Humble Beginnings

So... I was going through my CDs the other day looking for a copy of some program when I ran across an old cd with my name scrawled across it. It then hit me where I got his from. It was a disk with my high school 3d work on it.

At my high school there was a random 3d studio max class. I had to take a really dumb class as a prereq. for it, but I was so excited to see what this 3d thing that I thought I wanted to do for a career was all about... and to make sure I enjoyed it before I spent the money to go to college. So our teacher pretty much had no idea how to use the software or how to animate or anything so we had books we would try to do things from and some tutorials online. I made pretty much the coolest gold fish project ever and was very proud of myself. It was after this class that I knew CG was for me. Looking back... wow... I mean... dangerous skills here haha.




This is the AWESOME fish animation I did... Yeah... those are blend shapes on his tail making him swim (if you can even see them). I was pretty much a camera animation genius. Man... so good... took all day to render this.

The class was mostly modeling and trying to make something that looked cool. Everything looked plastic and totally CG, but I think that was the point for us.









And finally here is a fireplace thing I modeled... very proud of it.

Happy Birthday Mama!

Today is my Ma's birthday... so this is a lil shout out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MA! Hope you enjoy your present!

Huntington Library

So this weekend Kevin, Gwen, Firat and I ventured over to Huntington Library in Pasadena to check out the sights there. Gwen went there once when she was little so it was a reminiscent trip for her. Good times were had by all... well... maybe not Firat who seemed to be at war with nature.

We started off by going to the Desert part of the Botanical Gardens.






We then made our way through a misc gardens until we reached the Japanese gardens. They had a lot of Bonsai trees there, disgustingly large koi, a budha, and a mock japanese house. Muy interesante!






After that we made our way up a tretcherous hill toward the rose garden of beauty... Took lots of glorious pictures of the strangely named roses... including a special one for my uncle Rex!






Right after the rose garden we tried to go into the tea house which was crazy packed so we enjoyed about 40 seconds of air conditioning before heading out into the heat and checking out the "rain forest" aviary... or whatever its called.






After that we narrowly escaped the wrath of a swarm of bees and a disgustingly large peach colored spider which disappeared 5 seconds after we ran underneath its web making barf noises in disgust there was a sculpture garden, but I'll spare you the photos as I'm sure this was more than you wanted to see anyways.

There's also great art/document galleries there too, but no pictures in there! Nice stuff... I'll definitely have to go back.

Once we were all sweaty and gross we came back and played with the monster for a little while and hit up some delish Korean BBQ... mmmm so good... so hot. Literally... I may have first degree burns on my face the grill was so close! MMMMmmmmMMMm Great Sunday!

Suuuuubs.

This post is primarily for my dad because he wanted me to send him pictures from the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage preview day that I took him to. It was a lot of fun and our first look at the ride all completed. Its really surreal to see your work out there and to know that people will be looking at it every day for the next 40 years and that I'll probably take my grandchildren (if I have any) on it!

So yeah ANYWAYS... here's some pictures and a video on the making of... featuring 1 second of me! Can we say FAMOUS!




For some reason he wanted his picture taken at the Burbank Airport... I passed.

Comic Con

So a couple of weekends ago me and Kevin ventured down to San Diego to go to Comic Con. It was a lot of fun and a lot busier than I remember last year being. Luckily we got up early enough to park in the parking structure and walk around a bit before things got really crazy. Unfortunately we were too late to pick up Scott Morse's new book :(.

I did manage to get over to Kevin Dart's booth and pick up this print. I've been admiring it for a while and when we ran across it at the convention I decided that would be my purchase for the day :)

We moseyed around for most of the day. Stopping to chat with friends to had booths and gawking at some of the interesting people the con had to offer. Of course I went mostly to look at toys and thank goodness side show didn't have anything I needed this year. BUT.... Gentle Giant is toying with my emotions by setting this awesome Voldemort 1:4 scale figure out. ME NEED! Unfortunately there was no release date for that... waaaah WAAAAAH!

It was a great day... except for the crazy traffic all the way back to Glendale... 3.5 hours worth. MEH. But yeah... successful :

Happy Birthday Michelle!

Today is my friend of 18 years' birthday. Crazy to think that we've been friends that long. Michelle and I lived across the street from each other from 1989-1994 and pretty much played together all 5 of those years. When I moved to Indiana we kept in contact by letter and eventually by email. We may not talk as often as we did back then, but we still keep in touch and I still consider her one of my closest friends. Unfortunately I have lost her phone number and can't call her today :(. But as soon as I find it I will give her a ring!

Consiquently it is also her brother's birthday (guy in the tube socks on the left, though they're not twins he's a year older)... so happy birthday to Paul too!

Sick day...

I've got some sort of stomache virus or something that woke me up in the middle of the night. So... I'm trying to get well at home today.

The other day I got a package in the mail from the Winnipeg International Film Festival. It was a plaque and a gift certificate. Seems as though I won the "Audience Favorite Short" in June. Its a really nice plaque, but unfortunately the gift certificat is for renting flim equipment in Canada. So um... I guess within the next year if I decide to give up animation and move to Canada I'm set! Its 1000 dollars woth too... dang. I'm still pretty honored though.

http://www.winnipegfilmfest.ca/

...and now back to sitting on the couch and sipping water.

The monster who hides under the couch

So this is me and Kevin's very first foster kitten. We decided to call him Houdini because we lost him in our apartment for about 12 hours when we first got him... so we figured his disappearing trick earned him the name. He's about 10 weeks old and has plumped up quite well from the skin and bones that I picked up last week. He's got quite the little belly now and walks with a little more of a waddle. He's really come out of his shell the past few days. Usually he'd just hide under the couch and you'd have to go in with a broom to get the lil booger close enough that you could grab him. But I got up this morning to a lil face making lil squeekie noises and wanting to be played with and petted. So... I stayed a lil past what I usually do to play and I might even go home for lunch since he's actually being somewhat entertaining. He's still got a lil ways to go and I figure he wont be up for adoption for another 3 or 4 weeks, but... if you're interested let me know :) He's awfully cute eh?