Eddie S

Eddie S (known by the handle Heat1996) is an American video game concept artist, illustrator, and 3-D modeling artist who is best known for his career as a concept artist for several notable video games. He is along with Jeromy W Cofounder of Soulbound Studios and curently the studios Art Director and Lead Concept Artist. Examples of his artwork can be found on his Portfolio website.

Early Life
His extensive art background goes back to an early age on up through to his first coming into the game industry as a college intern in 1997. Eddie has an undying love for art, design and visual storytelling.

August 1998 – January 1999
Heat joined Fasa Interactive Technologies as a concept artist and illustrator. Here, he worked on the first few games of his career such as Mechcommander and Mechwarrior. He provided the Art Director and Art Production team with valuable ideas and visual concepts aiding in the pre-visualization of the projects including game-level environments, characters, and vehicles. He inspired the production team to "feel" the look of the game in addition to seeing it and produced complete illustrations setting the mood and overall art direction of the finished product before its actual completion. He also created finished illustrations for the marketing of the game.

January 1999 – January 2001
FASA Interactive and Virtual World Entertainment, another company created by FASA Corp founders Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock, became wholly owned subsidiaries of Virtual World Entertainment Group (VWEG). In 1999, Microsoft Corporation purchased VWEG to acquire the talent at FIT and the intellectual properties of FASA Corp and FASA Interactive then became a FASA Studio, a component of Microsoft Studios along with Heat and the talent and intellectual property at FIT.

Here, Heat began work on Mechwarrior 4, Allegiance, and Crimson Skies as the lead concept artist and illustrator as he created vehicle and character concepts as well as environment concepts, oversaw the conceptual design team, and made sure the design criteria of the Art Director were met. He maintained production schedule for the concept art team provided by the Lead Concept Artist and/or the Art Director and provided the Art Director and Art Production team with valuable ideas and visual concepts aiding in the pre-visualization of the project including game-level environments, characters, and vehicles. He produced complete illustrations setting the mood and overall art direction of the finished product before its actual completion, complete Book Cover and Magazine Cover Illustrations that announced the game to the public.

January 2001 – May 2002
At Sony Computer Entertainment of America, Heat wore several hats as Concept Artist, Illustrator, 3D Modeler, and Texture-Artist, creating color composition sketch paintings for environmental ideas, full concept paintings as well as traditional "Disney" style drawings over printed out level design templates.

May 2002 – April 2006
For four years, Heat worked at Bungie Studios/Microsoft Games Studios as the lead concept artist and illustrator for the hit games Halo 2 and Halo 3. On top of playing similar roles as he had in other studios, he created the look for the Forerunner architecture as well as the new look of the "Master Chief" character in the 2nd installment of the Halo franchise.

July 2007 – July 2009
Then, he worked at Sony Online Entertainment helped create prop assets, characters, weapons, vehicles, and environments for the game The Agency.

January 2015 – Present
From January 2015, Heat cofounded Soulbound Studios and works as a member of the core leadership and as Art Director for the upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) Chronicles of Elyria. He works closely with the Technical Director to define the quality bar for Art within the game project and Web development while exploring new art techniques and platforms to facilitate art production according to the specifications of what the technology/game engine requires. With only a small team in the studio, Heat aims to develop Triple AAA quality art using the experience he has gained throughout his career.

Works

 * Mechcommander
 * Mechwarrior
 * Mechwarrior 4
 * Allegience
 * Crimson Skies
 * The Mark of Kri
 * Halo 2
 * Halo 3
 * The Agency
 * Chronicles of Elyria (in production)

Influences
His influences are Ralph McQuarrie, Syd Mead, Joe Johnston, John Byrne and Michael Pangrazio. Eddie