We just had three amazing former PSQ students who held presentations about their journey after they graduated from PlaygroundSquad. It was really inspiring to hear about. All of our students were welcome to join and get inspired about the former PSQ students adventures in the game industry!
Pontus Wåhlin now works as an Artist at Machine Games and went to PSQ 2005. When he was little he had a dream about developing games and to work at Id Software in the USA. A few years later that happend, but he started his career at Starbreeze. When Machine Games was established he got recruited to work for them and a few years later his boy dream turned into reality, he got transfered to Dallas, USA to work at Id Software. Pontus and his family moved to Dallas for a few years and they got to live the American life and see parts of the USA.
While he worked at Id Software he got to be a part of the team who created the game Doom. After a few years in The States they decided to move back home to Sweden to be closer to their family and Pontus landed a job as an Artist at Machine Games, where they developed the game Wolfenstein and that's where he works today!
It was very inspiring and fun to hear Pontus speak about his years after PlaygroundSquad!
He had a few tips to give our students:
Dream and set up goals
Be curious
Find a mentor
Think long term
Learn the basics
Build a portfolio
Vidar Rapp also works at Machine Games, but as a Senior Character Artist. He went to PlaygroundSquad in 2004 and was one of the first students in the building that PlaygroundSquad has it's headquarters in today. Pretty cool! He recognized some of the things here, but alot has also changed. That was cool to hear! After his years at PSQ he started working at Avalache Studios and on the game Just Cause. He learned alot there and got to take responsibility quickly. After a year or two he moved over to the UK to try his creative wings there for a while at a Studio, but he missed Sweden so he moved back and started a career at Starbreeze, where he worked on the game Syndicate.
In 2011 he got recruited to Machine Games and has been there ever since. He has made alot of cool things for the game Wolfenstein and showed the students a bunch of amazing things! The students had alot of questions!
Vidar also had a few tips to our students regarding how to become a great Character Artist:
Train your anatomy so it becomes awesome
Work specific on your shape and form appearance
Learn scripting
Render nice venders
Think: State of the art!
Sofia Hansson went to PlaygroundSquad 2015 and is now working as a Junior Character Artists at Stunlock.
She has always been drawing characters and mostly in 2D, but when she started PlaygroundSquad she begun to love 3D and saw all of the cool possibilities that was created in front of her eyes.
Sofia opened up about hard times during her presentation for the students. She touched subjects like it is okay to ask alot of questions if you don't understand and that all of us that work in games are humans too. It was really inspiring to hear her talk about her own road to the job she has today. Nothing is impossible as long as you set your mind to it, but also give yourself time to rest and load that energy that the body needs.
She spoke about the importance of having an open mind on how to react on feedback from others. Feedback is great for the growth of your skills.
Sofia also had a few tips to our students:
If you want to make a 3D form, don't use any straight lines.
Train your anatomy!
Listen to the feedback you recieve
Give yourself a break
Don't live at the office
These three former students of PSQ inspired us alot! We are very glad that they took time out of their busy scheduels to come and speak at PlaygroundSquad!
Thank you and we hope to see you soon again.
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