Avatar

Wow... what a frickin amazing movie this turned out to be!!! Thank you Neville Page (lead creature designer who hired me) for giving me the opportunity to be involved in something so special. I took a seven month 'sabbatical' from Gnomon to work full-time in the art dept from '06-'07, knowing that the experience of working on an epic sci-fi Cameron was something I just couldn't miss. There were about 25 artists at Lightstorm where I worked (more at other locations), and being in the same place as Neville (with whom I shared an office), Ben Procter, James Clyne, Yuri Bartoli, Tully Summers, Tyruben Ellingson, Daphne Yap, Jordu Schell, etc... was truly a privilege. When I joined the creature crew, most of the work was being done in 2D/clay with a little bit of Zbrush, so my role was to bring in 3D so that I could further develop some of the creatures in ways that 3D is best suited. I worked a lot on the Banshee, as well as the Leonopteryx, Fan Lizard, Woodsprites, Direhorse, and some other secondary creatures.... resolving 3D models, doing texture/shader look development, integration tests with paintings by Dylan Cole, rigging and pose tests, animation, etc. Its crazy that this is almost two years ago... What Weta pulled off is just mind boggling. Really the most overwhelmingly intense non-stop visual feast I've ever seen. It has been quite a while since I wanted to see a movie again, immediately. I've only seen it twice, but I know another viewing is right around the corner. Hats off to the hundreds of artists who contributed to it and to James Cameron for being a genius (who btw wasn't a tyrant as people say, but was always quite friendly during his weekly visits with the creature crew). And thanks again Neville! $2B and counting. Crazy.