Thursday, February 5, 2009

"America's Next Top Model" contestant with Asperger's plans for career in video game development

From Joystiq.com:

Heather Kuzmich, a top-five finalist from Cycle 9 of America's Next Top Model, will soon be modeling something other than clothes: video game characters.

Kuzmich, who overcame the social hurdles of Asperger's Syndrome (a mild form of Autism) to appear on the show, has enrolled in a video game art design program at the Illinois Institute of Art.

Interviewed on the blog of Voodoo PC founder, Rahul Sood, Kuzmich said, "To be honest, I always wanted to do something that included art and creating stuff with my hands. At first I wanted to get into costume design, but that soon changed to game design, especially since I frigging love games and love doing weird designs for
characters."

Kuzmich is a gaming fangirl, but she's decidedly platform agnostic. She plays on PS3, Wii, DS and PC, citing the Resident Evil series, Final Fantasy VII, Prince of Persia and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic as some of her all-time faves. In other words: she's a model gamer.