About Me I was born in 1978 in Arizona. During the summer. I have been an artist my entire life. Like everyone else into art it all started with the crayon, and then evolved into different mediums. I have been known to create some interesting works of art out of random pictures from magizines. I have lived all over the states. Chicago, San Diego, Milwaukee, Honolulu. When your dad is in the Navy you tend to see a lot of the country. When I turned 10 or so I got a Commodore 64 from my parents, and I became hooked on computers from that point on. In fact, since then there is hardly a day that goes by that I don't sit in front of the digital deity for at least a couple fo hours. Some days I can be in front of it for 12-16. One of my more geekier moments in computing was back in 2000, when at the time I was into MUD's and was a coder for one and had spent over 24 hours awake and online coding and chatting. Won't do that again. Anyways, the interest in making 3D art was when Jurassic Park was released and I just could not believe what I was seeing was in fact computer animation. So over the next few years I saved money, bought one of the first PowerPC's and a cheap 3D package called Logomotion. This software was intended to create flying 3D logo animation. However I was not content with this and proceeded to make a crude but first of it's kind character animation of a monkey hitting itself in the head with a bat. I sent this is to the company Specular Intl. who at the time ran monthly art contests. They were so amazed they sent me a letter asking to beta test the next version. I happily agreed and soon put my poor little Mac into fits for months on end. I got the next version for free, as well as a T-shirt! Not bad for a 16 year old. Then at some point I decided to become a rock star. That was not the best of ideas, but I made some invaluable friends, made some kick ass tunes, had a few fans in other countries and was even on TV once (public access but some of my favorite bands had been on the show). During that time I really didn't do much in the way of 3D art, but I did however work on my graphics. Did some website design and learned a lot about computers. I lived way out in the country side of Wisconsin and there isn't much to do aside from tipping cows, so naturally I spent a lot of time in front of the computer screen (this was around the time of my 24 hour marathon). Eventually after moving around a bit trying to find myself and a stable place to devlop myself I wound up back in my adopted state of Illinios. Then the reality of the future set in and I started to finally realize that 3D art was my calling. I started working at a gas station and saved up more money to buy a new PC (by this time I had gone through several), and got Lightwave 7. As soon as I started to play with it I realized that everything I knew about 3D art was zilch, and I re-taught myself all over again. Within a year I was past anything I had ever done previously. But however this was also the time I found out I sucked at character animation and modeling, and instead focused more on particle and dynamic animation, shading and texturing as well as lighting. Turns out I loved it more than I realized. Somewhere around 2003 I ran into some Renderman software that was free, so figuring how hard could it be I downloaded them and started to learn this long running form of rendering. Once the reality set it that this was way over my skills I really started to learn it with a serious intent on doing this as a career, or at the very least a long running position. My life once again turned on it's head in the summer of 2005, and after pretty much losing everything including my girlfriend I moved to Portland Oregon, something my aunt had been asking me to do for years. In the first year however I learned that LAIKA opened it's doors and was on a hiring spree (still is), I also tried to get into school again to get a degree, and was involved with an indie movie that relied heavily on CG visual effects. Though I had to quit the active participation in the movie in the summer of 2006 due to school enrolement, I had learned quite a bit and was actually the Technical Director and for about 6 months worked very hard at setting up a pipeline using Blender, Maya and Pixie. Now I am attending Portland Community College, and working towards a Bach. of Computer Science. I also am working on my own short slated for internet release Christmas 2006, as well as developing the first short I dreamed up in 2002. I run a small forum to discuss the methods of Blender to Renderman exporting. I also speak freely on CGTalk.com. Other than that I really don't do much and hardly go out. I guess it is just as well because I did plently of partying and brain cell killing in my early 20's.