Sam Yang

H

as 4 years of industry experience including games, visual fx, commercial, animation, aviation, and architecture - focuses on 3d modelling, texturing, and digital sculpting also capable of animating, rendering, lighting, rigging, tracking, match moving, and dynamic/particle fx. Sam enjoys working with new things as a generalist. He is currently working as 3D Associate Artist at Blizzard Entertainment in Irvine California.

"I

am really grateful and happy to be a part of Blizzard at the age of 21, I've met some of the nicest and most talented people in the world. Being able to contribute in StarCraft II has been a dream come true. I can't thank you guys enough for giving me this opportunity." -09/2008

StarCraft II - Wings of Liberty 2010

"In-Game Portrait and Environment Art"

"J

ust want to say congrats to all our fellow employees on our team, we finally did it!!"

"H

ere are some Terran Mercenary and Zerg Portraits I got to work on (above) and the bottom ones are also some environments I did for StarCraft - Wings of Liberty. Many tilesets including Char, Tarsonis, Xil, Typhon, Aiur, Korhal, Xel'Naga Worldship, BelShir, Ulnar, Zhalkuldas, Avernus, and SpacePlatform. Some of these have Animation, Particle FX, Custom Havok Deaths, individual Death stages from concept to finish! =) Enjoyy!!"

The Release of StarCraft II - Wings of Liberty

"Nuclear Launch Detected countdown 06/27/2010 "

"H

ell, its about time!! I'm so happy that our epic game is finally going to be released! :D This new TV spot debuted during the NBA Finals with 30-seconds of cinematic awesomeness!"

Digital Sculpting Mini 2010

"Final Tribute - FFX - Sin" (3D)

"T

his was like a 30 day challenge while we were crunching at work only had time to work on it after hours or during the weekend. It was difficult to get good references for this character from FFX thats for sure. I've been a huge fan of the FF series, and always wanted to model him in ZBrush - I picked this villain because its got a lot of fun wrinkle details to paint in. I will make a in-game version in another time"

Gallery Show 2010

"Bahamut" (2D), "Alien Fetal Queen" (3D)

"H

eres some new art work I've been working on recently during my freetime. I havent been painting much, so I thought I'd practice and get better with illustrations. The Alien Fetal Queen however took only around 3 days to complete from scratch to finish. I was experimenting with the new ZSpheresII as the base mesh. I think its definitely a powerful tool to use."

Transformers 2 - Rise of the Fallen 2009

"Megatron and Ravage" (figure)

"W

hen I first saw a custom one on ebay, I really got me inspired to actually go and buy a factory one for myself and paint it!! Anyways I spent my weekend on it and it was surprisingly easy to do. This would be my first custom model, before I start to do anything I went online to check out some tutorials. I really enjoyed painting this, it was fun."

Comicon Challenge 2009

"Venom and Carnage" (3D)

"L

ast year I made the Masked Rider, but unfortunately i guess not alot of ppl recognize this famous icon. So this year I decidede to make something that everybody can easily relate to! Carnage himself took only around 4k tris, in the end i decided to add Venom in as well since his geometry is pretty similar - I had fun creating these two characters."

Gnomon Cognosco Gallery 2009

"Female Portrait" (3D)

"I

havent done much 3D female faces, so I thought I'd give this a try. This piece was a bit challenging for me because I always made monsters in the past. Creating this piece was definately a huge turn around, but I think I achieved the look I wanted overall. I've learned alot of new things during this process, so the next female model I post will be much more realistic."

Dominance War IV Competition 2009

"Lord Thanatos" (3D)

"T

his entry was inspired from the Zerg race in StarCraft. I definately enjoyed creating all the slimy organic flesh, shells, and tentacles. This piece was modelled in 3dsmax, normal maps were created from sculpting through ZBrush, textured in Photoshop and it was rendered in Maya's Mental Ray."

Udon Darkstalkers Tribute 2009

"Morrigan" (2D)

"W

hen I saw Capcom was going to publish another artbook after Street Fighter's Tribute, I thought this was a great opportunity to get my artwork out there. Right away, I knew Morrigan was my first choice. I wanted to make sure the first impression this piece gives people is the word "Gorgeous." This painting was done in Photoshop CS3." reference (right)

Comicon Challenge 2008

"Masked Rider" (3D)

"T

he results for this art contest really surprised me, most of the winners were all based on western characters. Anyways, I just thought making this piece from the movie "Masked Rider - The Next" would be pretty original. This piece was modelled, rigged, rendered in Maya, sculpted in ZBrush, and textured in Photoshop."

Starcraft II Environment 2008

"The Zerg Hive" (3D)

"T

his piece was made for the Starcraft II team's environment modelling test I had to do before the interview. This was during a break, I was taking a trip to Taiwan and Japan to visit my family when I received a call in my voicemail from the HR at Blizzard two days after the first flight LOL!! I still remember how excited I was to hear from them. The team knew I could do characters already, so they wanted to see if I was able to make environments as well. After working on the team and learning their style, I look back at this and realized this model could've been so much better" >__<

Those were the days 2008-2003

"Old artwork from back in College and Highschool"

"3

D Renders, Pencil Sketeches, Colored Chalk, Oil Painting, and Crosshatching" (0.20mm pen)