Experience

• Art Director at Playground Games

  Royal Leamington Spa

  February 2020 - Present

  On the Forza Horizon team, my role is to develop, establish and communicate the artistic direction, push visual quality and collaborate with the various departments to execute the project's vision. I provide art direction for all art disciplines on the project which include Environment Art, UI Art, Concept Art, Character Art, Vehicle Art, Cinematics, Animation, Lighting, and VFX

  Forza Horizon 6
  
  Forza Horizon 5: Rally Adventure
  
  Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels
  
  Forza Horizon 5
  
  Forza Horizon 4: Super 7

• Associate Art Director at Playground Games

  Royal Leamington Spa, United Kingdom

  August 2019 - February 2020

  Forza Horizon 4: The Eliminator

• Artist at Allegorithmic

  Royal Leamington Spa, United Kingdom

  April 2019 - September 2019

  In direct collaboration with Allegorithmic, I created 15 ocean inspired substance materials for the Substance Source website as part of a featured Signature Series Collection.
  
  Allegorithmic also held a livestream where I did a walkthrough for one of the materials from the collection.

  Release Article
  
  https://www.substance3d.com/blog/new-substance-source-materials-take-dive-don-arceta

  Livestream
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJSgYy76K30

• Juror at Allegorithmic

  Royal Leamington Spa, United Kingdom

  October 2017 - November 2017

  I was a member of the six-person jury for Allegorithmic's inaugural Materialize Contest.
  
  My artwork was used as marketing for the contest.

  https://www.substance3d.com/blog/materialize-digital-material-contest

• Lead Environment Artist at Playground Games

  Royal Leamington Spa, United Kingdom

  June 2017 - August 2019

  At Playground Games, I lead the Forza Horizon environment art team with a focus on establishing fidelity quality, visual benchmarks, workflows, and best practices.

  Forza Horizon 4 DLC LEGO Speed Champions (2019)
  
  Forza Horizon 4 DLC Fortune Island (2018)
  
  Forza Horizon 4 (2017 - 2018)

• Lead Environment Artist at Bioware

  Edmonton, Canada

  September 2012 - March 2017

  On Anthem, I managed the environment art team and created content with a focus on establishing fidelity quality, visual benchmarks, workflows, and best practices. Before Anthem, I managed artists for Mass Effect 3's post-release content. Working closely with the Art Director, I was responsible for ensuring quality was being met and that art direction was being followed. Aside from managing the environment art team I still created a large amount of content which included shader and texture creation, environment lighting, cinematic lighting, modeling, worldbuilding, collision, performance optimization and polish work for my own work as well as other artists' levels. I worked closely with design to come up with fun combat layouts for the multiplayer DLC as well as narrative and exploration moments in the Citadel DLC.

  Anthem (2013 - 2017)
  
  Mass Effect 3 DLC Citadel (2013)
  
  Mass Effect 3 DLC Retaliation (2012)
  
  Mass Effect 3 DLC Earth (2012)
  
  Mass Effect 3 DLC Rebellion Pack (2012)
  
  Mass Effect 3 DLC Resurgence Pack (2012)
  

• Senior Environment Artist at Bioware

  Edmonton, Canada

  April 2008 - September 2012

  Responsibilities throughout the project included the implementation of a modular based workflow, establishing master shaders and instances, texture creation, environment lighting, cinematic lighting, modeling, world building, collision, performance optimization, and polish for my own work and other artists' levels. I worked closely with design and writing to come up with layouts for combat and narrative moments whilst maintaining the vision of the Art Director. I was also responsible for mentoring several of the more junior artists to ensure that standards set by myself and the Lead Environment Artist were met.

  Mass Effect 3 DLC Leviathan (2012)
  
  Mass Effect 3 DLC From Ashes (2012)
  
  Mass Effect 3 (2012)
  
  Mass Effect 2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker (2010)
  
  Mass Effect 2 DLC Overlord (2010)
  
  Mass Effect 2 DLC Kasumi - Stolen Memory (2010)
  
  Mass Effect 2 DLC Zaeed - The Price of Revenge (2010)
  
  Mass Effect 2 (2010)
  

• Environment Artist at Bioware

  Edmonton, Canada

  July 2005 - April 2008

  My main responsibilities throughout the project was shader and texture creation, environment lighting, modeling, world building, collision, performance optimizations and terrain authoring for several levels in the game.

  Mass Effect DLC Bring Down the Sky (2008)
  
  Mass Effect (2007)