About time for a new computer

I am getting very close to blowing a lot of cash on a workstation machine. There have been way too many problems with my current computer that really put a clamp on my productivity. The prices are a bit steep when stepping foot into the workstation territory, but I should be able to save some of the money by building it myself. For starters, I have already have a new video card that may be able to do the job: BFG GeForce GTX260. The remainder of the system rings in around $1200.

TYAN S5396A2NRF

Intel Xeon E5410 Harpertown 2.33GHz Quad-Core Processor

Kingston 4GB DDR2 FB-DIMM PC2 5300 ECC

CORSAIR 750W ATX12V Power Supply

Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EACS 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2C 64-bit

Then again, it may be wise to just wait until Windows 7 is released next year and build a machine that is fully supported.

Yesterday I finally finished rigging the last two characters for a short funded by the US Army. Because of the crazy short deadlines, I figured the quickest and easiest way to go about the rigging was to use Motion Builder for body animation. This gets the body rigging tasks out of the way because Motion Builder auto rigs your characters with a decent setup.

Once this file was handed off to the animator, it bought me enough time to crank out four facial rigs built in Maya, where the body animation would later be transferred to.

Had the deadline been a little lighter, I would much rather have built the entire setup in Maya. Either way, I'm glad to have completed it before the Holidays so I can relax and enjoy the time with my family!

Today I am an unemployed animator looking for work. I was laid off from Midway Games because of drastic cost-cutting measures they have taken to stay afloat in this rough economic time. For the last two years I was part of the Cinematics team at Midway as a Character Animator and Setup Artist. Working with such wonderful and accomplished artists on the team was a blessing and a non-stop learning experience.

More than anything I will miss our closely-knit team and hope our paths don't veer too far apart in the near future. I anticipate with so many artists now looking for work in the Chicago area that there will be great opportunities emerging.

In hopes of finding work this holiday season, I've begun fleshing out my internet identity a bit. You can see more of what I'm all about.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/animatorkyle
Demo Reel