Rick Stringfellow

Visual Experience Designer

Art Director

CG Supervisor

Graphic Designer

Print Maker

Animator

Tool Maker

I've spent my entire life making art. Art class was my happy place at school, summers spent sketching and every opportunity taken to visit an art gallery. I started computer graphics in 1981, coding in Fortran and fell in love with the magic of getting a computer to draw. I still feel that magic making games and personal art. And I will probably never stop making!

What I Do

Art Direction

For the past twenty years I've worked as a video game Art Director, on a wide variety of games from stylized to photoreal, from NFS Underground to Jackie Chan Stuntmaster and many more. I've been lucky to work with some of the best artists in the world that brought the Art Direction to screen.

Visual Experience Design

Making Digital art in real-time is not just about how it looks, it's how we experience it. Almost everything we make now is part of some interaction and is seen and experienced. Designing how we experience that interaction has been part of my life since graduating University.

Leadership and Mentoring

I've been lucky to work with some of the best artists, technical artists, engineers and development directors in the world. Leading them has been an humbling experience and one that has made me a better person. And to become a mentor has allowed me to share this journey and to help others on their journey.

Team Builder

Building teams of over 600 people was never on my list of things to do in life, but it's what I have helped achieve over the past few years. Building respect and trust, and seeing that result in a team that goes the extra mile to help each other and a team that has delivered over and over again is an amazing and again humbling experience.

Testimonials

Rick has been my Sr Art Director / Partner in the Art Department at EA Canada for the past 15 years. It has been my pleasure to work, day in and day out, with Rick. He is artistic and technical in equal parts; he drives problems to closure with creative solutions and always has insight and experience to lend to any situation. Rick is also the artistic backbone of our group. He is an excellent mentor for artists at any level and he is a true partner to producers and project managers alike. Rick gets my highest recommendation. He is one in a million.

Molly Mason-Boule

VP/GM EA Create

Rick is a significant voice in interactive computer graphics, and has been a trusted source for expert advice, in many areas of visual development. Experienced and talented senior staff like Rick constitute the creative and technical backbone of EA, and foundation for making great titles. Having peer relationships with such people has been a great source of inspiration and knowledge in my time at EA

Jim Spoto

Studio Technical Art Director

Rick is one of the best CG Artist I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Intelligent, responsible, talented and someone whom everyone can look up too.

Shawn Tilling

Head of Department, Shanghai Film School

Resume

30+ years of experience

Career

2006-Present

EA Create

Exec Art Director

Provide Art leadership for 600+ artists across the globe.
Ultimate responsibility for quality of work.
Mentor art directors and project leads.
Help develop the outsource strategy and perform due diligence on vendors.
Member of the Sr. Leadership team steering the Create team.
Drove the creation of new facial rigging system and Shared Asset Library (SAL)
Mentorship for the D & I initiative.

Art Director: NFS Underground and NBA Live
Art Director: NHL2000-2002, Sled Storm and IP titles

2005-2006

Mainframe Entertainment

CG Supervisor

Established a feature animation group
Managed the Lighting and Compositing groups
Worked with the strategic leadership team on current and future developments

2002-2003

Aardman Animations

CG Supervisor

Provided tools and workflow for animation and rendering.
Look development for the CG ‘The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’.
Developed dynamics simulation for Creature Comforts plankton.

1997-2000

Radical Entertainment

Studio Art Director

Art Direction Oversight for all titles in production.
Art Directed ‘Jackie Chan Stuntmaster’
Helped the migration from 3D Max to Maya.
Art Directed Fox Hockey, Basketball and ESPN sports titles.

1997

Sony Imageworks

Senior Technical Designer

Contact – Choreography, Look development and rendering of opening sequence Eagle Nebula
Contact - Compositor Machine sequences.
Starship Troopers – Compositor

1991-1997

Vertigo Technology

CG Supervisor

Functional requirements lead
Software demonstration, training and demo content provider.
Renderman integration design.
Disney Feature development lead – Escape from LA, Mortal Kombat and The Santa Clause films.

1988-1991

BBC TV News

3D Department Lead

Built the 3D department.
Designed and delivered daily news content.
Built a 3-year development plan for near real time graphics.

1987-1988

Techex

Technical Artist

Cubicomp & Vertigo Technical support and training
Animator at Soho 601 and Carlton TV, BBC.

1985-1986

3D Modeler/Animator

Provideo

Built the 3D department
Animated for the BBC, Ford and Channel 4 clients

1983-1985

Sika Productions

2D/3D Artist, Lighting, Prop Designer

Delivered all 2D and 3D animation – Channel 4 productions.
Lighting assistant to the DOP
Studio prop artist and painter.

Education

1981-1983

Bristol Polytechnic (UWE)

BA Graphic Design, Information Design

1980

Preston Polytechnic

Art Foundation

Presentations

2021

Siggraph

CAF Jury

2020

Siggraph

Real-Time Live Jury

2015

Siggraph

Convergences in Film and Game Technologies

2012

GDC China

The Business of Art Direction: 7 Critical Precepts

2009

Siggraph

How to keep your job in CG.

2007

Siggraph

From film to games (and back again?)

Digital

Maya and Modo 3D

80%

Adobe CC

85%

Unity, Unreal

30%

Houdini, Bifrost

30%

Design and Direction

Graphic Design

85%

Motion Graphics

80%

Tools design

75%

Art Direction

85%

Mentorship

60%

Team Building

75%