对于电子游戏开发者, 艺术家, 教育家, 音乐家, 以及词曲作者娜塔莉·阿斯波特, creativity is hard to funnel into just one interest. Since graduating at the top of her class while studying computer animation at 满帆, 娜塔莉 has gone on to work on video game series including 格斗之王 和 正义事业, teach as an adjunct game design professor at NYU Game Center, 并以独立音乐家的身份演出, 歌手, 和流行歌曲.

“I find that I just constantly find sources to get inspired with,她说。. “When I'm around other 艺术家s, when I'm around other 艺术, it just naturally stays with me. 我正在看电影, 玩游戏, 听音乐, I'm constantly thinking about that creation process.”

Consumed with creation, 娜塔莉’s interest in 艺术 began in childhood. 在小学, an 艺术 class opened her eyes to something her science 和 math studies had yet to: passion. 受到新兴趣的驱使, 娜塔莉会继续磨练她的技能, taking pride in the “cool” factor that accompanied her 艺术家ic prowess.

“成长, I wasn't necessarily the cool kid when it came to sports 和 conventional popularity, 但说到艺术, 我就是那种孩子,她开玩笑说。.

在高中，玩顽皮狗 《神秘海域2:盗贼之间 unlocked a new level of interest in 艺术, but this time it was the 艺术 behind a video game. One of the most visually appealing games of its time, 未知的2 拥有丰富的环境, 令人惊叹的风景, 以及获奖的游戏玩法, 对娜塔莉来说, 她未来事业的催化剂.

“I st艺术ed looking into everything about the game,” she recalls. “I came across a behind-the-scenes video…和 they were talking about how they made the game. 它展示了, 我相信是玛雅, these developers were just working on their computers. 我以前从没见过. That's when it clicked for me: ‘This is made by a specialist, by specific people that have a specific skill set 和 they're really happy.’

“我当时想，‘这就是我想做的.’”

以游戏美术为职业, 娜塔莉被满帆录取了, studying computer animation 和 preparing for her future career. “当我满帆航行的时候, it was the first time where I was in school 和 I was exactly doing what I wanted to do,她说。. “It just felt like everything that I loved was in one spot… [And students], 他们来这里是因为他们和你一样. They want to pursue the 艺术s 和 it's super serious to them. 你以此为生.”

学习成绩优异, 娜塔莉 would continue to pursue her passion for creativity after graduation, l和ing a job at Avalanche Studios – the AAA developer behind the 正义事业 系列中, 愤怒, 违禁品.

Initially interested in working in character 艺术, 娜塔莉 found herself working as an environment, 车辆, weapons 艺术家 during her time at the studio. “I dove right into environments 和 车辆 really early on. I really like working on things that you can break ap艺术. 角色是一回事, but to be able to recreate things that people do in the real world 和 try to create them in 3D is another.”

娜塔莉, finally building the kinds of worlds she had become so fascinated with in her youth, 她一直想要分享, 学习, 和创建. 似乎仅仅设计游戏还不够, in 2018 娜塔莉 also co-designed NYU Game Center’s 3D Modeling for 游戏 course, which she now teaches as an adjunct professor.

“I love it so much 和 I've 学习ed so much from students. 这真的帮助我变得更全面, 我认为, 作为一名艺术家, 太, because I could bring it back to my day-to-day work. [My students] are aspiring 和 they have dreams. 我看到了这一点，这给了我很大的鼓舞.”

Fueled by her full-time job 和 inspired by her p艺术-time one, 娜塔莉 still finds time to pursue her love of creating in other ways, 具体地说, 音乐. 独立歌手和词曲作者, the game-loving grad is also a guitarist 和 vocalist for NYC-based b和 Chaos Pixie. 娜塔莉, 保持她的创造力, finds bouncing between interests as her own form of therapy.

“I’ll finish up work 和 then I'll head out to go play a show,她说。. “如果我在家工作，卡住了, I'll pick up my guitar 和 I'll st艺术 playing a song 和 I get it out of my system. So I feel like when I do it, it just makes me even more motivated to do other things.”