Community Spotlight: Justin Nichol
Before Double Fine opened the Kickstarter floodgates on the game dev world, Justin Nichol ran a successful campaign for creating Fantasy Portraits for Flare. Since then he’s contributed excellent concept art and model textures.
1. Where are you from and what do you do?
I’m from Southern California. I’m an aspiring entertainment designer and
illustrator. I’m also a free culture advocate, game designer, community
organizer, amateur coder and fitness buff.
2. What is the first video game you remember playing?
It sounds cliche, but I think the first time I ever played a video game
was when my mom brought up home a Nintendo with a copy of the original
Mario Bros.
3. What drives you to contribute to Flare?
I love fantasy, I love gaming, I love free culture/software and I want to
help create a participatory entertainment culture. Beyond that, Clint is a
stand up guy who really cares about the quality of what he makes, and
listens to his contributors and community.
4. Any advice for people who are interested in making games?
I can only really say what I know about concept design, which is to banish
the idea that you need talent at a thing to do it well. It’s cliche, but
practice is many times more important than talent, and if you stay humble
and work you will get better consistently.
5. Are you involved in any other interesting projects?
I am the founder of a tabletop games collective called Black Flag Games,
we’re currently publishing a boardgame called To The Barricades,
co-developing a mech combat card game called Subversiva, and a great
narrativist story game with social commentary called Kinfolk. I’ve also
contributed to Battle for Wesnoth and PARPG.