Vertex School Game Art Program Student Experience: Alex Miskines
We asked Vertex School alum, Alex Miskines, what he thought of the 9-month Game Art Program. Here’s what he had to say…
Vertex has been an amazing experience to say the least! I came from a background in Cinematography and CAD Design. I had a lot of experience with CAD and Adobe software prior to joining Vertex School. Vertex School educated me in a way that capitalized on my strengths and also pushed me in areas that I had no previous knowledge or experience with.
The class structure was great, it was fast-paced but it was largely on your own terms. Though I picked projects that included the standard content taught by Vertex, my projects often were eclipsed by different software and processes. The Vertex Mentors all had reference material and suggestions to help push my projects past what was expected. This kept my projects interesting to work on because each week was something new to add to my tool set.
Mentors were incredibly helpful in turning attention to your individual projects and providing feedback that takes your project to the next level. My mentors Paul Layton (1st Term), and Jacob Claussen (2nd & 3rd Term) were great and always provided great feedback and oriented me in the correct direction for the most amount of growth in the short 9 months.
Salvador Sánchez (Lab Tutor) was easily the most influential in picking my projects, navigating bugs in software, and quickly getting answers to issues or topics I didn’t quite understand. Salvador spent his off time helping me and providing feedback and really went above and beyond for me. He always made sure to keep me on task when I would start to drift into other parts of my project. Furthermore, he always kept a happy, positive, and productive lab session. I cannot thank him enough. Labs with Salvador quickly became the highlights of my week in between stressful workdays, rough personal days, and losing my mind UV’ing Meshes.
Also, I would like to mention Andrew Baker and Stefan Oprisan. Andrew helped me a lot with navigating 3DS Max (the modeling software I chose to use throughout the course). Stefan provided feedback and reference material that helped me learn Substance Designer. I wouldn’t be proficient in Substance Designer without Stefan’s short mentorship in that software.
All together Vertex provided a life-changing education. I’ve had feedback from friends who went to a university for 4-6 years as a game artist. They praised my projects as “Breathtaking” and “Incredible how much you’ve learned in such a short time!” Vertex has prepared me not only to be an environment artist; but also to navigate the new industry and career I’m undertaking. Thank you to the staff of Vertex, and my mentors Paul Layton, Jacob Claussen, and Salvador Sánchez for making this an incredible experience. I’m very happy to be a part of this community. -Alex Miskines