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[2004-03-30 01:39:34 +0000 UTC]
"Derek Holson"
(United States)
# Statistics
Favourites: 322; Deviations: 21; Watchers: 3
Watching: 17; Pageviews: 3086; Comments Made: 58; Friends: 17
# Interests
Favorite movies: War Movies; Thrillers; Suspense; Computer AnimatedFavorite TV shows: Bing Bang Theory; Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives; Historical and Scientific Documentaries
Favorite bands / musical artists: Metallica; No specific genre
Favorite books: Basically anything Star Wars Extended Universe
Favorite writers: Timothy Zahn; R.A. Salvatore
Favorite games: Skyrim; Battlefield 3; League of Legends
Favorite gaming platform: PC
Tools of the Trade: Photoshop; My Hands; Creation Kit
Other Interests: Architecture; Level Design
# About me
Many of the people who frequent this page will already know me, but for anyone else who found this page allow me to introduce myself. My name is Derek Holson I am 26 years old and I am born and raised Texan. I graduated in May 2011 from Texas Tech University with a B.S. in Architecture. I am currently planning to attend The Guildhall at SMU pending my acceptance into the graduate program where I plan to specialize in Level Design. I chose this path because it merges my two passions into a single career; architecture and video games.Growing up I had two passions that shaped who I was as a kid. I am lucky enough to say that both of these passions are still with me today, although video games has taken more of a front seat as I got older. When I was younger, baseball was life. I played year round starting in the spring and moving into the summer with All Stars and then into the fall with fall ball. All the while I was still playing video games; games like Tecmo Super Bowl and Super Mario kept my attention the most during this time.
It wasn't until about the time I started at the junior high that I found another love, the computer. My family bought our first machine along with a few games, some of which are laughably bad, go look up Legends Football 98'. It didn't matter that my first sampling of PC gaming was terrible, I was already dragged in hook line and sinker. I knew I was snagged good when a few friends of mine introduced me to Counter-Strike 1.3b and we played for hours on a 56k connection at my bud's house in Beckville. Then one of us stumbled upon Day of Defeat 1.3b and I can remember exactly the words that were said;
"It's like Counter-Strike but it's World War II and you can bandage and blow up walls!" - the venerable Clay Cox
That was all I needed to embark on a career of PC gaming that continues to this day. It wasn't until I hit the college age that I decided a career of game development should be in my future. However, the road to achieve that goal was not always as straight of a line as you would think. I spent a year at Louisiana Tech which I like to refer to as my primer for college year because I changed my major two times over the course of two quarters, finally deciding in the spring quarter that it was time to go back to Texas and join a few of my friends at Texas Tech. The road still had many twists and turns however, as I spent the next years of my life in Lubbock pursuing an architecture degree for which I was only interested in to get to the graduate programs.
You see, when the three amigos decided to go to Lubbock the plan was to major in architecture and then get a graduate degree from Tech in the Viz specialty which would allow us to pursue careers as game developers or even go into film if we desired. However, I experienced what I like to call and early life crisis as well as something mysterious known around the world as growing up. I spent a couple years trying to figure out where I should go from here, only to find myself on the other end of a long tunnel sitting in an office at a job that, while I was extremely grateful to have, I was not enjoying. At this point I began searching for anything that could lead me in another direction when the thought occurred to me that maybe I had it right all along. I began searching for game design schools and that is when I found the Guildhall at SMU, a program that seemed to fit right into my situation.
So it is with bated breath that I am now awaiting a response to my application from the Guildhall. In the mean time, I started this blog to chronicle my experiences as an amateur level designer using the medium of Bethesda's wonderful game Skyrim and their powerful Creation Kit.
# Comments
Comments: 9
Thank you for the fav amigo.
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Your church was beautiful, and since I am also looking to get into the video game industry as a level designer I am always looking for other like minded folks to gain inspiration from. Look forward to what you put out in the future!
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Hi - thank for the +fav on my DD, Growth !! It's very much appreciated, indeed!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, its sitting on my desktop now too
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
