Teams - Art
Stella Balmoria
Art Producer
Stella joined the Nihilistic team in June 2004. Hailing from the buckeye state, a spring break in the Bay Area, was all it took to prompt Stella to move out to the Golden State. With her Psych degree in hand, Stella traveled west doing management gigs within the clothing industry and Lucasfilm before settling into her current position at NSI.
Outside the hanger, you will most likely find Stella running, dragon boating, or munching popcorn at the movies. Her passion by far though is travel and adventure - making her a prime candidate for the Amazing Race!
Jonathan Curiel
Enviroment Artist
Jonathan joined Nihilistic Software as a QA Tester in early 2004 while enrolled at San Francisco City College's Multimedia Studies Program. After earning his degree in History in 1998, he worked at various schools hoping to pursue a career in education.
Finding the classroom too restrictive he set out to find a new path to follow. That's when he found that during his spare time he really enjoyed working with the mod community and decided to pursue a career in the video game industry.
While continuing his studies at San Francisco City College he took a QA Testing position with Electronic Arts in 2003 and then at Nihilistic Software in 2004.
In his spare time he enjoys cooking/baking, listening to music and exploring the Bay Area. He also likes animals and is currently inspired to learn how to carve stone.
Shawn Foreman
Senior Enviorment Artist
Joon Kim
Enviroment Artist
Joon is a 3d artist to the bone. He found himself creating computer graphic arts while taking finals for the animal science major in Korea. After finishing his academic endeavor in art at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, he worked at Digitrove, Inc. and EA/Pandemic Studios inLos Angeles as an environment artist on the titles of the Saboteur and Mercenary, Inc.
He joined Nihilistic Software in early 2010 and back to the Bay Area. Joon loves to read articles about new military weaponry, aircrafts, warships and even more loves to create them with CG
Ron Kee
Lead Artist
After Ron graduated with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Graphic Design and Illustration from San Jose State University he started freelancing for local companies. That led to a full time gig with Strategic Simulations Inc. where he put his time in learning the computer tools and working on Panzer General II and Fantasy General. From there he went on to Cyclone Studios where he did most of the character design concepts for Requiem: Avenging Angel.
Ron formed Oholoko Productions with Greg Savoia in early '99 and where he worked on the cinematic cut scenes for Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption.
Passionate about staying creative and creating the highest quality art has lead Ron through many roles at Nihilistic from Lead character artist, Lead artist and Art Director where Ron helps set the visual look for the all game titles. Ron currently spends his time creating concept art, modeling and texturing characters and environments for Nihilistic Software’s next gen titles.
Yujin Kiem
Art Director
After finishing his studies in Art at UC Berkeley and the San Francisco Art Institute, Yujin found his way into the gaming industry in 1995 via Cyclone Studios as an artist on the titles Battlesport, Captain Quazar and Requiem.
In 1998, Nihilistic Software became his new stomping grounds.
Yujin’s current responsibilities include art direction for Nihilistic’s latest title.
Past Works at Nihilistic:
Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption PC - Artist
Maarten Kraaijvanger
Senior Character Artist
Maarten joined Nihilistic Software in the spring of 1998, after a long stint at Cyclone Studios. At Cyclone, he was an artist on Captain Quazar and lead artist/designer on Battlesport for the 3DO platform.
He then worked as lead artist on the PC game Requiem before joining Nihilistic Software.
With Nihilistic, his main responsibilities are modeling, Zbrushing game characters.
Shao Wen Lim
Lead Character Artist
Shao has been bringing his great sense of style to NSI since 2006.
When he's not creating art he enjoys working out, steak and receiving lots of packages at work.
Mike Parsons
Visual FX Supervisor
Mike is a VFX programmer and artist from the UK who has been making games since 1996. He moved to sunny CA to join the Nihilistic team in 2001. Since then he has created all particle VFX for all NSI projects.
He likes beer, bagels and blowing stuff up. In his spare time he likes to VJ for clubs and parties around the Bay Area.
Mike’s currently having fun creating the particle FX for Nihilistic’s next game.
Jasmine Sarmiento
Senior Enviroment Artist
Jasmine is a native of Worcester, Massachusetts. After studying biology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute for four years, she decided to pursue a career in computer animation. She has an Associate’s Degree in Computer Animation from the Art Institute of Dallas.
She began her career as an artist at Acclaim Studios in Austin, TX. There she got to work on Turok Evolution, The Red Star, as well as some minor work on I, Gladiator, NBA Jam, and 100 Bullets. Now she works here at Nihilistic as a modeler/painter. She has worked on Marvel Nemesis Rise of the Imperfects, Conan and was the lead artist on Zombie Apocalypse.
Jasmine can be counted on going to see every movie that comes out no matter how bad, and loves live music!.
Mike Teperson
Lead Lighter
Born in the Valley during a rougher time, Michael is always prepared with a pair of Z Cavaricci's and a Smith's album. Following many years of studying Sociobiology, and spending summers living in a tent, Michael decided he had to do something more focused with his life. Realizing that treasure hunting would be a pretty rough career choice, he decided to return to school to pursue his love for technology, computers and art.
After several years of wandering at numerous studios, working on a variety of commercials, movies, television, global domination and music videos, Michael finally found a home in a warm dark corner at Nihilistic where he spends most of his time huddled behind a sea of monitors.
Michael's favorite things include his children, camping, cryptozoology, and chilaquiles; basically anything that starts with C. Michael dreams of a world where Global Illumination is free, and Ambient Occlusion is judged on the content of its character.
Carson Utz
Lead Environment Artist
Carson Utz is a Massachusetts native who came to California to work in the games industry as a level designer, first at Broderbund Software, then Mindscape. Quite a few years ago now, he joined Nihilistic Software as a level designer on Starcraft: Ghost before making the move to the art team where he has been busy with painting and modeling environments.
Carson Utz is short, sometimes grumpy, likes his cars, owns more guitars than you do and operates on coffee and tea, though we're hoping to adapt him to hydrogen fuel cell technology so he's less twitchy.