( - SOE) - G.I.R.L. Talk with Sylvia Liu, 2010 G.I.R.L. Scholarship Recipient - Mon,

Congratulations to Sylvia Liu, the winner of the 2010 G.I.R.L. Scholarship! Sylvia was able to take a few minutes away from her studies to talk a little bit about her work and her hopes for the coming scholarship work.[Emily] Congratulations on winning the G.I.R.L. Scholarship for 2010! I hope you’re as excited as we are. Tell us a little bit about what you’re doing now – what and where are you currently studying, for example?
[Sylvia] Hi, thank you! Yeah, I’m definitely excited for this opportunity and can’t wait to start my internship. Well, I studied at Laguna College of Art and Design in Laguna Beach, CA in the Game Art major which is a really great school where I learned pretty much everything I know about art now. I’ve recently made the decision to go to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA for the Entertainment Design program. Also, during this summer I’m going to be taking three classes at Concept Design Academy in Pasadena, CA where I’ve taken many amazing workshops such as Kekai Kotaki’s Digital Illustration workshop. So, this summer is going to be really fun, especially with the SOE internship!

[Emily] The art you submitted as part of your application was an environment called the Forest of Life, in which creatures such as the “Mosster” were found. How did you come up with the concept of the Mosster and the Forest of Life? Are they based on anything in your experience?
[Sylvia] I’ve always loved creating fantasy themed artwork so coming up with ideas for Everquest® II was more familiar and fun for me. There are so many possibilities for this challenge, it was hard to just choose one.
I usually start out my design process by sketching abstract thumbnails and looking for interesting shapes that are appealing at first glance.
From there, I pull things that I like and build on it. I knew that I wanted to do a creature because EverQuest II has many interesting creatures as bossesand it’s also a fantasy game so I made sure that my environment and creature were more organic and unique. I went with a forest because it’s familiar, yet there are so many possibilities to making it something people haven’t seen before. My Mosster, which is my creature, inhabits the forest so I made sure that you could instantly tell it belonged in its environment. I also created my designs so they were fun and had a story to them so the player would be more interested in it.
[Emily] Tell us a little bit about your hobbies. What do you do to relax?
[Sylvia] I spend time with my friends and family, watch T.V. and movies, play with my dog Angel, eat good food and sleep. I really like watching T.V., oh and I like to people watch and sketch too!
[Emily] Do you have any favorite computer games, either currently, or long term?
[Sylvia] Some of my favorite computer games were Harvest Moon, Pokemon Yellow version, Final Fantasy, Warcraft III, and Starcraft I. Recently, I’ve been playing Heroes of Newerth, Aion, and Starcraft II.
[Emily] If you could pick one computer game currently in existence and go back in time to be a part of the team working on it, what game would that be and why?
[Sylvia] I would work on Final Fantasy X because I love the concept art! All the costumes, vehicleand creature designs are so unique and crazy looking! I also feel that my personal style is very similar to that art styleso I think I’d have a lot of fun working on it.
[Emily] What do you anticipate being the most challenging part of getting into game design?
[Sylvia] I would say that the game industry is very popular right now and since there are so many amazing artists out there, it can be hard to get your work recognized in the beginning because of all the competition.
[Emily] What are you looking forward to most in joining the game design industry?
[Sylvia] I’m looking forward to meeting and working with so many amazing people(hopefully artists) and just to be a part of a team that makes video games!Also, getting to see my creations move and do the things that I designed them to do is going to be so cool!
[Emily] Working in game design can be a lot of work, as I’m sure you’re aware if you’ve read some of the blogs about our previous scholarship winner. What do you think makes it worthwhile to so many people in the industry? What makes it worthwhile to you to pursue this career goal instead of some other area?
[Sylvia] I really love art, there’s nothing else that I’d want to do more as a career. What really drives me to work hard and want to be in the game industry is to be able to see the final product and know that so many other people will be enjoying it too. So many people are playing games around the world now, it is a very influential industry and there are so many different possibilities. You can really make a character or environment do almost anything and it’s so cool that people can get so into a game because of the story and stuff.
[Emily] Can you tell us if there is anything specific you’re hoping to take away from the scholarship experience?
[Sylvia] I hope to learn a lot about the process of making a gameand meet the hard working individuals at SOE and learn from them. I also want to learn more about the business and find out how to create designs that specific clients will like.
[Emily] Was there any particular moment of enlightenment when you realized that you wanted to work in computer games instead of any other field? What was it, if so?
[Sylvia] Well, since I was really young, I’d always thought I’d go into comic book illustration or something. During my junior and senior year, I realized I wanted to go into visual development, I just never knew what it was called until I saw some students at SJSU presenting their work to Dreamworks. The students showed amazing work and they said they were going into visual development–that’s when I knew what I wanted to do! I can’t wait to create a story and design great characters, environments, props, etc. for movies, gamesand animations. I feel really lucky to have known what I want to do so early on.





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