Behind The Scenes...

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While my story may be similar to a lot of artists it's certainly a unique one. I grew up on the East Coast along the Appalachian Trail. As you can imagine, with fourteen foot (4.267 meter) snow banks, a plethora of snowball fights, inner-tube sliding after hours at the ski resort and summers by the river or exploring the woods. Times were a lot different back then as I remember spending many hours at night around the kitchen table drawing with my Aunt and Uncles, playing Chinese checkers or learning how to play chess. All of this while our Dad would spend time making sure the fire kept the house nice and warm from the frigid cold outside. Nights we would draw together were filled with blueprints for house plans, two and three point perspective architectural drawings and a whole three-ringed binder of Tippy the turtle, the Pirate and "Tiny" the mouse. Needless to say, I was never too far away from a pencil and a sketch book.

As time passed I kept up with my creative side by adding in music. I still remember my first guitar was a 80's Fender Squire Strat that was red with a black pick guard and that barely stayed in tune, hahaha. Later on there was an addition of a Peavy DPM-3, a 4-track cassette recorder/mixer and an ART SGX-2000 effects processor. It's hard to say how many days and weeks I would spend in my studio apartment above the pizza shop writing and recording music. Of course when Cakewalk Pro came out that was a whole game changer as using MIDI and smpte time code to sync everything was incredibly freeing.

Fast-forward to late 1998 I learned of a program called Blender 3D. I instantly fell in love with 3D and began learning all I could about taking my ideas and getting them in to the computer. Of course it was quite a challenge since there were only books at the time on how to model inside the application but with each chapter came progress and eventually new worlds and characters began to emerge from the screen. I vividly recall one evening while I was working on an animation of the gingerbread model. My daughter was in my lap sleeping and I laughed a little too much at my animation which resembled that of a puppet character on a wooden stick. Arms and legs wildly bouncing around erratically jutting off in to various directions. When suddenly, my daughter woke up, looked at the screen and began to laugh so hard at what I created. This was, without a doubt, the moment the I realized that my goal was to work in film and games. To be able to be a part of telling stories that provoke emotions and that filled the imagination like all of the artists work I grew up watching. From movies to animated cartoons; the artists all brought us on incredible and epic journeys.

Present day so many things have evolved as have the artists. With Zbrush, Maya, Blender, animation courses like Animation Mentor and a host of other applications and drawing tools; being a creative is certainly a rewarding experience. Nothing could be more rewarding though than seeing how much being an artist has played a part; not only in my journey, but to see my daughter following a similar path. It reminds me of all the times we've had together around the kitchen table or times we've spent discussing a shot with excitement and laughter. Even our time recreating our own likeness using Unreal Engine and Metahuman identities, the creative passion has always been and will always be a part of our family.

So you may be asking "What's next?" As a UI/UX developer by day and artist at night my passion for web, film and games is even stronger than ever. I'm working toward sharing and learning from other incredibly talented people from within the software and entertainment industries. Below you'll find links to my Artstation and LinkedIn. Please feel free to reach out to me on either platform with any new opportunities or for networking.