Heyo everyone! The name is Alex and I’m the new Tech Artist on the team! I’ve been doing Technical Art for about 2 years personally and 1 year professionally and I’m really excited to bring these skills to the Not Suspicious Team!

For anyone wondering “What does a Tech Artist exactly do?” Well, it differs depending on who you ask, but for my role here I basically become a wizard and make cool visual effects and shaders for the crowd to awe at! Fireballs, lightning bolts, dark portals, rainstorms, you name it, I make it! On top of that, I also assist with the Tablecraft development pipeline so that we can get development running as smooth as possible so if something needs to be changed it can be done quickly and efficiently!

When I’m not working on Tablecraft or other projects, I love to practice the guitar and learning new instruments. Music has a big influence on my personality and I love discovering new songs to add to my playlist. I like to listen to a huge range from alternative, to video game OSTs, to electronic, to even some heavy metal here and there. Of course, I also play a wide variety of videogames. Legend of Zelda, Hollow Knight, Metroid Prime, Doom 2016, Skyrim, League of Legends, A Hat in Time, The Final Fantasy Franchise, and Nier Automata are some of my favorites just to name a few.

And now onto some not so frequently asked questions!

Have you ever tried to bake a cake? How did it go? Got any pics to support your claims?

I haven’t baked an actual cake, but I have baked my grandma’s cheesecake recipe several times! It was messy the first time around, but they are often hard to really screw up and people devoured it every time I baked it for parties and special occasions! No pics to showcase just cause half the time I’ve already taken a bite into it before anyone can take a picture.

Please help us put an end to the most debated issue in science. Once and for all, which Periodic Element has the coolest sounding name?

Mendelevium sounds like a Pokémon name, therefore I’m obligated to pick it.

What was the piece of work in your portfolio that you’ve had the most fun producing? Tell us about it – maybe show it to us if you can!

Oh boy, you’re making me pick my favorite. I guess if I had to choose one it would have to be the magic missiles I made at the end of my demo reel (which you can see if you click here). While working on that one I ended up learning a lot about color theory and even got to implement a homing feature to where it honed in on a target which was a lot of fun to implement.

If you were not working in the field that you work now, what kind of work would you see yourself doing?

A zoologist or a marine biologist, I love animals so much and would watch a ton of animal documentaries growing up and was always entranced seeing them interact with each other and the environment whenever I spotted them in the wild. Otters, Komodo Dragons, Luna Moths, and Manekkin birds are just a few of my favorites out there.

What’s a recent book you’ve read, movie you’ve watched or game you’ve played that has had an impact on your work or life? Tell us about it!

Oh man, it’s not even a competition, it’s Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild easily! That game nails an open world adventure game like no other and it very quickly reminded me of why I wanted to get into games, to make fun and memorable experiences that can stick with players years after the game comes out! I’m also super hyped for BotW 2 obviously.

What’s your favorite YouTube channel right now? What’s it about?

Oh man, one channel I’m always looking forward to seeing uploads from is ScottTheWoz. He’s a YouTuber who talks about games and has such a great sense of humor and timing to his jokes. On top of that, he also has discussions on uncommon topics like console games on mobile devices, instruction manuals, and even Club Nintendo. It’s a breath of fresh air in the youtube games discussion scene and he deserves all the recognition he gets for all the effort he puts into his channel.

Very well… welcome!

Glad to be here! I can’t wait to show everyone what I have in store for this project, it’s going to be awesome!