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When I was 14 years old while watching a behind the scenes look of Disney's the Lion King.

When I was a kid, I loved watching Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and on the DVD, there was a "How to Draw Spirit" bonus feature taught by James Baxter. I asked my mom to follow his steps so that I could have my own drawing. However, she told me to do it myself. Although my drawing was not very good, I had a lot of fun. Since then, I have loved making art and learning new ways of making it. I feel the happiest when I am making art and problem solving.

At 12 years old

When I played my first ever video game, it was an amazing experience and I've only wanted more since, to bring worlds that don't exist to life.

Ever since I was about 5 years old, around the time I first watched Toy Story, I wanted to be an animator.

Growing up I loved to get lost in my drawings and paintings. I felt that it was something that came naturally to me and that I could improve on with some extra time and effort. After returning home from a 2 year mission to Japan, I learned more about computer animation and since then I have enjoyed the journey of learning new tools, creating new pieces of art, and exploring new creative horizons.

I grew up with Nintendo games, loved the cool cinematics from games like Final Fantasy X, watched a lot of Ghibli movies and thought: "Hey! I could make a living doing this. Let's go for it! What? A school near me is nationally ranked for its animation program?" Done. Demo Reel: https://youtu.be/ZwOfVWBZXKk

I first got interested in 3D when I was 10 years old. My first published work was my elementary school on Google Earth. From there I've continued learning in Blender, Maya, Substance, and Houdini. I'm very excited to be studying animation in the university and to see where I can go from here!

You've probably heard that "Competition breeds success." In my case, competition bred a lifelong passion and paved the way for a clear career choice. In middle school, my friend Jayson I figured out how to make stop motion videos. We constantly tried to one-up each other, and the videos kept getting more complicated. He eventually moved on to different hobbies, but many years later, video in all mediums is still my #1 passion.

During my senior year of high school as I was weighing my options about what I wanted to study after graduation I kept finding myself drawn to animation. Animation was never something I had previously considered , but the more I looked into it I felt that it was everything I wanted. My decision to work in animation is one of the best choices I've made.

I decided I wanted to work in the animation industry when I was twelve and watched Danny Phantom for the first time. I remember realizing that people made cartoons and that I could make cartoons if I worked hard! Ever since then I've found an increasing love for creating stories and putting them out into the world.

I realized just over a year ago when a friend told me about a 3D modeling class she took. She gave me her notes and maya license from the class, and I made my very first 3D model. From that point I was hooked and I haven’t been able to get enough since.

Like a little printing press, I was churning out comic books for my friends daily through elementary school. I loved surprising them, listening to them theorize about what would come next, and being begged by them to write more. In 6th grade I got into Game Maker and found my love for programming. My storytelling medium changed, but I knew I still wanted to go into entertainment.

I'm unique in that I had no knowledge of how to draw or produce figurative artwork before I discovered I wanted to pursue animation. In college I explored the option of studying animation and fell in love with it, but to my dismay I quickly found out that I had to learn how to draw. Fortunately it turned out that I was a fast learner and quickly improved my figurative artwork to the level necessary to be accepted into a top tier program.

When I was in high school I went to a summer camp that taught 3D modeling. I have enjoyed learning and working in 3d disciplines ever since! I love modeling, shading, and effects. Especially anything that requires procedural workflows or interesting problem solving to figure out! I love working in teams and collaborating with others!

I loved to draw and tell stories all the time when I was growing up. And then in high school, I fell in love with Disney's Big Hero 6 and realized that making movies like that could be my career! After doing some digging and continuously drawing, I went to Brigham Young University and was accepted into their animation program.

I've always admired the creativity coming out of the game industry. The craftsmanship, design and ingenuity is something that I absolutely want to be a part of one day.

Well I got into this mess of wanting to do animation because of giant robots and spaceships (ie. Pacific Rim and Star Wars). I got into an even bigger mess of rigging because of more giant robots and spaceships (This time being Pacific Rim and Halo). I like to be surrounded by people who have the same fascinations as I do because they're really fun to talk to and its fun to explore solutions and ideas with them. I especially like Animators because they make my stuff look good.

I can explicitly remember watching Moana in 2016 and crying over how pretty the texturing/shading and lighting was. This awakening to the entertainment industry transformed my dreams into a tangible goal to build towards. I grew up surrounded by animated content and spent a significant chunk of my free time enveloped in games that this path feels like home.

I was infatuated with the idea of making video games shortly after I switched my major to computer science. Once I realized CS skills played a key role in creating all of my favorite video games, I knew I would enjoy this creative experience.

When I was a little kid, I adored the morning cartoons more than any other media. One day, it struck me that my favorite shows don't just come out of nowhere--somebody out there has to create them. Ever since then, I realized I could be that person that creates inspiring stories that push the boundaries of what we think is possible.

I was in my early teens when I realized that I wanted to be involved in the creative industry. Some of my favorite things to do growing up were playing video games and learning the music in those games on the piano. The wonderful soundtracks I listened to and learned inspired me to pursue composition, and my passion and appreciation for video games as a whole has grown ever since.

I realized I wanted to work in this industry as soon as I realized it was an option. I was raised on superhero cartoons and being a part of that was a dream to young me and I was dead set on the animation industry. It wasn't until I got to college and bought myself a used copy of Skyrim that I started getting into gaming, but from there it was only a matter of time before I set myself on doing concept art for video games.