The Art of Teamwork

“Working with people is a really good learning experience”, said Katie Fortune, class of ’15. “Before coming to USV, I really hadn’t worked with a team before. Now, I really like seeing how the other members of my team do what they do. I’m learning from them as well as working with them.”

Katie always loved to draw, and her desire to become an artist attracted her to USV after high school. She particularly enjoyed developing concept art. “One assignment was to draw a steam-powered transportation device. I drew a couple of sketches and was really fond of the creepy crab-chair kind of thing I came up with.”

While at USV, Katie was asked to provide art direction and was recruited onto project teams. This opened her eyes to the skills of her peers as well as the processes used to build large-scale projects. She says, “Sometimes, they will ask me about my artistic opinion on things. I am always honored when they do.”

In this video (produced while she was a junior at USV), she speaks about her role on a MediaWorks project, building story-boards.

“When you learn how to work with other people, you learn how to communicate things. You also learn a bit more about what they are doing and how what they are doing works.” In particular, she was inspired by how members of her team developed the technical elements used to create the models, lighting, and special effects used in scenes. She said, “I like helping them out when I can, but since they are doing a lot of technical stuff, I’m impressed by what they do.”

After her time at USV, Katie was hired as a 2D artist at MZ, which produces such hit free-to-download mobile games as Game of War, Mobile Strike, and Final Fantasy XV. She says she loves working in games and making things that inspire others while working with people who inspire her as well.