Update 15/04/08:
I have now started as a level designer for Bizarre Creations. Obviously I'm over the moon to be living the dream at last so this means I am no longer looking for work! However, if you have a really exciting mod project with a good team already established then feel free to contact me about mod work.
Currently I am doing mod work as lead level designer on Brutal, Project Valkyrie and Front Line Force: Classic and I am a level designer on the wonderful project Lamaar is Lost for which I am also recruiting.
Bio:
I am a self taught Level Designer and texture artist, specializing in the Source engine. I've been casually making levels for games for more than ten years starting with Doom Builder and the wonderful Build! Engine. In 2006 I started to regard level and game design as my number one passion in life and as of the 28th April 2008 I am working as a level designer for Bizarre Creations.
For the last two years I have trained hard and have just released my first 'finished' mod,
Project: Valkyrie (click for details). The map is called 'Twin Bridges' for obvious reasons and I made the map and 90% of the textures for it in a little under three months whilst working a 60hr a week job
Twin Bridges: You can see a video of the map in action
hereBefore working on Project: Valkyrie I worked on a mod, called simply
'Brutal' (click for details), which is currently seeking funding to be made into a retail game. In 4 months I made this map which is probably my personal favorite of my creations so far. The game is a an over-the-shoulder style beat-em-up (think Streets of Rage meets Mortal Combat meets Quake) and the level is the home level of an omnipotent time traveling god. To portray this I wanted to give the feeling of a tranquil, timeless spot, completely cut off from the rest of the universe. I wanted it to be somewhere that a god might be happy to spend eternity just floating about. Thanks to Jake Parlay for the incredible sky.
Temple of the Watcher: The first Source map I made for a mod was called 'fn_bac' after the battle at Ap Bac which was a monumental battle in the build up to the US war in Vietnam. I wanted to create a feeling of the calm before the storm with this level and I was really happy with the results.
Bac: This next piece is something I started for the Interlopers map battle 'Inside the box'. The challenge was to make the best map you could with a very limited amount of space available to you. My idea was to accurately model the entire of the inside of my old Dell PC using only brushwork. In the end it proved to be more than I could handle in the few weeks of the competition. By the end I had gotten so far into the project that I continued it for some time and modeled a few of the components. As well as using the lamp shown in the screens to teach myself how to make complex objects using the subdivide feature of displacements (yes it is completely made out of displacements and yes... I am insane).
Inside the Box: After my first Source map which was soundly murdered by the public right here on Interlopers.net (de_borderpost if you want a laugh) I wanted to silence the critics by quickly learning to take advantage of the power of the Source engine. Whilst I'm not entirely sure I did that, I did make a map that I am still proud of and I learned a lot in the five months I poured into it. The main purpose of making this map was to really take my brushwork to the next level so I made the hull of the ship entirely using BSP brushes. Sadly I never did finish her, but she's under renovation at the moment so who knows!
Cargo:A beauty shot (probably my favorite screenshot I've taken in Source):
And two that show her off more clearly but also give away her horribly work in progress surroundings: