Russell 'Castle' Meakim - Level Designer

[Castle]

Hey guys, I have been lurking here a bit looking to finally get my act together and finally get back on my feet. Been unemployed for way too long. I hope to be a regular face here in the near future too as I enjoy doing projects in my spare time and have been actually recording my antics on youtube as of late.

 

http://castledoes.carbonmade.com/

 

As always all feedback is welcome. Its missing a few games and projects I worked on at the moment but I plan to get those all rounded up. I have been having poor luck finding work.

 

Thoughts?

[FMPONE]

Impressive stuff! Welcome to Mapcore. Glad to see someone with some nice industry experience joining the action, your TF2 map looks especially great!

 

I do think your website's presentation could use a bit of work, especially the header is looking a little basic/rough.

[Castle]

Ah yes i definitly see what you mean. Do you have any suggestions?

What I might do is make something a bit more fancy in Photoshop with fancy text like "Castle Does" instead of the current header.

[FrieChamp]

Hi Russel, welcome to the Core!  

 

Quite a few projects you've got listed there. It's hard to tell which ones are hobbyist-projects and which of these games you've been involved in professionally. The fact that I can't find a resumé ties into this. The ability to enlarge some of those screenshots would be nice, too.

[mjens]

The header - try something bigger and not Times New Roman-ish. I always use Verdana which is simple but yet not so "classic". Get out with that "-= =-" dude, how old you are? Just type who you are, a Level Designer or Level Artist/World Builder? I dunno...

 

Try to sort your personal works from professional experience. Check out my portfolio of some others to get the idea.

 

I couldn't find information about what kind of job you're doing (except from some descriptions under the pics which I don't know what pic you're referring to). Try creating a pattern of project presentation so: start with the name of the project and your role, provide additional details etc. You can describe that with few lines of text or table with text in cells which is more logical but also looks a bit to simple. I've picked the cells way because writing in English is not my best part

 

I can't see the links for your folio and stuff. I mean it's in the same style as your usual text so you need to move your mouse cursor over the text to "find" a link.

 

It would be awesome to see your email

 

 

Good luck, man!

[Castle]

Hey guys

So it looks like the main things I need to address are

 

1. The header

2. Personal work blends in with proffessional work.

3. Make sure its more clear what position I held for each project.

4. Make sure links in the about section are more visible.

 

The one about personal work blending in with proffessional work ends up being the tougher one to solve. Some games i have done personal stuff as well as worked on proffessionally.

 

 

Hi Russel, welcome to the Core!

 

Quite a few projects you've got listed there. It's hard to tell which ones are hobbyist-projects and which of these games you've been involved in professionally. The fact that I can't find a resumé ties into this. The ability to enlarge some of those screenshots would be nice, too.

 

hmm I looked through my options with carbonmade and dont see a way to make it so images can be enlarged. Nearly All of them are 1920x1080 though. I suppose carbonmade is a bit limiting on this front? Or am I just missing some detail?

 

The header - try something bigger and not Times New Roman-ish. I always use Verdana which is simple but yet not so "classic". Get out with that "-= =-" dude, how old you are? Just type who you are, a Level Designer or Level Artist/World Builder? I dunno...

 

Try to sort your personal works from professional experience. Check out my portfolio of some others to get the idea.

 

I couldn't find information about what kind of job you're doing (except from some descriptions under the pics which I don't know what pic you're referring to). Try creating a pattern of project presentation so: start with the name of the project and your role, provide additional details etc. You can describe that with few lines of text or table with text in cells which is more logical but also looks a bit to simple. I've picked the cells way because writing in English is not my best part

 

I can't see the links for your folio and stuff. I mean it's in the same style as your usual text so you need to move your mouse cursor over the text to "find" a link.

 

It would be awesome to see your email

 

 

Good luck, man!

 

Your portfolio is impressive! When you compare environmental artists with level designers its like that scene from office space where the designer would be "Whats the matter with you people!? I have design skills!!"

 

I was Lead game designer for a bit near the end at Nerve software but otherwise I have been a senior level designer or lead level designer depending on the project. I guess I am all over the place. personal projects mixed in with proffessional doing random positions.. *sigh*

[mjens]

Your portfolio is impressive! When you compare environmental artists with level designers its like that scene from office space where the designer would be "Whats the matter with you people!? I have design skills!!"

 

I was Lead game designer for a bit near the end at Nerve software but otherwise I have been a senior level designer or lead level designer depending on the project. I guess I am all over the place. personal projects mixed in with proffessional doing random positions.. *sigh*

 

I'm currently lead env artist but my heart goes where level art & design is so I'm always writing "senior level designer & artist". Luckily I'm doing all the LD/LA stuff PLUS the leadership stuff. 

Thanks for the kind words

 

Good luck with your folio and work seeking. I know it's hard, man!

[Sprony]

Wow, the great Castle from back in the Id's days now on the Core. Well I'll be damned, Welcome.

 

Regarding your portfolio, less is more. There's just too much stuff on there. I would pick your best work, make some very impressive shots of that and only feature those. 

[e-freak]

Hey Russell, awesome folio you've got there and welcome to the core

 

One thing that I noticed was that the projects weren't in chronological order. The Aliens CM and COD stuff for example, seems to be more recent but fairly far down the list. I'd try and move those up.

[Castle]

About the chronological order thing. Its been suggested that admitting to working on Aliens is a big mistake that could potentially get me ignored instantly. I dont know if its true or not but different people tell me different things on this so its hard to decide to hide it altogether or put it lower on the list.

 

 

Wow, the great Castle from back in the Id's days now on the Core. Well I'll be damned, Welcome.

 

Regarding your portfolio, less is more. There's just too much stuff on there. I would pick your best work, make some very impressive shots of that and only feature those.

 

I still visit Quake 3 world from time to time!

 

for my portfolio, I cant pick what I like most :/
lol

[e-freak]

well, good work is good work, even when the game wasn't the best. also it's easier to see what you've been doing recently, as opposed to putting an old title up first that might make it look like you haven't been in the industry for a few years.

[UnknownPredator]

Wow! Amazing portfolio, Love your work Russel 

Edited April 13, 2014 by UnknownPredator

[Sprony]

I still visit Quake 3 world from time to time!

 

for my portfolio, I cant pick what I like most :/

lol

 

Yeah, I noticed your recent posts there. But I think I first came across your stuff all the way back on Map-center.

I could make a selection for you

[SuperDuperYeah]

I'm not exactly sure how anyone would ignore you based on the fact that you worked on a certain game. I would rather look at how you handled overall design and design problems in a breakdown section in your portfolio before judging your abilities. One thing I particularly like about designer's portfolio is seeing a part where they state some problem that occurred and how they fixed it.

 

While browsing through your portfolio I had a bit of problem to read the text under your images. I think that could be easily fixed by changing the color font to something that stands out a bit more like "pure white".

 

You say at some point: "I designed a heavy combat sequence, followed by a boss fight with multiple rockets launcher soldiers...". That's a good thing to know but it gives me little insight in how you actually designed this area. Maybe some quick bullet points of how you thought about this encounter ? I think the images could also represent the action a bit better. Maybe show the heavy combat or even capture a short video of this sequence. You also said that you scripted everything. Maybe tell us what language you used and what you had to do specifically in order to make your scripts work (again in short bullet point form). Overall maybe be a bit more explicit about how you did things or thought about certain stuff. 

 

Wow you have an awesome track record o_o. 

 

Hope I could help  ! 

[Castle]

well, good work is good work, even when the game wasn't the best. also it's easier to see what you've been doing recently, as opposed to putting an old title up first that might make it look like you haven't been in the industry for a few years.

 

That's a damn good point, ill reorder it to chronological order asap.

 

 

I still visit Quake 3 world from time to time!

 

for my portfolio, I cant pick what I like most :/

lol

 

Yeah, I noticed your recent posts there. But I think I first came across your stuff all the way back on Map-center.

I could make a selection for you

 

 

I am up for seeing the list however I feel my problem finding work has most likely been from a less is more angle. Its been a tough time even getting interviews! I feel like I need to just go ballistic and try again with everything I have done documented. Guns blazing. I am not about to give up on my career at this point! I find it absurd that I have been having so much trouble!

 

On a happy side note suddenly I have been randomly contacted one day after I put the portfolio up lol

 

I'm not exactly sure how anyone would ignore you based on the fact that you worked on a certain game. I would rather look at how you handled overall design and design problems in a breakdown section in your portfolio before judging your abilities. One thing I particularly like about designer's portfolio is seeing a part where they state some problem that occurred and how they fixed it.

 

While browsing through your portfolio I had a bit of problem to read the text under your images. I think that could be easily fixed by changing the color font to something that stands out a bit more like "pure white".

 

You say at some point: "I designed a heavy combat sequence, followed by a boss fight with multiple rockets launcher soldiers...". That's a good thing to know but it gives me little insight in how you actually designed this area. Maybe some quick bullet points of how you thought about this encounter ? I think the images could also represent the action a bit better. Maybe show the heavy combat or even capture a short video of this sequence. You also said that you scripted everything. Maybe tell us what language you used and what you had to do specifically in order to make your scripts work (again in short bullet point form). Overall maybe be a bit more explicit about how you did things or thought about certain stuff. 

 

Wow you have an awesome track record o_o. 

 

Hope I could help  ! 

 

Ill get to work on making the text easier to see.

 

The boss battle sequence was all done in Kismet. I was the one to initially layout the entire area then I split the map for other designers. I have often been the one to get everything in place then hand chunks off to more junior designers to do the rest. I was then given the different parts back to finalize later in the project.

 

Ill see if I can do short bullet point lists and be more explicit about what was used and why.

 

You guys have been super helpful thank you so much!