A Career in Video Game Design

Career Overview

Video Game Design is the art and cinematics embedded within the magical realm of video games. It takes lots of planning and polishing to the final product of a video game. 

One of the simplest requirements to being a video game designer is having a love for video games. This is self-explanatory. Another is having very good problem solving skills. many bugs and glitches can be found in a video game, and it is the designers job to fix them.  Video game designers are expected to have education in art and technology in order to get a job in the field. 

The hourly income of a video game designer is $45 and the annual salary is $93,600. 

College Information

University of Southern California has Game Design Minor courses in the Cinematic Arts Major. A total of 24 units are required for the game design minor. 

University of Southern California is ranked #1 in Video Game Design Colleges.

University of Southern California is my "go to" university I want to attend to pursue game design.

Another college I'm considering is Gnomon School of Visual Effects, located in Hollywood, CA.

There is also Laguna College of Art and Design, located in Laguna Beach, CA.

Job Overview

Riot Games almost constantly has open job offers posted on their site, especially in the game design field. Their office is located in Los Angeles, CA. 

A game designer has an extremely broad selection of objectives to work with. A game designer's objective depends on what the project they are working at the moment. They could be designing a level on a platformer, creating the environment to an RPG, creating or tweaking at a character's abilities in a MOBA, and so much more.

The video below shows a game designer named Kim who designs levels. Since she loved games to the point in which she skips classes for it, she pursued game design.

Some definite pros of being a game designer would be that you could express you could express your creativity. Another would be the praise of being creative from other employees in the field. Speaking of employees, that is enthrone. You are surrounded by other hardcore gamers just like you. It should be fun and not stressful.

Toon Character Design

Toon Character Design

The creation and evolution of Drodge.

Drodge Initial Design
© Jared S.

     This is Drodge. He is an alien space traveller. Drodge explores different worlds and galaxies. His favorite galaxy is the Milky Way Galaxy. He thought that all of the stars in the galaxy were pretty.
     Drodge means no harm. He just simply wants to explore different places he hasn't seen before. Drodge is a nice alien, meaning that he is quite the pacifist. Whenever he has to, he will slap a hater, but only in times when it is absolutely necessary.
     Drodge despises wasps on Earth. He got stung almost the instant he got off of his ship and ended up running back into his ship. Drodge is also very intelligent and observant. After spending about a week on Earth, he already knew that it was messed up. Like REALLY messed up. Civil wars, genocide, everything. Drodge left pretty much after discovering this fact.

Drodge T-Shirt Design
© Jared S.

This is my T-Shirt Design for Drodge. Since Drodge is an alien explorer, he is standing in front of a portion of our Solar System. Pretty sick, huh?




















I also made designs of Drodge for both buttons and stickers. This is the initial design for both of them.

Dodge Button and Sticker Design
© Jared S.

This is me wearing the button with the Drodge design on it.

Dodge Turnaround © Jared Siaron

These are my Turnaround and Model Sheet for Drodge. I expanded on Drodge's personality as an alien. I showed Drodge being happy, sad, and angry in the Model Sheet below.

Drodge Model Sheet © Jared Siaron

On this one, Drodge can be shown being happy, sad, and angry.


















These next few pictures were my first stages to designing Drodge. I started with only his face, then worked on his body. I worked on his body on the Turnaround. I then added emotions to go with his body in the sketch of the Model Sheet below.

This was what the turnaround looked like before color was added onto it.













These two sketches were taken right from my sketchbook. My pictures were too big, so I had to go front and back with it.