John Deriggi

John Deriggi

Senior Character Artist @ Heart Machine

Senior Character Artist / 18 yrs

Greater Pittsburgh Area

Hire Me

Lead Character Artist

Frostbound

Lead Character Artist

Annihilator VR

Lead Character Artist, Character Artist

The World of Lexica

Lead Character Artist

Mechatars

Lead Character Artist

The Sum of All Thrills

Lead Character Artist, Lead Character TD, Animation Lead

Toy Story Midway Mania

Over 15 years creating characters for Oculus VR, Disney/Pixar, Velan Studios, Schell Games, Google, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Legendary Pictures, Microsoft and more. I enjoy stylization and stylized realism in character creation in a team environment that encourages artistic growth and quality of life. Previous instructor for CGSociety, Carnegie Mellon University, and other programs.
Work History
  • Senior Character Artist

    Heart Machine

    February 2021 - Present
    Los Angeles, CA - Remote
  • Senior Character Artist

    Heart Machine

    December 2020 - December 2021
    Los Angeles, California, United States
  • 3D Modeling Instructor

    Carnegie Mellon University

    June 2005 - August 2006
    On-site

    Designed and taught a 3 week rapid development course for high school students with no prior 3D modeling experience within the Summer Academy for Math and Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. The course culminated in modeling an automobile of their choice. https://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/diversity-sams

  • Freelance Senior Character Artist & Mentor

    Schell Games

    June 2017 - September 2018
    Remote

    Created realistic hero character assets for NDA Marvel and Lucasfilm client projects: retopology, mesh optimization, uvs, physically based material and texture creation. Character art mentor providing live feedback and sculptovers on form, posture, gesture, muscle and bony landmark accuracy, silhouette, etc: weekly video conference, email and chat guidance. Mentored junior character artist through production of organic and hard surface hero character sculpts for internal Schell Games title. Mentored two junior characters artists through digital figure sculpture and human anatomy courses. Worked remotely on contract.

  • Lead Character Artist

    Heart Machine

    December 2021 - May 2023
    Los Angeles, California, United States

    Led creation of stylized character art for hero, secondary characters and character props for Hyper Light Breaker. Developed and maintained style goals and quality bar for character art on project to achieve design and art vision. Organic and hard surface sculpting and production modeling; concept sculpting and prototyping; physically based and stylized material and texture creation; character pipeline creation and iteration with artists, engineers, game designers and producers. Manage a small team of character and concept artists. Plan and iterate character art tasks and timelines with production and other discipline leads. Assist in keeping studio updated on character art tools, techniques, and industry pipelines. Evaluate, recommend, and assist with art staffing needs. Working remotely.

  • Principal Character Artist

    Heart Machine

    May 2023 - Present

    Focused on content creation of stylized hero and secondary characters for Hyper Light Breaker. Maintaining and/or elevating cel shaded style goals with intentional angularity in character sculpts. Advancing the use of stylized, PBR-based lookdev techniques in Substance Painter and Unreal Engine for cel shading. Defining optimized game character topology with a focus on deformation and silhouette in collaboration with the tech animation team.

  • Senior Character Artist - Contract

    Velan Studios

    August 2019 - September 2020
    Remote
  • Lead Character Artist - Contract

    Oculus VR

    February 2017 - November 2019
    On-site
  • Senior Character Artist

    Schell Games

    March 2013 - January 2017

    August 2016 - October 2016
    Lead Character Artist: Frostbound - Google Daydream VR Game

    December 2015 - February 2016
    Lead Character Artist: Annihilator VR - Oculus Gear VR Experience

    September 2015 - Present
    Lead Character Artist: Unannounced Virtual Reality experience

    May 2014 - August 2015
    Lead Character Artist: Lexica - Educational Action RPG: Android & iPad Tablet Game

    March 2013 - May 2014
    Character Artist: Lexica - Educational Action RPG: Android & iPad Tablet Game

  • CG Workshops Instructor

    Ballistic Media Publishing

    October 2012 - October 2015

    I developed and taught a 3 week CG Society Workshop called Rapid Character Development for Online Games. This course covers quickly sculpting, remeshing, and texturing a low resolution character aimed at online games with a wider camera angle and more characters on screen at once. Course video promo: https://vimeo.com/134446780

  • Character Artist

    Schell Games

    May 2006 - March 2013

    Created stylized hero characters for majority of client and studio titles as lead character artist. Concept sculpting, organic and hard surface production modeling, stylized material and texture creation, and pipeline development with artists, engineers, game designers and producers. Helped to build initial studio art team and assisted in hiring process over the years. Real-time and VFX projects included theme park attractions, games for consoles, mobile, and internet browsers, along with studio research and project pitch efforts.

    Titles: The World of Lexica ~ Mechatars ~ Race for the Beach ~ The Mummy Online ~ Battleball ~ Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop ~ SpyNet ~ Pirates of the Caribbean Online ~ Toontown Online ~ Zoo Online ~ The Sum of All Thrills ~ Wii Toys ~ The Chronicles of Narnia ~ Toy Story Midway Mania

  • Character and Environment Artist

    Carnegie Mellon University

    November 2010 - September 2012

    Helped streamline the character pipeline for Carnegie Mellon University’s Alice software, the well-known educational tool originally directed by Randy Pausch which is used around the world to teach computer science through storytelling. I also created character and environment art for the Alice gallery. www.alice.org

  • Character Rigging Instructor

    The Art Institutes

    June 2010 - August 2010
    Pittsburgh
  • Design & Animation freelance artist

    Self-employed

    January 2001 - June 2006
  • Multimedia Instructor

    ITT Technical Institute

    December 2002 - March 2006
Education
  • Mastering Human Anatomy in Zbrush

    Anatomy Tools

    2016 - 2016
  • Mastering Marvelous Designer

    CG Elves

    2016 - 2016
  • Digital Figure Sculpture

    Scott Eaton Sculpture Workshop

    2014 - 2014
  • Anatomy for Artists Online

    Scott Eaton Anatomy Workshop

    2012 - 2012
  • Masters of Entertainment Technology in Character Modeling, Rigging, an

    Carnegie Mellon University

    2005 - 2007
  • Bachelor of Arts in Visual Communications in Fine Art and Computer Ani

    Westminster College (PA)

    1997 - 2001
  • Character Modeling and Animation

    Art Institute of Pittsburgh

    1999 - 2000