including Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Ben 10 Alien Force, Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon, and most recently Ghost Recon Future Soldier.

Joseph currently works as a lead character artist for Ubisoft Entertainment (Red Storm Entertainment) in Cary, North Carolina.  Joseph is also a beta team member for Pixologic's ZBrush and a certified ZBrush Instructor. In his free time Joseph kitbashes Kidrobot's Munny Vinyl figures, and gives demos on ZBrush to local schools.

You can find out more about Joseph and his artwork at www.krop.com/josephdrust

Joseph will be going over some of his tips and tricks using Fibermesh to create long hair, and showing off some techniques used to create character assets for Ghost Recon Future Soldier.

Josh Herman

Josh is a Character Artist, Modeler, and Designer working at Marvel Studios and has worked on The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Captain American: The Winter Soldier, Thor: The Dark World, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Previously he worked at Naughty Dog where he worked on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception as a character artist, as well as working at Legacy Effects (formerly Stan Winston Studios) working on movies such as Total Recall, The Amazing Spiderman and Real Steel.

In 2008 Josh moved from Colorado to Los Angeles to continue his education at Gnomon School of Visual Effects. While there he was a worked as a Lead Modeler in a music video, and a Lead Artist at the Gnomon Studio. Immediately after graduation Josh started working at Legacy Effects.

Josh is going to show the processes that he's using to create some creature concept sculpts. He will be showing how he started with Dynamesh and then used remeshing. Then he will show how he created a bird character using the IMM brushes for feathers.