July, 2005 to present
Shiftless Wastrel & Layabout


     It can't be retirement, because I know what's in my bank account; but in recent years I've decided that they haven't built the day job that can hold me.


July, 2003 to June, 2005
Art Director, Destineer Studios


     My tour of duty at Destineer involved two Minnesota winters and the production of Close Combat:First to Fight, a military tactical combat game based on the real life training - if not real life engagements - of the US Marines.
     The game was set in an imaginary conflict in Beirut and we pretty much returned the "Paris of the Middle East" to its war-torn condition familiar from news footage of the 1980's.
     I was lucky to have a small but excellent art team for the project, which like so many games was produced on a short schedule and a tight budget.



October, 1999 to October, 2002
Art Director, Taldren


     At Taldren I worked on Starfleet Command Volume II, built the web sites for Taldren, Interplay's Starfleet Command II site, and also redesigned the original Starfleet Command site. We established some very lively forums at the Taldren site for the promotion of the game. In addition I put together several CD-ROMS for press previews as well as the Bonus CD-ROM that was given away with preorders of the game. SFC II has a lively, impassioned, and maniacal fan base; it' was an interesting project to give those fans a place to rant, praise and blame.
     After SFC II and Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates, the franchise moved over to Activision. I served as Art Director on Starfleet Command III before moving on.


April, 1997 to July, 1998
Web Development Manager, JB Oxford & Company

     Following the web production I did at Legacy Software (below), I began working on web development for JB Oxford. JBO is a discount brokerage which also offers trading via the Internet and by touch-tone phones.
     The company's web presence includes a public web site, a secure trading site, and content which JBO licenses and links to in order to provide clients with additional services. I worked on deals with several online news providers before we finally settled on NewsAlert to provide the market news for the JBO site.
     In addition to the design and upkeep of the company's web sites I handled an Internet advertising campaign for JB Oxford & Company, placing ads at Yahoo!, the Excite network, InfoSeek, PC Quotes, Alta Vista, and other, lower-profile locations. I pitched and designed banner concepts, executed the creatives, and dealt with the sales and technical staffs at our target sites.
     JBO clears trades for other online brokerages, and so I also did the web site and related development for Stocks4Less, a no-frills, deep-discounted online broker.



October, 1996 to April, 1997
Art Director, Legacy Software


    In my brief time at Legacy Software we worked on a variety of online and CD-ROM projects.
    My own emphasis was on the online side.  Legacy developed Passport2, an Internet - based community of applications that ranged from competitive games through educational activities to financial and other professional information services.     Intelligentsia, the first Passport2 title I was involved in, is a sort of role-playing trivia game with an espionage theme, and was a lot of fun.
    I also designed the web sites for Legacy, for Passport2 and for our "Backstage Chat" event at the 23rd annual Peoples' Choice Awards. Finally, I coordinated our efforts in producing the live online chat for the First Annual Netguide Awards show in March of 1997.


June, 1994 to October, 1996
Chief Art Director, the Dreamers Guild


     The Dreamers Guild was a game development company which created games for both retail and online publishers.  At the Guild, I ran the art department - that meant that I hired and cultivated artists, assigned them to individual projects, and supervised their art directors, who typically were promoted from within.
     In addition I was the art director on several Guild titles.  One of these is the award-winning I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream (for Cyberdreams).  I did try to keep my hand in in making art and animation, so I frequently contributed "cutaway" or incidental animations, as well as introductions, for the Guild's games (see Faery Tale Adventure II: the Halls of the Dead, for example).|
     But wait, there's more!  I still got to do the odd game design, like Skulls, Bones, and Buccaneers (for MPG-Net) and Blood & Plunder (for America Online).

December, 1990 to June, 1994
Partner, Terra Nova Development


     With Michal Todorovic, I founded this software development company in Ventura, California.  Our most ambitious project was The Labyrinth of Time, one of the first games to truly exploit the capacity of CD-ROM media.  We were also among the first to use 3D modelling and rendering tools to create an impossible, but photorealistic, game environment.  The game was published by Electronic Arts for the Amiga/CD32, the PC, and Macintosh.
        In addition to The Labyrinth, we ourselves published Magic Lantern.  This was a true color animation compressor and player for the Amiga.  Oh, and I also created a couple of versions of a 3D object set for Imagine and Lightwave 3D.  The set was called "Diner Objects" and included a Wurlitzer jukebox.
     The Labyrinth of Time has recently been re-released for modern Windows, Macintosh and Linux computers by the Wyrmkeep Entertainment Company.


1988 - 1994, and beyond
Freelance Computer Game Artist


     During these years I worked on a number of projects for several different clients, among them Silent Software, Epyx, Electronic Arts, Virgin, Gold Disk, and Novalogic.  Some of these projects were Mindroll (Amiga and CGA, EGA and VGA versions for the PC), Spirit of Excalibur (Amiga/CDTV version) and Vengeance of Excalibur (Amiga/CDTV and PC versions).
     At the same time I wrote extensively for Amiga magazines, including a column in .info magazine.  I wrote quite a few reviews of graphics software and tested some nifty gadgets, and also wrote some articles on techniques for Amiga World and Amazing Computing.
     While at Terra Nova Development I didn't do much freelance work, but I did make an exception for Activision when they hired me to do the introduction sequence for Return to Zork. Later, I moonlighted on the Caesar's Palace 95 games for Interplay.



Art & Illustration


     From around 1976 to the late 1980's I divided my time between commercial art, on the one hand, and illustrative but uncommercial paintings and drawings, on the other. These pictures were usually executed in watercolor or ink.  Some of the commercial work was for small press magazines (Evermist, Wyrd), comix (Uncle Jam), and others.
     I sold paintings through several venues as well.
     I've done some cover work for small record labels like Sundown Records (Dance of the Renaissance, Earth Quest), Firebird Arts and Music  (Cold Iron - book and tape cover, Captain Jack & the Mermaid, Dream of Light Horses, Swing the Cat) and Swanharp Music (Love for Love).
     On a larger scale are two murals I've done in California - one with Mark Hiteshew in downtown San Luis Obispo, and one in the children's area of the Thousand Oaks Public Library.


Celtic Harps


     In the late 1970's, while I was living in Morro Bay (on the central California coast) my local public radio station began to play Alan Stivell's Renaissance of the Celtic Harp pretty frequently.  In fact they played it so often that the local classical record store was unable to keep up with the orders for the (then) obscure album, and they actually asked the radio station to play it less!
     I got my own order in right away, and that album became my introduction to traditional music from Brittany, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.  It was a revelation to me that this instrument - the accompaniment of ancient poetry and a thing of myth in its own right - was still played in some corner of the world.

     Eventually, I discovered that the instrument was also alive a bit closer at hand.  I laid my own hands on one, in fact, and took a few lessons.  In retrospect I'd say that I will never amount to much as a musician - in fact it's years now since I've played at all - but the instrument itself was very important to me.  I became interested in how the harps were made, and began to do some research on the historical Irish and Scottish harps, along with their modern counterparts.  I had the good fortune to get in touch with Jay Witcher, the first modern builder of the wire-strung celtic harp as it is today, and Witcher very generously kept me from steering myself too far wrong as I made my prototypes.
     I  built harps commercially for a couple of years under my "Aes Dana" label.  
     These harps were strung with wire strings, as are the oldest surviving celtic harps from Ireland and Scotland.  The wire-strung harp has a distinctive, bell-like voice that is unlike any other instrument you're likely to have heard.  If you'd like to know more about the instrument try pursuing some of my harp-related links.