Joseph Drust

Digital Sculptor/Modeler

JosephDrust

Pittsboro, NC

Joseph Drust is an artist residing near the small town of Pittsboro, North Carolina. He graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Game Design. Joseph has over ten years of experience working in the video game industry as a character artist with a focus on modeling and sculpting. He has created character assets for games including Ghost Recon, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Ben 10 Alien Force, and Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon.

Presently, Joseph is an Artist/Creative Development Manager with Pixologic, Inc: The Makers of ZBrush. Currently In his free time Joseph teaches online classes, kitbashes vinyl toys, and experiments with 3D Rapid Prototyping and scanning technologies.

Professional Skills:


  • Design Skills
    Character Design, 3D Sculpting, 3D modeling, Content Management, UVW Mapping, Character Rigging, Pipeline Efficiency/Creation, Scripting

  • Computer Skills
    ZBrush, KeyShot, 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Substance Painter, Quixel Suite, Mudbox, xNormal, Headus UV Layout, Marvelous Designer, MetaShape, Reality Capture, Illustrator, Painter, Windows OS, Mac OSX, DOS.

Employment History

  • Artist/Creative Development Manager
    Pittsboro, NC
    Oct 2013 - Present
    Pixologic, Inc
    Releases:

    ZBrush 4R7 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrush 4R8 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrushCore (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrush 2018 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrushCore 2018 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrush 2019 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrushCore 2019 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrush 2020 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrushCore 2020 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrushCoreMini 2020 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrush 2021 (PC) (MAC)
    ZBrushCore 2021 (PC) (MAC)
  • Lead Character Artist/Senior Character Artist
    Cary, NC
    Aug 2010 - Oct 2013
    Ubisoft
    Shipped Titles:

    Ghost Recon Future Soldier(360)(PS3)
    The Crew(PS4)(Xbone)
  • Senior Character Artist
    Morrisville, NC
    Jun 2007 - Jul 2010
    Vicious Cycle Software
    Shipped Titles:

    Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon (360)(PS3)
    - Senior Character Artist (Character Modeler, Texturer, Rigger for Characters.)

    Despicable Me: The Game (PS2)(PSP)(WII)
    - Senior Character Artist (Lowpoly Modeler, Texturer, Rigger for Characters.)

    Matt Hazard: Blood Bath and Beyond (Xbox Live Arcade)
    - Senior Character Artist (Lowpoly Modeler, Texturer, Rigger for Characters.)

    Ben 10: Alien Force (PS2)(PSP)(WII)
    - Senior Character Artist (Character Modeler, UI Support)
  • Character Coordinator/Senior Character Artist
    Morrisville, NC
    Jun 2001 - Jun 2007
    Red Storm Entertainment (Ubisoft)
    Shipped Titles:

    America's Army: True Soldiers (360)
    - Character Coordinator/Artist (Head character modeler, in charge of managing character art assets.)

    Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (360)
    - Character Artist (Character modeler for enemy and multiplayer character art assets.)

    Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike (Xbox)
    - Character Artist (Head character modeler, in charge of managing character art assets.)

    Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (Xbox)
    - Character Artist (Worked on multiplayer models for the game.)

    Ravenshield (PC)
    - Cinematic Environment Artist (Created hi-res geometry for intro/outro movies.)

    Ghost Recon: Island Thunder (PC)(Xbox)
    - Character Artist (Created characters, weapons, vehicles, LOD's, and attachments.)

    The Sum of All Fears (PC)
    - Character Artist (Created characters, weapons, LOD's, and attachments.)

    Ghost Recon: Desert Siege (PC)(Xbox)
    - Character Artist (Created characters, weapons, vehicles, LOD's, and attachments.)

    Ghost Recon (PC)(Xbox)
    - Character Artist (Created characters, weapons, vehicles, LOD's, and attachments.)

Other Experience


  • Duke University (Art History Media Department)
    Guest Lecturer for the Art History Media Department. Instructed students on using ZBrush to clean up scan data for archeological reconstruction.

  • SCAD ITGM Alumni Mentor
    Savanah College of Art and Design Interactive Design and Game Development track mentor from 2014 through 2015


  • ZBrushWorkshops
    Instructor, Designed and instructed ten week course, "Advanced Character Creation for Games" in Spring-Summer 2013.

    Founding Instructor for Games Arts Institute.

  • NC State College of Design
    Guest Lecturer, Instructed students on ZBrush for use in design.

  • Savannah College of Art and Design
    Guest Lecturer, Presented at SCAD's "GDX Workshops" on character design in the game industry.

  • McFarlane Toys
    Contract Artist, Digitally sculpted two figures for toys released in September 2013.

  • Digital Tutors
    Instructor, "Creating Long Hair Using FiberMesh in ZBrush" in Fall 2012.

  • Hunt Country Jewelers
    Onsite Instructor and Consultant, Worked with Hunt Country Jewelers to integrate ZBrush into their current pipeline for jewelry creation. Helped in generating water-tight meshes for 3D printing.

  • ECU Innovation Design Labs
    Contract Artist, Digitally recreated a smaller version of the Special Warfare Memorial Statue (Bronze Bruce) for the US Army Special Operations Command located in Fort Bragg, NC.

    Guest Lecturer, Instructed students on ZBrush for Jewelry applications and the process of character creation in video games.

  • Hopper Cummings, PLLC
    Contract Artist, Designed and created corporate identity including business cards, signage, and digitally sculpted 3D sign.

  • Pixologic, Inc
    ZBrush 3.5: Tutorial Document Outsource Artist
    (Created a 150 page tutorial and creature model for shipment with ZBrush 3.5.)

    Pixologic ZClassroom "Creating Military Assets"
    (Created a series of 18 videos covering practical functionality using ZBrush.)

    Demo Artist for Siggraph 2012 and Siggraph 2013

    Beta Tester

  • ZBrush Certified Instructor
    Certified instructor for Pixologic's ZBrush

Education

  • BFA
    Savannah, GA
    1997 - 2001
    Savannah College of Art and Design
    BFA in Computer Art with a concentration in Game Design