Ever since I was young, I always had a strange and unique fascination for combining the artistic and technical together. From building computer programs at the early age of seven, to creating fully featured and technically achieving 3D animated films in high school. If there was one thing I could say about my early years is that I have always enjoyed pushing the envelope as far I could.  My achievements were quickly recognized as I was awarded scholarships to attend film acadamies. 

 

I graduated California State University Long Beach in the field of Computer Science, with additional studies in art and animation in 2012.  My skills are extensive in both fields and tend to combine these fields with any chance I have. I was carefully trained and mentored for many years by Aubry Mintz, one of the great professors of the Animation Department at California State University Long Beach, now ranked #7 in top animation schools on the west coast.  Aubry and I worked on many animated projects together through the years.  I would be in charge of inking, painting, animation pipeline optimization, technical animation and solving just about every difficult situation that was brought forth with the animation paradigm and even creating new tools to solve the problem at hand.  My critial thinking skills and technical side were of real benefit, it was then my nickname, "The Wizard", was given to me by my mentor.  

 

I am well versed in Java/Javascript, C/C++ and Python. This, along with my skills and concepts that I have learned in art and animation, I have combined both to also work on graphics engines such as Unity and even create graphics/physics engines and plug-ins for animation software such as After Effects, 3D Studio MAX and Maya, as well as animate, model and texture in productions and optimize animation pipelines to help decrease time.

 

Through the years I have freelanced my skills to productions and have worked at studios, such as Fourth Wall Studios – a studio in which engaged its viewers with multiple mediums such as the internet and Android/iOS devices at the same time for a more engaging, interactive experience. I was in charge of many aspects of the production, from creating pseudo 3D worlds in After Effects, to rigging in After Effects (Using tools such as DuIK) and even programming and creating my own phonetic speech/animation system for the production so that animators could use these tools and create smooth facial expressions and animate/lip sync to per-recorded speech.

 

Along with my freelancing to productions, I have used Toon Boom software quite heavily, with optimizing the animation pipeline, using quick painting and drawing techniques with different art styles, rigging puppets and compositing and vectorizing traditional animation together for a clean, final, rendered product. I also used my skills in Maya and 3D Studio with modeling, texturing, tool creation with the Python programming language and technical animation, to help achieve the vision the client/director requested for their animated productions.

 

Currently I am continuing my freelance work and leading multiple animated productions, from a music video to web series and my own animated film titled 'J2'.  All of these projects (and all projects) require exclusive attention to detail in all stages of the production and most importantly, communication with all others who are involved with the projects in order for the project to move forward efficiently.

 

In the future, I see myself doing exactly what I have always loved to do, combine the technical with the artistic and constantly achieve for more, break new ground and set new standards for myself and those I work with.  

 

 

And this is why many call me, “The Wizard”.