Michael Kinsey
Michael Kinsey
A Tech Art / Art / Code guy
London, United Kingdom

Summary

I'm a 30 year old self taught artist / tech artist with a passion for bringing 3D worlds to life.
In my 10 years in the games industry I have worn many hats, covering roles from environment art and materials, to technical art and even lead and director roles.

I specialize in 3D Unreal Engine projects and love pushing the bar of what is possible with real time rendering.
However have also worked on many projects from Mobile and VR games in Unreal and Unity, as well as digital TV production using Unreal 4.

From props, textures, environment design and world building, to using technical knowledge in shaders, programming and automation; I'm always looking to learn and improve.

My current focus is building UE5 pipelines that don't reinvent the wheel. To get more from simple features for less setup and minimize the pitfalls of making overly complex workflows for minimal benefit.
And greatly enjoy building Niagara based systems for character and world interaction.

Resume PDF

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Skills

Shader ScriptingEnvironment ModelingDigital SculptingPipeline AutomationHigh-poly ModelingLow-poly ModelingTexturingMaterial CreationLightingTeam ManagementProject ManagementTraditional ArtOrganic SculptingStylized ArtRealistic renderingEnvironment DesignRender PipelinesRenderingHard Surface ModelingProp ModelingSculptingLevel DesignWorld BuildingPipeline CreationArt Direction

Software proficiency

Houdini
Houdini
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine
Blender
Blender
ZBrush
ZBrush
Marmoset Toolbag
Marmoset Toolbag
3ds Max
3ds Max
Marvelous Designer
Marvelous Designer
SpeedTree
SpeedTree
World Machine
World Machine
Substance 3D Painter
Substance 3D Painter
Substance 3D Designer
Substance 3D Designer
Substance 3D Sampler
Substance 3D Sampler
Megascans
Megascans
Mixer
Mixer
Unity
Unity
Photoshop
Photoshop
Premiere
Premiere
DaVinci Resolve
DaVinci Resolve
pix
pix
Jira
Jira

Productions

    • Video Game
      '83
    • Year
      2026
    • Role
      Technical Artist / Consultant
    • Company
      Blue Dot Games
    • Video Game
      Armatus
    • Year
      2026
    • Role
      Technical Artist
    • Company
      Counterplay Games
    • Video Game
      Godfall | Fire & Darkness (PS5)
    • Year
      2021
    • Role
      Technical Artist
    • Company
      Counterplay
    • Video Game
      Hell Let Loose
    • Year
      2021
    • Role
      3D Generalist
    • Company
      Black Matter
    • Video Game
      Godfall
    • Year
      2020
    • Role
      Technical Artist
    • Company
      Counterplay
    • Video Game
      Life Beyond
    • Year
      2020
    • Role
      Senior Environment Artist
    • Company
      Darewise
    • Commercial / Advertisement
      Artstation Leaning Course Instructor
    • Year
      2020
    • Role
      Course Instructor
    • Company
      Artstation
    • Video Game
      Returnal [PS5]
    • Year
      2021
    • Role
      Sr Environment Artist
    • Company
      Dekogon Studios
    • Video Game
      Scavengers
    • Year
      2021
    • Role
      Lead Environment Artist
    • Company
      Dekogon
    • Video Game
      Werewolf the apocalypse: Earthbound
    • Year
      2021
    • Role
      Senior Environment Artist
    • Company
      Dekogon
    • Video Game
      Rogue Company
    • Year
      2020
    • Role
      Lead Environment Artist
    • Company
      Dekogon
    • Video Game
      VR Patients
    • Year
      2020
    • Role
      Lead Environment Artist
    • Company
      Dekogon
    • Mobile Game
      Quests and Kingdoms
    • Year
      2019
    • Role
      Lead Environment Artist
    • Company
      Dekogon
    • TV Production
      Fifa Womens World Cup Real Time Production Graphics
    • Year
      2019
    • Role
      Senior Environment Artist
    • Company
      Dekogon
    • Commercial / Advertisement
      Mental Project, Dubai VR Experience
    • Year
      2018
    • Role
      Prop/Material Artist
    • Company
      Dekogon

Experience

  • Technical Artist / Consultant at Blue Dot Games
    Bangkok, TH
    September 2025 - May 2016

    I worked with the talented team at BDG to bring 83' to life.

    A first person multiplayer military shooter in Unreal Engine 5 that uses Lumen and Nanite.

    The goal was to eliminate tech debt and ship a title in less then 6 months that used Unreal's features but still performed well across a wide arrange of hardware. We managed to hit high frame rates on old hardware with 6GB Vram GPU's due to our workflows and strong control over feature settings in the engine.

  • Technical Consultant at Sentient Art
    Bangkok, TH
    September 2025 - December 2025

    In this contract period I worked to completely revamp the art and tech pipelines of a client working on behalf of Sentient Arts.

    Pushing a project with years of tech debt to being on a good trajectory for shipping within a few months.

  • Senior Shader Technical Director at Thats No Moon Entertainment
    Nottingham
    May 2023 - September 2025

    Crossfire

  • Technical & VFX Consultant at Sierra Division
    Nottingham, GB
    November 2022 - December 2023

    I worked with Sierra Division a few of their projects providing tech art and VFX support.

  • Technical Consultant at 7 Digit Labs
    Nottingham, GB
    September 2023 - December 2023

    I worked as a Technical Consultant setting up shader pipelines for an upcoming 3rd person shooter.

  • Technical Artist at Sierra Division
    Remote, United Kingdom
    December 2022 - February 2023

    Technical Artist working on shaders and VFX creating ocean Gerstner materials and ocean VFX

  • Hard Surface Modeller at Sentient Arts
    Remote, United Kingdom
    October 2021 - December 2021

    Hard Surface Modeller

  • 3D Generalist at Black Matter
    NOTTINGHAM, United Kingdom
    July 2020 - December 2020

    I had the privilege to work as an environment artist at Black Matter Games on their WW2 shooter Hell Let Loose.

    Working with a small but extremely talented team to bring their new eastern front content to life.

    Covering things from workflow exploration, shader design, Material creation ,3D prop and environment art.

  • Material Specialist (Freelance) at Next-Gen Dreams
    Guildford
    May 2020 - September 2020

    Material Pipeline creation for Ghost Story Games' Judas

  • Senior Environment Artist (Freelance) at Darewise Entertainment
    Guildford, United Kingdom
    March 2020 - May 2020

  • Lead Environment Artist at Dekogon Studios
    Guildford, United Kingdom
    June 2019 - April 2020

    I had the privilege to lead talented diverse outsource teams creating assets and environments for various projects during my time as a Lead at Dekogon.

    These projects spanned many areas of the 3D industry, from VR training to Mobile, to AAA projects.

    This experience was a valuable lesson in managing my time and others.

    And dealing with clients and making informed decisions on budget and future projections.

  • Senior Environment Artist at Dekogon Studios
    London, United Kingdom
    April 2019 - January 2020

  • Prop/Environment Artist at Dekogon Studios
    London, United Kingdom
    August 2018 - March 2019

  • 3D Generalist at CCG
    Woking, United Kingdom
    April 2018 - July 2018

  • Environment Artist at Freelance
    Woking, United Kingdom
    January 2015 - March 2018