Swiss mobile games outfit FunPlus has partnered with visual and multimedia arts non-profit Creative Art Works (CAW) for their second character design apprenticeship.
The programme offically kicked off on February 8, with the aims of providing support for "underserved" New York City teenagers and young adults, with the hopes of inspiring them to pursue a career in game design.
The goal for the apprentices is to create a "fully-realised" character, including a backstory, personality traits, strengths, and weaknesses.
Across the programme, CAW teaching artists will provide two hours of in-person instruction over the 14 weeks. Additionally, worldwide FunPlus artists will provide critiques of work, career advice, and lectures on various design aspects, such as storyboarding, silhouette construction, background design, and more.
Furthermore, FunPlus has stated that all of the students will be paid the New York City minimum wage of $15 per hour.
Creating characters
"Thanks to the corporate support from FunPlus, Creative Art Works is able to offer an exceptional workforce development program to NYC high school students," said CAW executive director and CEO Brian Ricklin.
"From our experience last year, we know the positive impact this type of program has on young peoples' lives, and we're excited to see what this year's cohort will achieve."
FunPlus CCO Wei Wang added: "Last year, all the participants showed impressive talent and tenacity, and I can’t wait to see how this new group of students apply all their learnings in their new projects this spring. It is so inspiring to see these Youth Apprentices unleash their creative potential and who knows, perhaps even discover a calling for a career in game design in the future!"
The programme will conclude with an awards ceremony on June 1 at 19:00 ET.
IronSource recently launched its third Supersonic Superstar hypercasual development contest with a first prize of $2 million for studios that surpass eight million downloads on the US App Store.
