ABSTRACT
Q. What inspired you to become an artist on CG films? A. I have always been a fan of animation and VFX from childhood. Since I could hold a pencil, I have also always been a painter and very much involved in the arts. I have worked in all mediums from chalk, oil paints, to spray paint while doing graffiti murals ... I grew up in NYC so it was very much a part of my culture. But after college I needed to work and find a way to make steady money. Painting murals and selling my work really didn’t appeal to me as I wanted to keep all of it to myself and not sell anything. I started on my current path in magazine graphics learning image manipulation using programs like Photoshop and After Effects on old Macintosh clones. That became a bit boring and repetitive technically and it failed to really challenge me. I eventually decided to get a Masters of Fine Art from SVA in NYC to really learn 3D/motion graphics/film making. After that I worked in advertising and video game cinematics for a few years at various places like R/GA and Blur. But really, what I wanted to do was the high-end feature films because of how large-scale and polished they are. Eventually my reel became good enough for DreamWorks and they moved me to San Francisco to light for Shrek 2.
