The Beginning

Hey, my name’s Thomas Vivash. I usually get called Tom, but have had some other nicknames in the past, such as Tommy, Vivian and Vicky… don’t ask. My surname, Vivash, usually tends to spark some questions, but in answer to what you may well be thinking; no, I have no idea where it originates from. All I know is that I’m usually near the end of a register and my initials are T.V, so watch this space. (Pardon the pun). I come from a small village called Braithwaite about 2 miles away from Keswick, a popular tourist destination within the Lake District. I like would call myself a Northern lad, although I originally come from Newport in South Wales. It’s a useful truth to have when Wales play England in the world cup because I never lose!

Originally, I never really wanted to do an art course at university. I always thought that I’d only be able to do fine art at uni and so I began to search for a potential career in the armed forces due to my previous duty in the Army cadet force. I was seriously considering applying to join the Officer Training Core as part of the Royal Artillery, but while looking through courses out of curiosity on UCAS, I stumbled across “Game Art”. I was so intrigued and at that moment in time very unsure as to whether I would get a job in the military with all the job cuts, that I applied to 4 universities. Cutting a long story short, I chose DeMontfort’s Game Art Course. The reason for this was that I felt DMU wanted to teach and help me develop, it didn’t seem like they cared about the money as much as the other unis. This was clear after my interview and made me really excited to combine my love of games with my passion to produce art.

My ambition is to develop my artistic skills and get noticed for it. Throughout the course, I hope to discover what my strengths and weaknesses are when creating artistic elements for games. At this stage I’m not entirely sure what area of game design I may be skilled at, but I hope to understand this as I learn new things. If I succeed in graduating from the course, I hope to be noticed by industry professionals and would love to have the opportunity to work for a large developing company. Gearbox, Ubisoft and Crytek are only a few of developers I highly respect and I would jump at the chance to be able to help any of these amazingly creative companies in the creation of a brand new world. I mean, who wouldn’t?!