When I sat down to brainstorm my new reel intro months ago, I did a large brain dump and a whole bunch of sketches trying to figure out a way to convey the breadth of my skills (while also getting to do a fun personal project that was 100% my own).

When it came time to actually make my new reel, I looked back at all my sketches and realized that the best way to show off my abilities was to just make as many of them as I could reasonably fit into a few seconds. I gave myself two weeks, and whatever was done by the end of that time was what made it into the reel! A few options got left out because they needed a bit more finessing, and I’ll share those below. Overall I’m really happy with how all these little vignettes came out, I had a ton of fun modeling, texturing, keyframing, and compositing all of these together. I hope you like them!

  • Underwater scenes are so much fun! I only wish this one had a seahorse and maybe a lil crab scuttling by on the bottom. It's on the to-do list!

  • I think because I started this in August I had summer time fun on the brain. My computer hated me for putting all these caustics in, but I'm glad I forced it to power through!

  • This one evolved a bit as I was testing out textures for the render, but I've always had a real soft spot of old-timey neon signs.

  • Obligatory smushy-shape fun-time

  • I think the resurgence of y2k trends has really reawakened my 90s-kid brain. Can't go wrong with some holographic rainbowy plastic and glitter.

  • Once again feeling those retro vibes! Built myself my very own arcade cabinet for the final shot of the intro, which sucks you right into the rest of the reel. Got to do a lot of fun research on arcade cabinet ads and marquees, which actually is quite a large black hole if you feel like falling into it yourself!

  • This design got sent to the cutting room floor because I felt like this geometric gradient-heavy slick 2D look didn't quite mesh with my very retro bubbly logo.

  • 90s kid strikes again!! I knew this design didn't quite work with the conceit of my intro, which was to keep the logo in the same place and change the design all around it. In order to properly frame the cassette player I would have had to mess with that alignment so I did cut this in the end, but not before modelling and texturing the scene. Keep an eye out for some juicy 90s vibes on my social channels sometime in the future!

  • Love me some crayons. This design was eventually cut because it didn't quite match the vibe of the rest of the slides, but I still like it!