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Showing posts from 2009

Happy Holidays

In my personal tradition of spreading holiday giggles by sharing a wacky video, this December, I thought I'd go a little darker than usual. Enjoy. :)

Jazz Hands Pick-me-up

As corny as it sounds, I've recently found that no matter how discouraged or annoyed I am, the following video always seems to make me smile at least a little. Being a fan of good karma, I now share it with you.

Job Hunting

As implied by some of my previous posts, I've been looking for steady work for quite a while now. (Yeah, yeah, it's rough out there now ... we all know.) So, in the interest of staying vigilant while possibly helping others, I whipped up the following job hunting blog for CG artists like myself: http://fxjobhunt.blogspot.com/ I'm still goofing around with the functionality and overall design, but I say, if it helps just one artist find work, that's a good thing. I just hope that one artist is me or someone I happen to give a damn about. ;)

Bachelor Thanksgiving

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One cool thing about living with a trio of single guys in their early twenties: No matter how unconventional or simple the Thanksgiving spread is, they are all just thankful to have a filling, somewhat home-cooked meal with dessert. :) Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Fall '09 Show Reel

As darn near everyone and their sister knows, I've been looking for work in visual FX (film, TV, video games) for kind of a while now. A few days ago I cut together a brand new demo reel to showcase the skills I've been honing of late, particularly in the past year or so. Constructive feedback is both welcome and appreciated... but of course, a productive job lead would definitely be preferred. ;)

Happy Graduation, DAVE Students

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I already shouted this out on Facebook and Twitter ... but why not here too? Congratulations to all my friends in the 30th class of the Digital Animation and Visual Effects school of Orlando Florida . You guys rock to no freaking end. Now get your asrses out there and make some crazy Hollywood $#!t that looks damn freaking cool! ;)

SIGGRAPH 2009 in Louisiana

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Laptops and gawky long lines at Starbucks by day, loud drunken antics and scantily clad women by night... This is the dichotomy that is the SIGGRAPH graphics and interactive media convention hosted in New Orleans. New Orleans in and of itself is an enigmatic town, in some ways reminiscent to me of Boston, but with it’s own distinct southern flare and funk. From the airport to the infamous Bourbon Street, the town is an abrasively rebounding historical city with a cool jazz and blues backbone and a late night stench that gives New York a run for it’s money. It proved an interestingly bizarre backdrop for a nerd-fest such as SIGGRAPH, complete with hordes of technology pros and job-hungry creative geeks like myself, all swarming to attend. In addition to trying to network while pimping our demo reels, my buddies and I had a very interesting time both in and out of the conference. From playing with crazy new technology by day to exploring the Bourbon street area at night, some of the wee

Flyin' Round the South

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This week, my roommates and I are attending the SIGGRAPH computer graphics exhibition in New Orleans. We haven't even arrived in New Orleans yet, and I already can tell this is gonna be an adventure. First off, when I initially booked the trip, at the time, I could not find any affordable packages with direct flights to Louisiana. Thus, at the moment, I am typing this from Tennessee due to the unorthodox route indicated below. Also, to add further wackiness, my zany roommate Andrew has proved in his own little way that you can get away with saying "bomb" on an airplane. :P This is only 3 hours into the trip with the terror alert level at black watch plaid ... feel free to stay tuned... ;)

Customer Support

As anyone who follows me on Twitter can infer, I had an amazingly frustrating time this past week dealing with the Dell computer company's customer support staff. I am tempted to go on a rant about it here, but I have to admit, the whole experience has already actually left me a little ranted out right now... as well as slightly fearful that some of what I say could be misconstrued as racist against Indian people. So, I'll just keep this post short and share the following classic web videos, obviously created by people who have shared my pain at some point. Please enjoy...

Hoping Everyone Had a Happy 4th

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Today, I thought I'd break my latest bout of blog-neglect by saying: I hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th of July yesterday! :) I'm glad to say that I had a good time, at least until some serious cookout gluttony that left me juggling a food coma with nighttime indigestion. However, after reading the news this morning, I found myself uplifted to see that certain tourists in New York had an extra-special and historically good day yesterday. http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2009-07-01-statue-of-liberty-crown_N.htm?csp=34 Climbing Lady Liberty and enjoying the view from her crown is pretty high on my list of awesome childhood memories, but when visiting the statue in more recent years, I have to say, it was downright saddening and scarily metaphoric of those times to get stopped short in the pedestal, finding one's self unable to truly enjoy Liberty in the name of security. Thankfully, things look very different now and the next time I visit New York, I plan to r

Explainations

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Earlier this week, I had intended to write a blog entry detailing my experiences taking a road trip with some buddies to attend the Evolve 3D animation conference in Fort Lauderdale last weekend. I had also intended to explain my last brief and weird blog entry a bit. Unfortunately, more serious obligations hijacked my week and this is the first time I've been willing and able to blog since the last entry. On the topic of Evolve 3D, several days later, I really don't have too much to say about it. With the exception of one really good speaker , the conference was actually quite a letdown on the whole. The event started really late, half the speakers weren't very informative and the whole "job fair" portion only consisted of six recruiters with only a few seeming serious about looking for talent. Suffice to say, I seriously doubt I ever would pay to attend Evolve 3D again if it becomes a recurring event. As it turns out, rather than the actual event I traveled for

To whom it may concern...

As I write this, I am in the middle of another slightly adventurous weekend... and while I intend to write a substantial blog entry explaining it a bit... for the time being, I am simply going to quickly use the wifi connection available to me right now to tell the world: If I get arrested or killed this weekend, it is my friend Dwight’s fault! :P

A Weekend With Family

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The act of visiting one’s family and friends can take many forms and contexts, but this Easter weekend, for me, it was mainly a welcome change of pace. For numerous reasons, both practical and irrational, I took an short break from my life in Florida to visit my parents as well as a few other loved ones in Massachusetts over this weekend . Unfortunately, my excursion north was somewhat hampered due to a seasonal illness passed to me from my roommate in the most recent demonstration of timing that implies him to be an escapee from a wacky sitcom... but regardless … as implied by the image of my homegirl above, as well as the silly video below, I didn’t let any mere cold virus ruin too much of my fun. The following is a Youtube video of me using a laser pointer to mess with my brother's cat... In the name of simple humor, I am NOT above cliche! ;)

Follow-Ups

I was looking over my last few blog posts this morning and I thought I'd follow up on some things mentioned in recent months. First off, it seems that chick who lost her blackberry in the bars of Orlando this past Saint Patty's day doesn't want it back. She shut off her service before me and my roommate could have the fun of calling random contacts to try to return it... and we were gonna start with the one labeled "OBGYN " ...D'oh! Secondly, as a follow-up to my Superbowl Sunday post this year, I've recently seen that I'm not the only one who's been having question mark thoughts about how Gatorade conducts itself in the promotional sense. While stumbling the web, I found this blog entry from a photographer with a very familiar name (thanks yet again for the creativity Mom and Dad). - Chris O'Connell Photography: Ain't Nothin' but a G Thang .

Erin Go Bragh!

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Here's to hoping everybody had a safe and fun Saint Patty's yesterday! ...one of the few occasions you can actually get me to have a beer. ;) Oh, and BTW: to the chick out there who's drunk-ass boyfriend lost her Blackberry in downtown Orlando last night... apparently, he cracked the screen and then gave it away to my equally drunk-ass friend. So, FYI: we'll be calling random numbers on your long-ass contact list this evening to try to return it. :P ...on another note, meet Adam: MILFs everywhere, beware his Irish charms! .

MegaCon!!!

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In spite of bearing certain interests and behaviors that have labeled me quite the "geek" or "nerd" throughout my life, I had never attended any kind of science fiction or comic book convention, until recently. This weekend, " MegaCon " is going on in central Florida, and in the spirit of both trying something new and just being a pal, I got to go for free while helping fellow artist Jeff Brennan work his comic signing table. I do have to admit it was quite a fun experience to find myself in a sea of humanity comprised of quasi-celebrities, racially-divergent anime characters, hopeful media merchants and painted faces (often resembling the late Heath Ledger). I walked among them all, wandering about while eyeballing all sorts of cool and fun-looking collectibles that my broke ass can’t currently afford and have no real space for anyway. I’ve gotta say, it was pretty fun. Mind you, my heart went out to certain actors and models signing autographs, as

Happy President's Day

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Now that we finally have a decent one, it's more like a real holiday! :)

Gay Ol' Super Bowl Sunday

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So, this weekend, my roommates and I did some grocery shopping and I couldn't help but to be amused and snap a shot or two of this promotional sand sculpture that Gatorade set up at our local store for Super Bowl Sunday. Given that Gatorade's slogan is " is it in you " one has to ponder how much the guy in front looks happy and the guy in back looks comfortable. Seriously, jeez! As if American Football didn't have enough intense clutching and thrusting already. Exactly how fierce is Gatorade Fierce ? Well, now I officially never want to know! :P Have a fun and safe Super Bowl Sunday, folks! :)

Animating Both Old and New School

Over the past several months I've been whipping my digital 3D art skills into serious shape, and recently I've shifted my focus to animation. Over the years, it seems I've taken a crack at every kind of animation-oriented software you can imagine, be it from Milkshape to 3DS Max , or from Clickteam's products to those of Adobe … but now as I tinker and familiarize with the animation idiosyncrasies of Lightwave Layout , I find that the challenge of my focus is not simply on what or where to click . Ad mittedly, what a lot of people don't know about animation is for it to be truly effective, as with any art, established time honored principles must be acknowledged. Animation has to to maintain a performance that represents elements of reality through the building of image sequences that the viewer seamlessly interprets as motion, regardless of artistic style. While it's very important to know or understand the varying features and functions of any modern tool

Working & Chillaxing into the New Year

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I hope everyone had a safe and happy time this past New Years Eve. With luck, 2009 will be way more prosperous and sexy than '08 was. Feeling a little under the weather the other night, I actually didn't do much exciting to usher in the new year. However, in the interest of keeping people posted on what I've been up to over my current holiday break, aside from beating MK vs DC at least once a day on the 360 and working on an illustration project for a good friend, I've also been continuing my quest to beef up my 3d art skills. The images below represent recent works in progress and are pretty much just for fun... but feel free to enjoy and offer feedback nonetheless. :) Gundammit all! :P Breaking down the concept: "pretty boy" Gotta get him some better hair plugs. :) .