NEW WEBSITE! NEW LOOK BLOG! LIFE THINGS!

HIII!!

For people who are still reading this blog, hello again! For anybody new who has just come across this welcome! It has been a looooong while since I have last posted an update - over 4 years to be exact! Obviously a lot has been happening around the world since I last updated the blog back in 2021, and a lot has happened with me personally which is why it's been quiet here for a while. However, I'm excited to update you all on everything!

I've changed my name and everything since last time I posted so it's probably time for a reintroduction:

"Hi I'm Jay Broderick (she/her) A Tech Artist/Game Developer/Illustrator from Bristol, UK. I currently work full time as a Senior Technical Artist at Flix Interactive as well as working on other freelance projects, art commisions and my own indie gamedev adventures!

This is my cozy little nest where I explore the game development process, breakdown tech art/vfx, talk about my paintings/illustrations, and many other of my creative pursuits."

Wait, the website looks different!?

After 4 years of not updating this site I was feeling like it looked a bit dated, even though I spent a long time updating the previous website's CSS. So time for a fresh new look to match my new website (which won't be published until later this month) 

What's with the weird liquid background you may or not be asking? Well there's a very good reason for that, other than just me liking the look, but that would be spoilers for now...

What I've been upto

In the last 5 years I have had a lot go on; personally, professionally and creatively. I left SGS College in 2020 to start my game development career at Flix Interactive, moving into Bromsgrove to start the new job. After a week of getting comfortable in the studio and getting to know my new colleagues, an announcement was made that meant everybody had to now suddenly start working from home. I was holed up for most of the lockdown with people that I only just met a week or so earlier.

Safe to say it was a very interesting time, it was my first time properly moving out of the family home as well so I had of space to do some much-needed introspection. I fixed a lot of my social anxiety in that time, made some amazing close friends even if most of our contact at the time was through a screen. I started seriously questioning my gender identity and ended up transitioning, and like magic my self-esteem improved! There were lots of things I needed to do for myself so I could actually have the mental clarity to be creative in my own time again, it was a very long process, and is something that is still relatively ongoing.

Some other bullet points of fun things that have happened before moving to the more exciting developments:

• Broke into the Games Industry properly!!
  
• I moved like 3/4 times in the past 5 years. Currently residing in Stroud, Gloucestershire! A quiet little town that has a surprisingly lively arts scene, it also has some incredible food for such a small town. Like seriously, the best pizza I've had in the UK.
  
• I attended EGX, Rezzed, WASD and a bunch of other gaming events since they come back
  
• I joined BAFTA Crew back in 2022, and now I've joined BAFTA Connect again
• Had a holiday in Italy - the only time I've went abroad since 2019, but it was fantastic
• Whilst there I attended Lucca Comics, biggest comics/gaming convention I've ever been to.
• I SAW YOSHITAKA AMANO PAINT
• I ate a bad Arancini in Venice and got severe food poisoning
  
• Joined Limit Break programme this year as a mentor and a mentee
• Helped out Into Games, a games education programme with some of their masterclass sessions on Technical Art. 
• Attended three separate Final Fantasy Distant Worlds Concerts... My spotify wrapped is unsurprisingly composed of FF music.
  
• I started hula hooping... I'm not great at it but I'm not bad either. 
  

 Yeah so quite a lot has happened! Now onto some of the bigger highlights...

Flix Interactive

As mentioned, in 2020 I started at Flix Interactive working as a VFX artist. Since then I have transitioned over to a Technical Artist role and then worked up to Senior TA! I have produced some of my best work at Flix, some of which I can't show, some of which I'm hoping to show soon. As my first proper games industry experience it has been very formative and I have grown a lot. In the past year I moved over to working on Sea Of Thieves which has been a load of fun and is something close to heart working on a stylized project. 

Dungeons and Dragons

If I reflect on this period of my life in future decades, one of the things that would come to mind would be how much joy I had getting into DnD for the first time. This isn't exactly a career thing, but it has a lot of relevance to how deeply at affected my creativity, the sort of art I create in my own time and also the impact it had on how I approach world-building in my personal projects. 

I was introduced to DnD by my dear friend Leon Field who was planning on running a campaign to get over lockdown blues so 7 of us (a mix of first time players and veterans) began to adventure through the land of Woodshire.

At first it was a lot to take in, as someone who has never played a TTRPG before and struggles processing even simple table top games. Now though I've played in multiple campaigns, one shots, invented numerous characters, so one could safely say I'm hooked.

I even taken it upon myself to create a huge One-Sheet poster illustration of the entire Woodshire party. It taken a long time to put together because of trying to work seven characters into a cohesive composition but its probably one of the paintings I'm most proud of.

''Heroes Of Woodshire" - DnD Poster Illustration
From top left to bottom:
Magnus Cursebreaker - Key NPC in the campaign played by Leon Field
Uitat - Played by Jessy Plant
Thalla - Played by Melissa Prosser
Ohan - Played by Brendan Stokes
Dehrin - Played by George Seedhouse-Morton
Yeef Heller 'The Whistling Bard' - Played by MEEEEE
Hope - Played by Maizie Russell

Also playing DnD got me reinterested in the fantasy genre after many years, generally I've always been more fascinated by sci fi worlds. It has given me a lot of creative fuel for my personal projects thinking about more fantasy tropes, magic systems, mythology and more. And I can't wait until my next session!

 

I even had a short period working with some friends on DnD map designs, where I was producing the finished art. 

Freelance work

Since 2022 I have undertaken a bunch of different freelance projects outside of my day job, which has been extremely rewarding and has allowed me to work on a range of unique projects. First of which was for my friend Matt Deegan who needed some VFX work for his experimental audio project THE MACHINES, created using Unreal 5 Metasounds. I helped created some monochromatic abstract effects that react to the procedural sounds that Matt put together.

The project got showcased at EGX Leftfield collection back in 2022. (The doodle behind the stand was done by myself using a sharpie I borrowed from EGX staff I almost forgot to return)

THE MACHINES at EGX Leftfield Collection in 2022 (Cameo from my friend Sarah Wright https://www.artstation.com/sarahwright)

Additionally I found out much later that The Machines was featured as part of an Epic Games Presentation about Metasounds at Siggraph. Which was a lovely surprise!

Crescent County

I also had the opportunity to help out Anna Hollinrake and their new startup Electric Saint. They needed help with Technical Art and VFX for the new game Crescent County and I was over the moon to be asked about it, working with Anna and Pavle is a blast and the game really speaks to me in terms of spirit and its style.

I got to work on putting together the skybox, ocean, added features to the landscape material as well as creating some VFX for the bikes and other in game objects.

Watch the trailer below and if you want please wishlist on Steam! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2202650/Crescent_County/

Painting/Illustration work

As suggested by the DnD poster above. I have been diving more into illustration work and painting in my free time, even taking a lot more effort to paint on location. In the last year in particular I have finally got into painting with oils after four years of having the materials and not doing anything with them. I have since realized that painting in oils is fantastic, and the closest to digital for me in terms of what I can achieve with the paint. As it turns out though it's an incredibly expensive hobby...

Since moving into Stroud though I have joined the Stroud Art Cooperative, a local art collective that runs a lot of events. This has been a huge new driving force for me, since joining the group I have been able to show some pieces of art inside gallery spaces, made some art sales (helping a little with the costs of purchasing oil paint), and joined the local Plein Air painting group to encourage me to paint more on location. I even taken part in a plein air painting competition and got a special mention certificate. Lovely.

Port Symphonia - A 100cmx60cm Fantasy Oil Painting, the first large painting I've produced. Heavily inspired by the works of Yoshitaka Amano. The piece has since went on to be shown at multiple galleries in the Gloucestershire area.

Commission work

As a result of getting more into illustration I also picked up my first ever commission for a piece of art last year: My friend and composer Rupert Cole came to me asking for an oil painted album cover for a the OST for the indie game Completely Stretchy.

The game is very cel-shaded and and not at all oil-painting like, but Rupert wanted something subversive, so I had a go at making a surrealist, impressionist style piece from a limited palette of one of the weird little dudes from the game. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jay Broderick (@cosmicjaybird)

 

What I'm doing next

So going into the new year I have a whole bunch of aspirations. There are some non creative ones like learning how to drive which is very overdue, trying to travel some more etc. Mainly though, I feel like I have a bit of momentum building after a tricky first half to 2024, that I would like to keep going.

One of the main things I would like to do is get back into the indie development side of things in my own time. Last year I started up a little independent venture with Leon Field, and we have been slowly putting something together. I will get into this in another post about indie game development process at some point, as the journey about getting a game made of our own is interesting in itself and has definitely had some bumps in the road but it is one of the major things I would like to focus on. Making a game of my own has been a long time ambition previous readers might have noticed from all I_DO_TRI stuff back in the day so I'm super eager to get back into it and show more.

Also, I would like to see if I can finally get my personal worldbuilding and art project Newlands to a good stage. I have done a lot of work on it in the past year including some paintings. It might even factor into mine and Leon's indie game aspirations so its definitely something I plan on talking about a lot more.


So this is just a handful of stuff I have been doing. I have a lot more planned projects of all sorts to come in 2025, its going to be a busy year.

SOCIALS AND THINGS

To sign off just a quick update that later this month a brand new version of my portfolio website will be up at https://www.cosmicjaybird.com/. This should have all my updated professional work, plein air paintings, illustrations and everything! I will do a post when the website is updated.

Alternatively... you can check my socials! I have brand new socials at Bluesky, Threads etc. You can access everything that I have through My Linktree or by checking the handle @CosmicJayBird on nearly every platform.

Anyways hopefully it's not another four years until I update this blog... It definitely felt like the right time to post an update and get back into it so lets see how it goes, hope everybody has a great new year!

-Jay (CosmicJayBird)