Well, I was born and raised in Stockton, California. It's pretty quiet and has a great museum - the Haggin Museum. So growing up, I always took field trips to this museum and was always blown away by the amazing art on display. That, combined with my undying love for video games, lead me to go to art school at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. While there, I entered in the very first Last Man Standing Thunderdome where I faced off against CA's finest. Luckily, a lot of my competition consisted of working professionals and they ended up dropping out because they had to go to work or had lives or something, so I won! :) My prize was a job at Massive Black. And I owe it all to you! <3

Well, I usually roll in before lunch. When I get there, I like to check my email and lurk on Conceptart. I then play with the dogs a little and talk with the guys and surf the internet. Then we go to lunch. A couple of hours later I come back and take a nap. If it's Monday, I might go the school and hang out. Then when the evening rolls around, it's time to play video games! Then it's off to home. Oh and then twice a month I walk outwith suitcases of cash.

Somewhere in my busy schedule I also squeeze in concept work, marketing work, and pitch work for games and movies.

My first step is familiarizing myself with what I am doing. This means I read over any documents and look at any references my client sends me to make sure I understand what is expected of me. Then I proceed to make thumbnails for the client. I start these as black and white blobs that are slowly chiseled out until they are recognizable to people other than myself. I send these off and wait for comments. Based on feedback, I either continue on one of the thumbnails or start a new image and take it to a more finished state for another round of feedback. This continues back and forth until the client is happy. Along the way, I do my best to make the best image possible by paying attention to light and shadow, anatomy, perspective, and anything else that I can.

The customer is always right.

Yes, I do have favorites. But I won't say who/what they are :) My favorite clients are clients that have similar taste to my own. Less butting of heads.

I used to do most of my work in Painter. For the past year, however, I've been working almost exclusively in Photoshop. I can work well in both, so I don't think one is necessarily better than the other.

I grew up loving the classic fantasy artists such as Boris Vellejo, Brom, and Frazetta. I also loved art I saw in video games, comics, and movies. Later I really got into anime and manga and that introduced me to the asian online art scene (and american fan version) where I started my digital self-training. In college I was introduced to the classic American illustrators and some fine artists that started to take my work in another direction. Finally, I became more aware of the concept art scene through conceptart.org and again, I had another layer of inspiration.

So in short, I am influenced by all.

Hah! I can't say. But I'll be happy to tell you in person.

Haven't been reading in a while. I've been watching Heroes religiously, though. As for music, I tend to listen to soundtracks to movies, videogames, and anime, as well as some 80s music and random stuff.

I'll give her two lips like roses and clover,
Then tell her that her lonesome nights are over.

Bring it.

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