LOVE/HATE

I’ve been playing Starcraft 2 a lot lately… because I’m not in front of my computer enough as it is. I have a serious problem.

Nike Dunk Me

I need more colors!!

Brb…

Beginning of Summer Update

Just some random thoughts and happenings…

1) I was featured on ReelRoulette’s Top 20 reels. I came in at #7. Nick Campbell continues to do wonderful things for the design and mograph community. Loving it.

2) Twitter has easily become my #1 visited website each and every morning. It gives me behind the scenes, fascinating news, advice and inside scoop on people/companies I actually care about. I have some pretty interesting people following me as well (@stinkdigital, @Attik_US, @nailguntv, @motionographer, @juxtinteractive, @razorfish, @b_reel, @struckaxiom, @click3X, @snowboardermag, @driftlab…) to name a few. Go follow them!

3) Wrapping up some freelance projects and hopefully jumping back on a project I started with ToyNinja a couple weeks ago. Great brand and clothing.

4) I got a dope iPhone case from Nailgun, a motion studio in NYC. http://twitpic.com/1nau3e

5) Go check out my friend’s website: www.writingthepine.com for some entertaining sports insights.

6) Did a small interview with a student from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. I actually learned a bit more about myself in the process of answering his questions. Will share that on another post.

7) I’m making a big move next week and really excited. More on that later…

NYC DSLR meetup w/Philip Bloom

The inner geek in me came out last wednesday as my friends and I congregated to Times Square for the big NYC DSLR meetup hosted by the master himself, Philip Bloom. It was cool seeing like minded professionals and hobbyists take over Times Square with their cameras hanging around their necks and talking the latest tech talk. When the man himself finally showed up, we swarmed around him like vultures. Tourists and passerby’s were asking if he was someone famous and Philip said it best by telling one young girl, “if you’re not into geeky technology, you won’t know me.” Anyways, I’ve followed his blog for quite some time now so it was nice to finally see him in person. © Photos by good friend and flash wiz Chi Gao

Updates

Wow, I’ve realized it’s been almost 2 months since my last post. I guess that’s what happens with the increased popularity of micro-blogging and the quick and easy use of Twitter. I’ve been busy at work with pitches and spending lots of time inside After Effects for holiday greetings, logo animations and updating the new Last Exit website. I have a handful of projects I need to add to my portfolio site. In the meantime, check out my latest project here.

2010 is around the corner and I expect big things for the new year! Happy Holidays.

Happy 2009

Just recently came back from an amazing trip to Japan. Great food, great company and overall a great way to end 2008. With a new year comes new resolutions and new goals. I personally have about 10. Whether or not I accomplish them is another story.

My new year’s advice courtesy of a randomly saved RTF file from May 2008:
“Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.”

Vague? Yes. Sappy? Of course. Inspirational? Perhaps. Happy new year everyone.

3D modeling

I’ve been playing around more in 3D. In the future, I want to build an entire metropolis from the ground up and then let a monster run wild. Brainless fun – helps keep your sanity…

Some Randomness

Random #1: My top 3 link addictions of the week month.

1. Chase Jarvis
2. Buysnow.com
3. Tokidoki

Random #2: Why would anyone ever shoot interlaced footage? My very wonderful, super slick, super cool Canon HF100 can shoot 24p, 30p and 60i but I find absolutely no reason to shoot in 60i. If I need to catch something moving quickly, I’ll just increase shutter and shoot progressive. I did a comparison on my computer and the 60 fields does not make any difference. In fact, all it does is create an extra step for me during post because I have to deinterlace. When will 60p be out???

Random #3: Speaking of shooting footage…the Phantom v12 shoots at 1000fps. That’s like watching a 5 minute video of a person yawning. That puts the RED camera, aka my dream camera, to shame.

Random #4: I’ve been playing around with a new version of my Burton snowboarding piece (see the ‘work in progress’ below). Winter can’t come soon enough. :/ 

Screenshot: 

Pictoplasma 2008 Conference

This past weekend, myself along with a couple other designers from Last Exit, attended Pictoplasma 2008 which was being held for the first time in New York City. It is a 3-day festival celebrating character design and animation and attracts some pretty big names in the animation world.

Speakers included:
• Sam Lanyon Jones – Tokyo Plastic
• Philip Hunt – Studio AKA
• Sam Borkson & Arturo Sandoval – Friends With You
• Gangpol & Mit
• Akinori Oishi
• Aaron Stewart
• Motomichi Nakamura
• Tim Biskup
• David Oreilly
• Fons Schiedon

My favorite presentation was Sam’s of Tokyo Plastic. Not only is he brilliant at what he does, he is also a very humble, funny, eloquent speaker. I especially loved the story when he spoke of his time over in Thailand. Him and his partner would party until 6am, go to sleep, wake up in the afternoon, work until night, start rendering files and then go out and do it all over again. Now that’s a rockstar designer’s life if I ever knew one! The conference was small and intimate which was perfect for Q&A. I got the chance to ask Sam if he was ever going to do another project using Flash after the successful Drum Machine he did years ago in Flash 6. That was really the first project that catapulted Tokyo Plastic to fame and I found it interesting that they haven’t done many more projects with flash. He said he would love to go back to flash animation and hopefully he will in the near future.

Studio AKA was also magnificent. Their new short film ‘Varmints’ is visually breath taking. I firmly believe that they could be close to ‘Pixar’ level if they solely concentrated on film production.

David Oreilly’s presentation was also very entertaining. Everyone should check out OCTOCAT. I’m sure you can find out about the back story if you do a quick search. Absolutely hilarious.

Each speaker was brilliant in their own right and this weekend was just the sort of inspirational boost I needed. I came home flooded with ideas in mind and techniques I wanted to try but most importantly, it gave me the urge to start drawing again. Yes, drawing – the thing you do with pencil and paper. I just want to ride this wave of inspiration/creativity for as long as I can.