Faculty

James Zhang, Head of Concept Art Department

In his 12 year career, James has been a concept artist, art director, and studio executive. He began his career as a concept artist at Lucas Arts Entertainment Company where he helped create the vision for a number of bestselling and critically acclaimed video games. He later assumed the position of Lead artist at Factor 5 on one of the first PS3 titles: "Lair". In 2005 James became Vice President of Massive Black where he oversaw the vision and production of numerous studio projects until the founding of Concept Art House in 2007. Today he is the CEO of Concept Art House, a leading, high-end art service provider based out of San Francisco, CA and Shanghai, China providing high end artwork for companies including Atari, Activision, Blizzard, Disney, Electronic Arts, Hasbro, LucasArts, Sony, Upper Deck, Wizards of the Coast, and Zynga. James is a regular contributor to international industry events and publications such as CGart, ImagineFX, Fantasy Magazine, and Game Developer conference. .

Manuel Carrasco, Director, Department of Digital Media

Manuel has been a successful artist and illustrator for over 16 years working in the film, animation and videogame industries. His feature film/animation credits include Space Jam, Anastasia and Prince of Egypt as well as work for studios including DreamWorks, Fox Feature, Richard Rich Studios, Warner Brothers and Nickelodeon.  
As an artist in the videogame industry, Manuel has created concept art and animation assets for studios including Acclaim Entertainment, NC Soft, Edge of Reality and UbiSoft for AAA titles including Turok, VEXX and Red Star.  In 2005 Manuel joined Austin based Stray Bullet Games as the studio’s Lead Concept Artist. In addition to his commercial work, Manuel is a fine artist known for his lifelike paintings of predatory birds of the southwest. His work can be found in galleries across the state of Texas.  At Gemini School, Manuel teaches Concept Art classes for 3rd and 4th year students as part of Computer Graphics II and III.

Jonathon Gilbreath, Anatomy and Photoshop

Jonathon has been a successful conceptual and development artist for 13 years; working for a wide variety of US government agencies and corporations. In 1997 he founded CyberINK Studios, an animation and design studio focused on visual development for film, TV and multimedia. His clients include the US Dept. of Defense, AMD, Warner Brothers, Sony and Midway. In addition to his commercial work, Jonathon teaches classes for both students and professionals in Human Anatomy, Architectural & Character Design, Camera & Lighting and 3D Modeling for Film, TV and Gaming. At Gemini School, Jonathon teaches Computer Graphics I-III, Anatomy and Perspective.

Famir Gjevukaj, Zbrush

Fatmir's 15+ year career includes working as a Fine Artist, Illustrator, Sculptor and, most recently, as a 3D artist in the entertainment industry. A Z-Brush and 3dsMax expert, Fatmir has worked with studios including Midway Games, Radioactive Labs and Critical Mass Interactive. His combination of classical art training and in-depth knowledge of anatomy helped to establish his reputation as a Character Artist. Fatmir holds a B.F.A. from the Fine Arts Academy of Prishtina (Kosova) with a major in Painting.

Rick Patrick, Photography

Rick Patrick’s lifelong journey with photography began while he was a student at the University of Texas. He’s been known to shoot everything from portraits to food, home interiors and the vast Texas highways. With a client list that includes agencies (GSD&M, Pentagram, FD2S), major publications (Texas Monthly, Newsweek, The New York Times, Better Homes & Gardens, Metropolitan Home, Country Living) and hi-tech (IBM, Motorola, Applied Materials) Rick is uniquely suited to teach Gemini School students the power of the camera lens.  When he’s not teaching at Gemini School, Rick can be found at his East Austin photo studio-Studio 1308.

Chip Patterson, Perspective, Architectual Design

Chip Patterson started his career as an artist over 15 years ago at Austin, Texas based Origin/Electronic Arts. With his extensive background in architecture and the traditional arts, Chip created digital environments for titles including "Red Star”,"VEXX","All Star Baseball" and "Tabula Rasa". He holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design from Texas A&M University and has studied art on the Arthur Light Scholarship in Florence, Italy.

Johnathon Vought, 3D Modelling in 3DS Max

Johnathon started his career as an artist/animator working on “Dragonball Z”, a popular syndicated anime series. That experience led him to expand his portfolio to include 3D design and animation projects in film, videogame and architecture. In 2001, Johnathon founded RadioActive Labs, Inc. where he worked on a variety of film, animation and videogame projects, including the 2006 Texas Longhorns Football opening (the running of the Longhorns) on the “Godzillatron”. Johnathon is an adjunct faculty member at Austin Community College and teaches 3DsMax classes at Gemini School. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of North Texas.