Dan McCabe

Lead Vehicle Artist at Cloud Imperium Games

Manchester, England, United Kingdom

About

https://www.artstation.com/danmccabe I am a very lucky chap surrounded by some ridiculously talented people.

Experience

  • Cloud Imperium Games (Full-time · 5 yrs 4 mos)
    • Lead Vehicle Artist
      Nov 2025 - Present · 8 mos

    • Senior Vehicle Artist
      Sep 2023 - Nov 2025 · 2 yrs 3 mos

    • Vehicle Artist III
      Jul 2022 - Sep 2023 · 1 yr 3 mos

      After a year or so on props I had to opportunity to move to the vehicle team, this was an obvious choice for me and the move signified me achieving the goal I set myself as a student to get into this specialized role. My first task was to establish a visual target for our resource management feature. After which I was given a collaborative task with a VFX programmer to revamp our salvage/damage shader which was a great experience. After those miscellaneous tasks I had the pleasure of working with one of our senior artists - Alex Williams, to deliver the Mirai Fury which is flyable in game right now. this was a big moment for me as it represented the conclusion of my long journey to become a vehicle artist, and the start of actually being one.

  • WorldSkills UK (11 yrs 4 mos)
    • Assistant Training Manager
      Mar 2025 - Present · 1 yr 4 mos

      Helping train competitors for the 3D Digital Game Art Competition in Shanghai 2026 Teaching Autodesk, Adobe suite and Unreal engine

    • Skills Ambassador
      Dec 2017 - Present · 8 yrs 7 mos

      part of the national 'skills champion' alumni engaging with various media opportunities, working alongside multiple educational institutions

    • International Trainer
      Apr 2022 - Mar 2025 · 3 yrs

      Teaching Autodesk, Adobe suite and Unreal engine

  • WorldSkills International (Around the world)
    • Senior Champions Trust Representative - Europe
      May 2023 - Apr 2025 · 2 yrs

      Speaking at key events around the world, participating in panels at large political conferences, challenging policy makers and inspiring young people. Involved in the marketing of the Worldskills international social media channels and helping present its various initiatives on the run up to Worldskills Lyon 2024.

    • Champions Trust Representative - Europe
      Nov 2019 - May 2023 · 3 yrs 7 mos

  • Electronic Arts (EA) (Codemasters Birmingham, United Kingdom)
    • Experienced Environment Artist
      Mar 2019 - Feb 2021 · 2 yrs

      After my promotion to experienced artist, I was moved onto the environment team specialising in the cinematics for the game. Here I worked with many parties such as our outsource studio, and externally communicated with the F1 teams to implement their feedback. I also worked very closely with the animation and lighting teams to deliver career mode features such as my team and the various showroom environments.

    • Environment Artist
      Jan 2017 - Mar 2019 · 2 yrs 3 mos

      I joined the team at Codemasters working on the Formula One game after being headhunted at a WorldSkills competition. I had the pleasure of starting my career on the track team in the Birmingham studio. I worked with the senior and lead artists to deliver improvements across many tracks already existing and bring legacy ones reentering the game to the visual target. I also had some collaboration with the vehicle team helping create some procedural systems which gave me my love of working on some of the finer details in our game and lead to me getting a promotion.

  • 3D Art Classroom Assisstant at Cheshire College - South & West
    Sep 2016 - Jan 2017 · 5 mos

    Working with year one and two game development level 3 students to help improve skills on software such as 3DS MAX, Photoshop and Unreal. With a focus of entering Worldskills competitons in mind. I also provided 1 to 1 support at the Skills Show competition to one our students, advising him at key stages of competition helping him push for the medal finish he rightfully deserved.