Download a full PDF version of my curriculum vitae here
I am a Lead Technical Artist with over a decade of experience at Rare, Xbox Game Studios. I have been focusing my efforts on scalable character customisation, procedural animation, deformation, pipeline and art tools, and stylised rendering. I’m passionate about blending artistic vision with technical innovation to deliver visually striking and performant real-time experiences. My work often involves bridging creative and technical disciplines, mentoring teams, and fostering a culture of collaboration, inclusion, and continuous learning. I take pride in driving visual fidelity while maintaining efficiency, and I’m always looking for new ways to push the boundaries of technical art
Core Competencies
🛠 Technical Expertise
- Art Tooling and System Design
- Stylized Shader Development
- Procedural Animation Systems
- Geometry Processing and Deformation
- Character Grooming (Hair and Fur) & Customization
- Proficient in Python, C++, HLSL, Unreal, Maya
🤝 Collaboration & Leadership
- Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration
- Technical Leadership & Strategy
- Mentorship & Knowledge Sharing
⚙️ Performance & Optimisation
- Performance Optimization & System Auditing
Work Experience
Lead Character Tech Artist – Rare (Xbox Game Studios)
Kinect Sports Rivals, Sea of Thieves, Everwild
2013 – Present (12 years)
🏆 Key Achievements
- Led the design and development of the Sea of Thieves character creator, delivering a scalable and stylised system that became central to the player experience.
- Engineered multiple systems to support innovative, high-performance novel animation techniques, that pushed creative and technical boundaries.
- Architected a new art tooling framework, improving efficiency, scalability, and cross-team usability across pipelines.
- Empowered the character team to realise bold visual targets for Everwild, aligning technical solutions with creative direction to push the boundaries of stylised fidelity.
🎮 Character Tech Art Leadership
- Led stylised rendering R&D, from comparative analysis to implementation trials.
- Engineered shader stylization for characters, balancing visual fidelity with performance.
- Directed grooming (hair and fur) workflows, development and integration into project.
- Designed and implemented complex and scalable character customization systems.
- Innovation of new performant animation approaches to push boundaries of project.
🛠️ Tools and Systems
- Designed mass scalable creature systems, balancing performance, budget, and artist usability.
- Defined strategic direction, testing protocols, and optimization paths for various systems.
- Benchmarked memory usage and runtime costs in collaboration with stakeholders.
- Supported development of rigging cost simulation tools for cloth optimisation.
🎞️ Procedural Animation
- Developed spline-based path tooling and procedural animation systems for creatures.
- Created procedural animation systems for dynamic character behaviour.
- Delivered tools that enhanced animation blending, vertex shading, and runtime efficiency.
- Developed innovative solutions to support ambitious visual direction with performance top of mind.
🧩 Collaboration & Cross-Disciplinary Work
- Worked closely with artists, engineers, and producers across Rare and Co-dev partners.
- Participated in feature reviews driving technical breakdowns, regular peer reviews, and actively participating in art team reviews.
- Worked closely with Havok to push internal and XGS tech and integration into project.
🧠 Knowledge Sharing & Mentorship
- Produced and led educational content for multiple learning series.
- Formed centralization of technical creative disciplines to strengthen collaboration and sharing.
- Led creative tech summit initiative to promote visibility across multi-disciplines.
- Reviewed performance and provided feedback of peers via reports and continual meetings.
- Interviewed and assessed candidates across roles, providing detailed feedback and guidance.
Areas of Growth & Development
I’ve recently identified and invested time in several areas where I aim to grow and improve as a professional.
💬 Improving visibility by sharing updates and following up more efficiently across teams.
🎯 Sharing knowledge as early as possible in dev cycles and taking on more ownership on visual quality.
🎓 Staying industry aware by revising additional talks and gaining more first-hand experience in games and tech.
Peer Feedback
🎨 Recognized for strengths in character tech art, collaboration, and problem-solving, and for being a reliable partner in feature development and cross-team initiatives.
🗣️ Valued for clear communication, knowledge sharing, and fostering inclusive, efficient workflows—especially in support of upcoming technical challenges.
✨ Praised for enhancing visual quality through various systems, bringing structure to complex projects, and applying creative techniques with a collaborative mindset.