JAMES BARRA
3D Digital Designer, Storyteller, Media Creator
James Barra is an innovative 3D visual artist with experience in game design, video editing, motion capture, writing, and much more.
His practice began in New Rochelle, NY, in the months leading up to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Learning to develop mods for video-games he and his friends played, he found a love for working with 3D models, making frankensteinesque creations out of free libraries of kitbashed assets. While not a seasoned 3D artist yet, he had a strong urge that this may be a path he wished to follow.
He entered Stevens Institute of Technology in the Fall of 2020. Initially, he was set to be a civil engineer. He feared the risks of going into the arts, and opted to forego passion in favor of stability. This would prove to be a mistake, as after a grueling first semester of engineering classes, he had learned his heart was not in it.
He switched majors, to the then College of Arts & Letters (now HASS), and would spend the next three years making projects for classes in web design, programming, painting, photography, sculptutre, writing, and a wealth of others.
As the years of his academic career would go on, he would come to suffer a great many losses. A close friend, his grandfather, and finally his father all perished to various illnesses over the span of less than a year. It was a difficult time, but such times helped him focus his creativity into something tangible. As the school's Senior Capstone Project approached, he put his effort into designing a game, one to help him finally process grief he was grossly neglecting.
An Emulated Mind debuted in the Motus Mentis arts show at MANA Contemporary, and while it was ultimately not everything he had planned it to be, he had proved to himself that he could. Not only that he could make something that counts as a "game", but that he could overcome find pride in his work in the face of insurmountable sorrow.
He would take away from this that, so long as one endures,
one can do anything.
Skills & Expertise
Professional Journey
2024 - Present
Freelance Unity Designer
Working with Unity in many ways. Post-graduation, served as an assistant-teacher an Introduction to Unity Summer class at Stevens Institute of Technology. Afterwards, joined Umber Majeed for JOYTECH, and pursued production of Hold Fast or Die Trying.
2023 - 2024
Stevens Capstone Development
Finalizing my academic journey. Coordinating for the first time with musicians, voice actors, as well as delving into weeks of research and facilitating meetings with experts from the school.
2020 - 2023
Academic Career
In the Spring Semester of 2021, joined the College of Arts & Letters in pursuit of a major in Visual Arts & Technology.
2019-2020
Birth of Interest
Began experimenting with mods for video games. During the pandemic, these dabblings became an obsession, resulting in many a project and an emerging love for 3D software, specifically Unity.
"Why are you Like That" /// Artist Statement
I think if I was held at gunpoint and told to explain what compells me to make the things I do, I'd probably start by screaming because of the aforementioned gun.
Afterwards, though, I would probably rationalize it as a desire to entertain. My folks always suspected I would be an engineer. My grandparents used to let me run tracks for wooden trains all around the house during sleepovers. They'd see these intersections and elaborate networks and think "Ah, urban planner!" Though what nobody saw were the stories I'd invent for myself. Everything I touched was a medium to play a movie out in my head.
I was shy, very shy, pretty much up until late highschool, and so the only person I ever wanted to entertain was myself. But throughout college, as I found my real clique and found a sense of self confidence, I wanted to start entertaining to other people.
In certain classes, I excelled, solely on the premise of getting a laugh out of my friends during showcases. I recall, in the very beginnings of an introductory class to 3D modeling, spending hours upon hours on what ought to have been a short project turning the simple prompt of a house by the beach into an elaborate Venetian village on the inside of a toilet bowl.
Stupid fun has been a core tenet of my work, even in the face of more serious projects, because at the end of the day, no matter what I've built, its objective is to be, if even just a little bit, entertaining.
Studio Glimpses
