Steve graduated from the Art Institute of Dallas and graduated with an Associate’s Degree in Applied Arts for Computer Animation and Multimedia in 1995. This degree also included second level Alias certification. Steve worked for a few years as a computer animator (ITV, Inc.) and multimedia artist (VSI Communications Group) while getting his second level certification and character studio and advanced certification in 3D Studio Max. As well as experience video editing for various clients, incorporating non-linear editing skills as well as rendered graphics. In 1998, he moved to Boston and started his career as a video game artist at Stainless Steel Studios, Inc., a company specializing in real-time strategy, civilization-building PC games.

Steve quickly moved up the ladder of responsibility at Stainless Steel Studios, Inc., working as Lead Artist on Empire Earth and Empires: Dawn of the Modern World and Art Director on Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War. Steve gained the respect of both the company president and of his subordinates, winning three employee-appreciation awards for his exceptional management ability.

Steve then went on to become the Art Director at Backbone Entertainment, creating the new look for the Catz and Dogz franchise and concepts for various PS2 children’s titles. He joined Tilted Mill Entertainment in the role of Assistant Art Director for both Sim City Societies and Sim City Societies: Destinations. He focused on organizing the art team, mentoring junior artists and creating assets in the form of environments, effects and buildings, while maintaining communication amongst the art team and generating video tutorials to help the artists understand new technology being implemented within the game engine.

At Turbine Entertainment/WB Games, he was hired as the Lead Artist for Lord of the Rings: Mines of Moria expansion and after its launch, joined a small prototype team to work on the console version of Lord of the Rings. During this time he managed a small team of production artists , investigated various new systems for Havok Cloth, Havok Behavior, ragdolls and ensured the assets would fit onto a smaller memory footprint while maintaining visual quality.

After Warner Brothers acquired Turbine Entertainment, Steve became the Lead Artist of Infinite Crisis, a MOBA. He continued to delve into a variety of different pipelines and how they could be incorporated into Infinite Crisis’s workflow so they could be presented to the team and executives. He managed a larger team of artists through Infinite Crisis’s development. He continued to document and create tutorials for the art team and company pertaining to Havok Cloth, Havok HBT, R&D on  environmental and vehicle destruction and building material systems. Throughout development, he would continue to directly implement assets into the game and work directly with concept artists and designers in the creation, preplanning and execution of new map levels. Steve continued to investigate other pipelines for future monetization opportunities for Infinite Crisis by weighting equipment, creating hats and investigating the process for incorporating couriers into Team Fortress and DOTA 2.  For possible Mobile considerations he investigated and documenting the process for mobile development, with a focus on maintaining the existing pipeline so that minimal changes would be needed. He led the team on Android development using Infinite Crisis assets across a variety of different material shaders; reviewing PBR, RTT and current texture methods for best practices and performance on different mid to low end tablet devices to get a decent cross section of what min spec systems to focus on under his own initiative.

Getting back to his production roots, Steve accepted a position as Senior Environment Artist at Proletariat. He was the sole environment artist for Streamline. He created the meshes, textures and shaders for the environment assets for both hard surface and organic. He was responsible for working closely with the designers on their initial blockouts and seeing them through the entire production, including lighting and optimization. Where it was required, he coordinated and managed any remaining outsource content and incorporated into the maps directly. During which time, he became the Lead Artist and built up the team for the growing studio. During SpellBreak, he focused his efforts primarily on environment and became the Senior Lead Environment Artist, where he continued to build up a team from scratch, was responsible for their onboarding and quality of work, while at the same time, continued to be an individual contributor on landscape textures, foliage, modular castle structures and lighting. He created the shaders for landscape, buildings and specialty shaders for obsidian crystals and numerous R&D efforts to stay ahead of the team and make sure they have what they needed to continue to meet the tight schedule deadlines.

In his personal time, Steve continues to indulge his love of gaming and art. He will often work on different modeling and texturing techniques, as well as evaluating and working with different engines to expand his knowledge and try to incorporate that knowledge in his day to day work. A constant tinkerer, he uses his small game prototypes to be the engine of inspiration to go deeper into engine development and incorporate a new workflow and see how far he can go.

His photography interests lie in shooting with infrared and ultraviolet film/digital (color and black and white) and experimenting with HDRI cube maps. His 3D computer generated work often falls into the “diesel punk” genre, with a focus on the inner workings of fantastical machines and mechs.