Industry Partners
PASSPORT CHALLENGES
The "Passport for Scholarship" initiative is a contribution opportunity to directly impact the successful careers of Game Art students. Our Industry Partners create challenges that are posted for participating students that directly relate to, or reflect, their intellectual property or fan art. Contributions from our partnering industry correlate to the amount of time students are given to complete the challenge. There is an exchange of critique, dialog, and then winners are selected, with all usage rights of the art going to the contributing company. Students winning the challenges then receive that company's stamp in their personal Passports towards workshops, product awards and scholarship. Our Passport contributors become a permanent mark on the visual memory for those students wishing to raise their level of achievement in the eyes of our industry partners, as they travel to new realms of knowledge.
PARTNER SCHOOLS
USCGames is a partner with the LCAD Game Art Major in new game development. LCAD Game Art students work with USC graduate students to help develop the visual direction of game projects, creating concept and 3D assets. Those projects are then presented in front of a renowned industry audience at Demo Days, held on USC's campus in May.
NHTV partners with LCAD as an exchange opportunity for LCAD Game Art students to study abroad for one semester of their college career. NHTV provides faculty in specializing in game design to visit our campus and work directly with our design classes.
LCAD partners with Norco college to provide opportunities for Game Art students to work with programming and audio students to develop small a small games over the course of one or two semesters. Students meet and create a pipeline for their game, from concept to finish.
GAME ART COUNCIL
The Game Art Major at LCAD was founded with the guiding wisdom of Advisory Council now known as the Senior Council, or the "Titan Overlords". The Council meets as a group annually with the Game Art faculty to review and revise the curriculum to meet the latest industry standards with an eye towards the future. These leaders give of their time and their wisdom in the way of workshops, industry connections, portfolio development and contributing challenges to our latest initiative in the major "The Passport for Scholarship Program".
Farzad Varahramyan
As a Creative Visual Director Farzad has always had a passion for designing and creating new worlds, characters, and their stories. Farzad's a graduate of Art Center College of Design, and has been in the game industry since 1995. As Sr. Production Designer at Oddworld, he helped develop the visual look of Abe's Oddysee, Abe's Exoddus, and Munch's Oddysee. He has also contributed designs to films such as Jumanji, Alien vs. Predator, Race To Witch Mountain, and The Thing 2.
In 2002, Farzad was a co-founder and creative visual director of what became High Moon Studios. He established the concept art department and co-created multiple original IP games, such as Darkwatch. He's co-authored The Art Of Darkwatch, and was published in books like The Art Of Oddworld, Concept Design 2, and publications including Spectrum, Expose, Exotique, and Aphrodisia.
On Halloween 2008 he co-founded Appy Entertainment, dedicated to creating video games and entertainment for the Social and Mobile market. Appy's games have been downloaded over 22 million times the world over and include award-winning titles like Facefighter, Trucks & Skulls, Spellcraft School of Magic, and Appy's Animal Legends.
Farzad attributes his good fortune in games and film design to his former teachers and mentors. However, the biggest influences in Farzad's life are his wife Vera, son Maxwell, and daughter Isabella.
Justin Thavirat
has been working in the video game industry since 1994 when he answered a local job posting at school that read, "Do you like to draw and play video games? If so, please send your resume and portfolio to Blizzard Entertainment."
Since then Justin has worked as an artist and senior art director at Blizzard Entertainment, contributing to game art, concept art, cinematic art, marketing illustrations, and box covers for many of Blizzard's award winning games in the Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo and World of Warcraft series. Recently Justin was lead artist on World of Warcraft, art director on World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and is currently an art lead on the StarCraft 2 team.
Justin's art has been featured in numerous publications and exhibits including Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, The Laguna Art Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Justin is a member of the Game Developers Conference advisory board and is also a senior council member for the Laguna College of Art and Design.
When not spending time with his wife and two boys, Justin's passion is building exceptional art teams, cultivating a collaborative development culture, and empowering artists to achieve something greater than anyone thought possible.
Joe Shoopack
is Director of Artistic Development for Sony Online Entertainment with studios in San Diego and Austin. He works to facilitate cross studio solutions and maintain high art quality standards for all SOE titles. Joe is involved with academic programs in a mentoring and advisory capacity and helps define career paths for artists within SOE. He has developed Massively Multiplayer Online games and single player games since 1988 on platforms ranging from the PS4 back to Atari 7800. He has worked with Sony since 1997. He holds a BFA in illustration from Brigham Young University and has shipped over 50 game titles.
Moby Francke
Moby comes to us from Riot Games, were he is the Art Director for League of Legends. Prior to joining Riot, he worked at Valve Software, helping create popular games like Half life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, the Left or Dead franchise, Counter Strike Source, Day of Defeat, and Dota 2. With over 13 years in the gaming industry, he is passionate about creating visual art cohesion and game play clarity.
Moby was born in Virginia, but grew up most of his formative life in the Caribbean. In 1996 he left island life to pursue his dream of being an artist, attending the Academy of Art University San Francisco 1996-2001.