Maelstrom — 3D Art Intern
Tideturners Studio
Tideturners Studio
Maelstrom was my first real production experience. It was also a grind.
Unpaid, full-time, indie environment. My background was film, not games. I didn't know real-time pipelines, polygon budgets, or master material systems going in. I learned all of it on the job, under deadline, with no real safety net — which looking back is probably the fastest way to actually learn anything.
The original source files had been lost during a studio transition. The art director handed us rough proportion blockouts and one directive: make them look better without changing a single dimension. The ships had VFX attachment points, animation rigs, and collision geometry locked to exact proportions. Every creative decision had a technical consequence. Getting the hull wrong broke the fire effects. Getting the mast wrong misaligned the rigging. That meant constant back and forth with engineering — iterating in Unreal until the art and the systems agreed.
In an indie environment nobody stays in their lane. I picked up Substance Designer for the first time to create custom sand materials for level environments. I sat in QA sessions playtesting combat systems and battle royale game modes with the dev team. Whatever needed doing, you did it.
The holiday season added another layer. Halloween and Christmas variants had to ship before the default ships were finished — so I built the seasonal versions first, in reverse, without a finished base to work from. One week per ship. Full low-to-high poly, explode baking, Substance texturing, Unreal integration. Then you start the default version.
It often felt like thankless work.
Then you'd load up the game and watch your ship sailing across the screen — cannons blazing, sails full, VFX firing exactly where they should — and none of that mattered anymore.
9 ships and variants total. Some shipped. Some are still waiting.
Ashborne — responsible for castle, Cannons, and figurehead modeling
tidebreaker — responsible for All modeling
Thunderhead — responsible for ALl modeling
Stormanchor — responsible for All modeling
Gameplay footage featuring the Ashborne and tidebreakership sloops i worked on
