11-24-07
The journey continues...got a new gig working at EA on the Sims. I've only been there a short while, but it's been a great experience so far. The animation opportunities on this project are amazing and I'm happy to be working on something personality based. It's a nice change up from the often action-heavy game animation work (not that action animation isn't also very fun!). I get to flex the acting muscle now and I feel I'm already improving in different areas. Joy!

10-25-07
So there's been a "slight" delay in my plans to build a new website, most of which involves actually learning how to do that! I've been working at Cinematico here in SF on a new TV show for Adult Swim on cartoon network. It's my first real foray into motion capture, and I've actually found it not nearly as unenjoyable as I had feared in the past. I find it very much like being an assistant or cleanup animator. Needless to say it's given me an itch for all things cartoony though! All that aside, there are some juicy keyframe tidbits I get my hands on every once in a while, and the experience overall has been very positive. So about the website, updates soon I hope, but no more promises!

7-2-07
New Demo Reel and Resume up. I'm in the process of designing the new site and getting all the assets together. The hope is to have that up in the next few weeks.
In other news, I saw Ratattouille last weekend, and it was amazing! The rats are so gorgeously ratty, it's beautiful!!! I'll probably see it a few more times just to absorb everything. Thank you Pixar, thank you Brad Bird, thank you animation!

6-19-07
AHOY! As promised I have some updates. The site isn't quite redone...well it isn't at all redone actually, but I do have some nice new videos! I'm most excited about finally being able to show my Fantastic Four work, as the game shipped just last friday (the 15th). I've put together a reel of what I consider my best work from the project, some of which is my own dabblings with the characters while I was at Visual Concepts and did not actually get into the game itself. Speaking of which, my contract did come to an end at VC, and while it was a let down to have to leave the team, it seems many new possibilities are opening up! Without further hinderance, here is a temporary link to my F4 Animation reel:

F4_AnimReel.mov(28mb)

In still other news, I recently finished up some freelance work for Attik Design here in SF. Good group of people to work with and definitely an interesting mix up to work in a design environment. You can check out the site I did the work for here.
WARNING! For those who might object to such this work is extremely violent.
I did all animation and most of the blood FX for all the interactive games themselves (not the opening cinematics to each chapter or any non-interactive cinematics). There are a few exceptions to that rule, as I did animate some "finishing moves" for a fighting game section that are full motion videos and a bunch of character introduction videos called "Meet the Deviants" at the end. You'll recognize these by a prison-style line up of characters with links you can click on for each one. For these I also did some of the post FX, camera moves, focusing and whatnot as well as all rendering and compositing. As far as the games go, a fair amount of my timing choices (I actually animated on 2's, 3's and occasionally 1's in Maya and rendered out individual images for the games) were changed for programming reasons. So, not all of it gets the full effect I wanted, but it's all there and still looks pretty spiffy! It was interesting to see what I could accomplish under the deadline. To my surprise I ended up animating an average of 1 "Meet the Deviants" video a day! Some took a bit longer, expecially for FX work, but once I got in the groove it all started rolling pretty smoothly. To get a better look at these, here's a reel of the work:

Freelance_AttikReel.mov(39mb)

4-21-07:

I've been working as an animator at Visual Concepts for a few months now. It's been so much fun, we're working on the Fantastic Four game to come out in conjunction with the new film. The team is awesome and I've just had an amazing time there so far. I'll be posting some work from the project as soon as the game releases, lots of fun stuff to show. In other news, for those of you who check this for updates, there must be some of you...right? But anyway, I'm considering revamping the site with some new designs and an easy to update "blog-like" format. Should this happen anytime soon, I'll also have a set of links to fellow artists and some amazing animation rescources. Until that time all of you frame pirates should really be signing up for the animation mentor newsletter (www.animationmentor.com). It has some pure gold rocks of wisdom from Shawn Kelly (ILM). I tell ya, even this guys self described "ramblings" have great bits of wisdom in them. Another recent priceless dicovery is the spline doctors, you should really check out all they have to offer (www.splinedoctors.com). Let's leave on a tought for the day/month/week or however often it gets updated.

For those who have animated anything at 60 fps, isn't is just too smooth? I love 24 fps, I've been doing some animation oustide of work and the timing breakdowns are so much nicer. And it just looks better! It's probably the same reason I like some low poly game models better than their smoothed couterparts; sometimes smoother is just smoother, not better. I'd love for games to be at 24 fps, or at least back to 30! Just a thought. Peace!

A few months ago...
WOW! It certainly has been a while since I've updated this thing. However, that doesn't mean I haven't been busy with new things in the least bit. Unfortunately most of it will have to wait to be shown until certain games are released, but I've worked on some really good ones and had a blast doing it. Although this website is plastered with the word "Animator" all over it I've actually been doing more of a 3D artist job (modeling, texturing, implementation and all that jazz). It's been fun to develop those skills and push myself to a whole new level in that area. But animation is calling for me once again, I've been keeping up on it in my spare time and have a few new pieces I'm quite fond of. Check out the updated demo reel to see those new pieces; there are even some new characters this time around. Plus, some new tricks from the old ones!