A little late in the game, but it's where I want to be..!

[JLansford]

Hey everyone!

I stumbled across this site a few months ago, and I've finally come to a point in my life where I'm going to pursue my interest in getting into the games industry.

Perhaps its best to start with a little background: I'm 21, and currently attending the Air Force Academy. While I've been in the Air Force for a total of 3 years, truthfully, I don't have much interest in it. As I get closer to incurring a large committment to something I don't want to do, I've decided to chase down my dream: Video Game development.

As you can tell since I'm posting in this forum, obviously I'm looking more at an art focus. I recently invested in a tablet, and have been using it to a huge extent.. As I've been reading around these forums, I've seen that there seems to be a bit of a paradigm shift towards merging 2D/3D art, and having skills at developing both. I'm very good at perspective / spacial / architectural drawings, so I think that 3D environments would be one of my strengths. I've downloaded blender, and am currently teaching myself to use it so I can get up to speed.

I'm going to be leaving the Academy at the end of this year to attend a college that could somehow cater to these areas.. I have my GI bill, so I have roughly 100K to spend on college, but I don't want to get tricked into going to one of those fratboy developer Westwood College infomercial places... (Those commercials really are horrible..!) Any suggestions on schools?

I look forward to getting to know you all, and any advice you all have about a good direction to go would be greatly appreciated..!