THE FORGOTTEN YEARS · MAY 2005 - MAY 2007
When I got hired at Sony Pictures Imageworks, I pretty much achieved the whole purpose of making this short in the first place without having to actually make it, which was to get hired at a studio making full length cg features along the lines of Pixar or Dreamworks. While I never forgot about this project, I didn't work on it all during the the next few years. Mostly because work took so much time, but also because I didn't have the incentive to. Seemed that working on Open Season and Surf's Up was more then enough animation to keep my creative juices satisfied.

A MODD DIRECTION · FEBRUARY 2006 - MAY 2010
I've been a pretty big gamer my whole life and was getting into tactical first person shooters in early 2001 starting with Ghost Recon. I fell in love the M4 assault rifle, and for some reason got it in my head that I should try to mod Tom Clany's Rainbow6:Lockdown in January 2006. I set out building the weapon in Maya and while I was never able to get it into that game, a few months later, I put it into SWAT4 complete withe custom animations over the course of a few weekends of work. It was tremendously satisfying and I would later go on to add a red dot scope version as well.

A few months later Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter came out and I thought I should have a go at putting my work in that game too, especially since the M4 was missing. This was not quite as easy and I gave up at one point. However, months later after leaving Imageworks, I decided to try again when some mod instructions were released by the developers. Well, one thing lead to another and I ended up learning a ridiculous amount about how to get new weapons into the game. I started adding scopes and even custom sounds. Over the next few years I made around 11 weapons with various attachments. I also learned how to mod the characters to look more contemporary by bringing in my own custom headgear and camo. To top it off, I made custom intro animations each time I released a big update.

Although this wasn't the only thing I was doing during these years, I spent quite a bit of time working on my Ghost Recon mod, and it prepared me for what I always knew I might do, which is work for a game studio. Usually I would release a new version each time I made a new weapon, and I think the quick turnaround gave me a sense of accomplishment and finish. It was quite enjoyable, though at times it did feel almost like a second job. On the downside, work on my short was taking a huge backseat and almost completely forgotten.