I do hope to one day be a part of a game development company. I finished one quarter of schooling at The Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the Game Art and Design program, and finances permitting, I hope to return later this year. The specific part of game art that I want to target is level and texture design and possibly character/object design. After a short stint in map-making during the Myth II: Soulblighter years of my gaming history, I decided level design and working with textures is what I would really like to pursue in the industry. Of course, I would also possibly like to pursue the actual game design aspect of things further—I have to an extant, with projects for school—but as an artist is where I feel I need to be first and foremost, at least in the beginning.

MacThemes: If you could pick … what company would you work for? Blizzard? Retro? Nintendo? Or perhaps join a new group?

I wouldn’t mind actually starting my own game development company one day. I think if I could gather together a bunch of talented fellow artists—and there are a lot out there today—it could work. But, of course, that wouldn’t—and I wouldn’t want it to be—my break into the industry. If I had to choose a company today, it would be Retro Studios without question. That’s really a group of guys I would love to have the opportunity to work with. I was completely blown away with every aspect of Metroid Prime. The art style they managed to pull together is amazing itself, but the level of precise detail put into the game, the menus, the awesome texture work…. You just walk into any room in that game and you get that sense of how meticulous the artists were about how they crafted it. From an artistic standpoint, it’s been the most impressive game in years, in my opinion. If my dream came today, hopefully I would wake up in an office at Retro.

MacThemes: Currently, your main source of income from graphic artists must be doing work for software companies. Several other artists seem to be starting icon shops, selling collections of generic icons for software companies to purchase, at a slashed price. What do you think about this trend? Do you plan on starting your own similar service?

Yes, I have noticed this trend. I’m totally in favor of and support it, as well. I think the guys at the IconFactory got this trend going forward. But I think I understand why it’s taken such large steps. Personally, I have gotten many requests to use just particular icons from a handful of my sets. One here, one there, another there. It seems that there is a market, at least from my perspective, for cheap icon bundles, and even single icon sales. I know there are some sites out there that sell a single icon for $2! Quite a steal, especially if someone needs just a couple of icons for their web site or application. Of course, quality may not be as high as if you had contracted or commissioned someone to do a custom project, but I think it works in the end.

I do actually plan on starting my own similar service! It’s in its baby stages, but I plan on launching IconShed.com in the coming months. It will be similar to some of my fellow icon designers’ services, but we’re going to offer a few separate categories of purchasable icons for website and application use—in many different sizes, as well. There will also be many purchasing options and packages. It will be a fun endeavor, I think—and we hope to provide some good competition, too! Competition is always good.

MacThemes: So far, most of your icon creations have been based on characters and items within video games. Unfortunately, while I loved these sets, I always found myself stuck trying to use them in my system. After all, a mushroom doesn’t quite work with the hard drive metaphor. With your newest Metroid icons, you seem to be going towards a system icon replacement set. Do you think you’ll be able to make the visual analogies work?

It’s funny you mention that, as my hard drive icons are currently the red and green mushrooms! It’s true that it doesn’t quite work as a proper metaphor, but I think it works visually. During my years of working on icons, I’ve found the visual and metaphorical mixture to be the main distinctive aspects of designing icons. Sometimes a visually pleasing icon just works, and sometimes a keen metaphor works better—and sometimes it’s a healthy mixture of the two. From the mushroom’s shape, I almost get the feeling that the metaphor fits for a hard drive, but it’s so visually appealing, it just fits. In my opinion, anyway! Maybe I just have a special pride in that icon, since it was the first I ever worked on for a set.

That brings us to SR388, though, where I am indeed approaching a full Finder replacement for the first time. At first I was going to just stick with items and characters from the game, as with my previous set, but after asking what people thought, the consensus was that I should attempt a Finder replacement. When I first thought of making a new Metroid set, I always knew I wanted SR388 to have a more realistic look and feel. I wanted to capture that feel of industrial, gritty, and dark realism Metroid Prime gave me as I played through it.

I had already decided on the look and feel I was going for. Piecing together those metaphors and analogies that come with doing a Finder replacement is one of the tougher parts—especially in the context of the game I’m emulating. I haven’t gotten very far into the set yet, but I do plan on using many of the items from the game itself as metaphors to apply them to the icons that will need to be replaced in the Finder—for example, the Metroid capsule as a trash can, or the Varia Suit “S” logo used as a system metaphor. Of course, I will be using some creative license—as you can see currently with my drive icons thus far. Only the visual look and feel works in some cases, while a dash of creative license works better when it comes to possible metaphors for the icons.

MacThemes: So for instance, you might have Samus’s ship as the Home icon rather than the current Home icon in Metroid materials?

That’s actually exactly the item I was going to use as a metaphor for the Home folder. But yes, this is the idea. Obviously, it will be a bit tough to pull something from the Metroid universe as a metaphor for every icon I run in to in the Finder, but I will certainly try my best. And where the metaphors don’t always work, I aim to still visually convey that Metroid feel.

MacThemes: Do you plan to include icons going beyond the system set, such as characters in the game, or miscellaneous items?

Absolutely! I do want to create items, and possibly characters, as icons all their own. Just as with my previous video game sets. Making a Finder replacement is fun, but I still have to stick to the nostalgic value of having just a Varia Suit logo on your desktop, or a morphball or missile. It’s part of what makes that mushroom work for me as a hard drive icon for my desktop!

MacThemes: What about desktops? A cursor set? Or even a theme? Have you ever thought about doing a system theme based on a Nintendo game?

I have considered a few times taking on a theme, actually, but I’ve found little time for it, and it seemed a bit daunting when I first researched it, but I will one day return to that. As for a theme based on a Nintendo game, I may be helping a friend of mine from the theme-making community on a possible theme. It may even—wink, wink—go along with this icon set one day, if you know what I mean. But I won’t speak anymore about it, as it’s not necessarily set in stone yet, and I don’t want to hype anything just in case the project doesn’t pull together. We shall see what comes of it.

I currently have a few desktops on the preview site for SR388. I do plan on making a few more, definitely for the release of the set. A cursor set I hadn’t thought of, but it’s on the list! It will probably make it for release.

MacThemes: This work in progress is the first to use 3D rendering. What application do you use? What’s the process involved in making an icon?

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