Hello, fellow d-toiders!

So I talked to my friend, last week and he suggested I start an ongoing blog about my studies at Guildhall.
What’s Guildhall? It’s a program at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas where you can earn a Master’s degree in videogame development. I thought it would be interesting to write about my experiences learning to develop games and share it with you guys.

I received my acceptance letter for SMU about a month ago, and classes start on January 12th. You guys will get to read about it from the very beginning.

[img]http://th07.deviantart.com/fs27/300W/i/2008/328/a/5/Meryl_and_Metal_Gear_MK_II_by_GoldenAshTree.jpg [/img]
©2008 ~GoldenAshTree

One of the digital works I submitted.

I should probably elaborate a bit on myself. I am a 22 year-old female currently attending the University of North Texas and I will be graduating this December with my Bachelor’s in Studio Art. I’ve been drawing since I was 5 and I’ve been playing videogames since before that.

I decided to apply to Guildhall just this semester. I started thinking about what do after I graduate and a new thought struck me: Holy crap, I’ll be out of school soon, l and I need to decide whether I’m going to stay in the classroom or throw myself into the jaws of the working world.

I’ve been thinking about Guildhall since my sophomore year. I’m an artist and getting my bachelor’s in drawing and painting. I love video games and it’s one of the three industries that I would love to work in, the other two being animation and comics. SMU is a very reputable school. It’s in Texas. I live in Texas. Yeehaw…y’all.


©2008 ~GoldenAshTree

Character concept done for the application.

The application process seemed easy enough. I’m going to go into the Art Creation track (there are three different tracks: Art, Level Design and Programming) so I just needed to submit a bunch of drawings and portfolio submissions, right? Easy! .....except not. They send you a smallish sketch book and a list of required sketches. It was simple stuff like a couple figure drawings, some portraits, an animal…it’s about 12 drawings or so. But then you finish the required stuff and realize that you have the rest of the book left and they want you to fill that sucker up.


©2008 ~GoldenAshTree

Another sketch done for the application.

I think I did 30 drawings in the span of two weeks to make the deadline. I didn’t start my application process till about a month before the deadline so if any of you guys end up applying, you probably won’t have to worry about that. And the other two tracks have different requirements.

So, here I am. I applied early in October and I received my acceptance letter two weeks ago. What I’m hoping to do with this blog is to record and share my experiences from the beginning of my career at Guildhall up until I graduate and get a job with a videogame company.

It’s going to be a tough ride, but I think it’ll be a fun one. Once I start attending class, I plan to have more material for humorous observations, and I’ll see about posting video tours and interviews with some of the faculty and staff (we’re talking about people who actually work in the industry). I apologize for the dryness of this first post.

If you guys have any questions about the school or anything else, crosses your minds, leave a comment or PM me, and if enough people are interested I’ll put up a thread on the forums.

Thanks for reading!

Here’s the Guildhall website:
http://guildhall.smu.edu/

They have some interesting stuff, like previous student projects, game information, and work examples.