ABOUT ME

When I was a kid, I had always known I wanted to work with computers when I was older. I initially thought about fields such as programming, software creation, or even hardware maintenance. I felt like I was on the right train of thought, but none of those truly struck my fancy. Programming is essentially learning another language though, and the other two still didn't feel quite right. However, these ideas were swirling around prior to high school. I still had plenty of time to decide what I wanted to do, after all.

Skip ahead to my Sophomore year of high school in 2017. I'm sitting in my room watching YouTube shortly after finishing my homework, and I saw something that caught my interest: "Haloid". I vaguely remembered that name from when I was a kid, and went ahead and clicked on it. The gist of it was that it is fan animation where a Spartan from the Halo Franchise fought Samus from the Metroid Franchise. While the animation was old, it was still as impressive as I remembered it. I took a moment to look at the credits of the animation and saw who created the short animation: Monty Oum.

Let it be noted that that I had heard this name several times in the past. In my mind, he was most notably remembered for his work in the production called Red vs Blue by the company Rooster Teeth. After watching Haloid again, I was interested to see what he had been doing recently... until I noticed a video released by Rooster Teeth's official YouTube channel. The name of the video was "Tribute to Monty Oum | Rooster Teeth". I prepared myself, and as I suspected by the title, he was no longer with us. He had died early on in 2015.

After watching the video, I had sat there for a few minutes in reflection of all the things Mr. Oum worked on when I remembered something. There had been a show he personally created that he called RWBY (pronounced "ruby"). It had first started in 2013, but having seen it as a kid, I wasn't able to look past the visual style and see its story. In other words, I judged it by its cover when I was younger. I decided that I would watch the show all the way up to where it was then, which was Volume 5 at the time. I must say, that was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.

But how does any of this relate to me? How does watching a production that started in 2013 by this person impact my life that much? Well, it all comes down to one word: inspiration. Mr. Oum had set out to work on RWBY, and he didn't give up on it after its first rough season. He stuck with it, and helped to try to make it better all the way up until his death. Once I had finished Volume 5, I decided that I would begin devoting time to learning how animation and 3D modeling worked, as I was thoroughly impressed by the work that had been done on the show.

I showed the series to my mother and grandmother, who both took a liking to it as well after catching up. After conversing with them, we came to agree that it would definitely be worthwhile to seek out more information in this career path.

Let's jump ahead to the Fall of 2018 in my Junior year. I had already researched a great deal about the field, and my interest was still building. I was absolutely in love with the idea of being able to create practically anything I could imagine within a 3D space. However, having dipped into Autodesk Maya, I was pretty confused on where to actually start. I was having a hard time with the industry standard software, and the amount of tutorials available were, all things considered, rather limited. Interestingly, it was actually my mother who thought about a possible solution. Rooster Teeth had always held an annual convention in Austin simply referred to as RTX, and there was a pretty good chance of being able to get some insight from the people that actually worked in the industry. We began budgeting, and sure enough, we went to the convention during the summer of 2019.

That week was arguably the best of my life, and I had gotten some insight from not only people that worked at the company, but community members that also did their own thing. All around, everyone had recommended Blender to start out with, considering how sizable its community was and how many tutorials were available. I took their advice to heart, and that summer, I began creating 3D models. Over the next few months, my passion grew to critical mass. There was no doubt in my mind anymore. I was going to work on 3D modeling and animation, and I had Monty Oum to thank for providing me a spark to ignite my own passion. For that, I will be forever grateful.

I am now attending the University of Texas at Dallas under the school of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication. While Autodesk Maya is still not my favorite software, I am starting to learn how to works. My hope is that I will be able to apply for the Animation Concentration because, while I have since learned that my passion primarily resides in 3D modeling, the Animation Concentration will allow me to be closer to other modeling courses. If all goes well, I might graduate sometime in 2022 or 2023.

Update - October 29, 2022

 

I am currently a Senior at UT Dallas. I am expected to graduate in Spring 2023. I have updated this website to reflect my recent works, hope you enjoy what I have!

 

Update - April 23, 2023

 

I can confirm that I am graduating on May 15, 2023! At the time of writing this, I am in the process of polishing and wrapping up my Capstone project and researching various studios in Texas. As for why I'm specifically looking at Texas, I would like to remain somewhat close to home and family for a time. My grandmother is getting up in age, and I would like to be able to return should something happen, and I fear I would not be able to come back if I leave the state due to travel time and costs. Hopefully, this is an understandable stance to take.