Meet the Staff

Dan is the founder of dDW Studios. He’s been an avid gamer, and programmer for most of his life, starting with the ATTARI 2600 he played as a teenager. From that point he was hooked. He started programming small games on the Commadore VIC-20, continued with the Commadore 64, and eventually the Commadore 128. He did much of this while serving active duty for 4 years as a member of the 101st Airbourne. It wasn’t until the early ’90s, when he got back from overseas, that he bought his first PC. Since then he has taken many courses, learned quite a few programming languages, and used that knowledge to mod games like Ultima Online, Battlefield 2, Arma, and Neverwinter Nights. He has also remained active online, often participating in alpha and beta testing for any games he can. Some of his aliases he has used and is still using are ddiablo67, soldierfortune, and daddydeath.

As a member of the dDWS team, Dan will first and foremost be our lead programmer. He has spent more than a quarter of a century programming, so he’s probably the best man for the job. He will also be handling a portion of the 3d modeling, as he’s pretty good at that too, and moderating the forums (because he loves wielding the ban hammer).

Will is going to be the lead 3d modeler, animator, and graphic artist here at dDW Studios. Straight out of high school Will had a clear goal of what he wanted to become, so he started a bachelor’s program for computer animation at Full Sail University in Florida. After completing the program in 2006, he got his first job in the industry. That first job? Testing and developing games for EA in Maitland, FL.

After working for EA for a few years, Will decided it was time for a change in scenery. He headed for the big city up north and quickly got hired for CBS Sports in New York City as a graphic artist. After a couple years in NY, he came back to Florida to brush up on the latest in the industry and went back to Fullsail for a secondary Degree in Computer Animation. After that he worked for Digital Domain in Port St. Lucie, and then later for Stereo D in Burbank, California as a finishing artist. Over his short career, he’s already worked on the NFL Today Show, popular titles like Madden, NCAA, Head Coach, and also NASCAR, the Superman Returns Video Game, and Jurassic Park in 3D.

Derek will be the “jack of all trades” member of the staff.  As early as high school he was studying web design, graphic design, 3D animation, music, and photography.  He continued to take quite a few courses on those subjects in college, and studied them on his own.  All of those skills will be taken full advantage of here.  His main title will be Sound Designer, basically editing or creating all the sounds and music for our games.  He will also help to create game assets, run the website, and moderate the forums.

Derek, known almost exclusively as drok83 in the gaming community, has been a gamer his entire life, starting with the original Nintendo, all the way up to his current, custom built gaming pc. His taste in games varies from RTS, RPG, FPS, MMO, you name it, he’s played it.  His unique taste in games, music, movies, etc. will help tremendously in the development in our games.

Selena Pickard is our resident concept artist. She first discovered her talent as an artist at a very young age, spending a lot of her time drawing and painting.  By her late teens, she was already on commision as a portrait artist in her local community. She has since expanded her repetoir to include landscapes, abstract pieces, and tattoo designs. She will be providing landscapes, characters, concept art and  any other cool stuff we can come up with. Her experience, tastes, style and her particular love for the “horror” genre are all things that make Selena an integral part of dDW Studios.  We will not only look to use her art in the development of our games, but will also make it available to any of the fans of our games digitally and in print.