Just when I believed my attention span was shot and I didn’t have it in me to commit to a role-playing game…. I picked up Tales of Vesperia on the Xbox 360. The core of the game maintains familiar Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) mechanics that are so well executed that is the soul cause of Xbox 360 sales skyrocketing in Japan. Given the relative difficulty the 360 has had selling next to its native competition in the Japanese market—this is an impressive feat.

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On my personal scale video game art and the impressiveness of its implementation are easily rated. I’ll tell you now that it is a personal scale—not anything based in numbers or calculations and yet I believe it is relevant. The scale is not based on intrinsic artistic value because I do not believe my own evaluation to be the ultimate assessment of artistic worth. I’m pretty simple: the artistic value of a game is better judged by how many people I show the game to because I think that they will be impressed by it. This goes for double points when I start to share games with people who don’t care about video games one iota.
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In a departure from anything art and class specific comes a story of horror. Well, really it’s horror borne out of a mistake that oddly enough encouraged me to write a small bit. Inspiration comes from odd places and I promise if you stick with me then we’ll make it to a point that involves art, video game and film.

I usually keep my promises. Okay, I try to keep my promises.

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First off: I wish the title of this blog actually indicated that I had some excursion in South America replete with harrowing tales and wonderful discoveries… but this is about software. Yes, of course I am talking about the Behemoth software that is Maya 8.5 and learning to effectively and efficiently model.  I have absolutely no experience with Maya whatsoever but I have to admit that my lessons have been straightforward and sensible to implement. I won’t lie to you: I was worried at first. Online class, complicated program and a bunch of assignments to complete… but everything been straightforward and makes sense.  You just have to learn how to function all over again in a new software environment.
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Hello, I’m Amy Jones. I’m an artist, have a lifelong love of video games and was lucky enough to win the NoGD 2008 ‘Aspiring Women Artists Competition’. I am a product of an endlessly twisting road of unexpected, intricate and confusing attempts of trying to mesh my hobbies and career. Finally, I have an unusual light at the end of my twisted vocational journey: I’ve been granted the means to become an artist in the video game industry. To someone who doesn’t know me this may seem like a sudden and unexpected scholarship but the story behind winning it has been a lifetime in the making… er, my lifetime that is.

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