About
From a young age I loved drawing and would spend hours copying illustrations, mainly from comics. This lead to a comic / cartoon style of drawing that I’ve never lost. Then I discovered Rock Music, learnt to play the guitar and spent the rest of my formative years, as well as those afterwards, in bands playing in pubs, clubs, and doing studio / live session work. As I was surrounded by instruments and sound equipment I turned my hand to some sound engineering, did a course in electrical installations which gave me a trade. I continued playing guitar in various outfits and / or working as an electrician. Then in the recession of the ’80′s and ’90′s employment became scarce but I found some work doing guitar repairs.
Around this time computers were starting to come into everyday life so I did a course in Graphic Design learning Quark Xpress, Illustrator and Photoshop on Apple computers. As this new era in technology opened up the potential of application programs to me, it became clear that I had to find what I was best at. Creating music on computers at this period didn’t appeal to me because it was digital; analogue converters sounded terrible, but I had re-discovered my love of drawing and successfully applied to South Bank University where I did a degree in Special Effects and developed my CGI 3D Skills.
3D was what I was good at and I enjoyed it. I became less active on the musical front particularly as many of the venues discontinued booking bands, so I concentrated more on 3D and in the process migrated from 3DMax to Maya (which, in my opinion is far superior). I started teaching Maya and freelancing and have been doing so up to the present although the bias these days is more on teaching which I find rewarding.
Well, I think that’s enough about me so I hope you enjoy having a look around the site.
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[photo courtesy of Tom Hurley © 2009]