Shawn Bruner

Shawn Bruner has a diverse work experience in the field of 3D art and character design. Shawn currently works at Microsoft as the Mesh 3D Art Lead, managing teams and overseeing avatar and environment workflows for Microsoft Mesh. Prior to that, they worked at Randstad USA as a Character Pipeline Specialist, where they created a unified rig for avatars and provided support to multiple teams on avatar implementation and pipeline utilization. Shawn also worked as a Character Artist at Randstad USA, where they created numerous iterations of avatars for the Mixed Reality team.

Before joining Randstad USA, Shawn worked at Lakshya Digital as an External Character Art Director and at Stormfront Digital Productions as the Owner and Character Artist. At Lakshya Digital, they served as the External Character Art Director and contributed to the company's character art projects. At Stormfront Digital Productions, they ran their own LLC and focused on contract ZBrush work, particularly for Privateer Press and their games Hordes and Warmachine.

Shawn also worked at BigBox VR as a Contract Character Technical Director, where they assisted in troubleshooting VR locomotion and solving IK issues for characters. Shawn also contributed to determining the rig and pipeline for combining character assets and customization. Prior to that, they worked as an Internal Character Artist/ZBrush Artist at Privateer Press and as a Lead Zbrush Artist for Golem Arcana at Harebrained Schemes. At Harebrained Schemes, they also worked as a Contract Character Artist for Shadowrun Returns, where they created characters, gear, and weapons for the game.

Shawn Bruner obtained their Bachelor of Arts degree in Game Art and Design from The Art Institutes, where they studied Ludology and Game Art. Shawn attended the institute from 2006 to 2009, completing their education in this field during that time.