Shawn Dunn

Layout Supervisor, Weta Digital

Shawn Dunn has over 18 years of CG experience.  He has most recently worked for almost  4 years on James Cameron's Avatar.  Shawn has been with Weta Digital since 2003 when he worked on Return of the King followed by King Kong as the Animation Technical Supervisor.  Prior to Weta Digital he worked for Alias|Wavefront, responsible for the development and delivery of educational material for Maya users.

Stephan Martiniere 

Art Director, id Software

Stephan Martiniere is an internationally acclaimed Science Fiction and Fantasy artist. In the past 20 years he has become known for his talent, versatility and imagination in every entertainment field including feature films, animation, video games, theme parks, editorials and book covers. Stephan Martiniere has worked on movies such as “The Fifth Element”, “Star Trek”, “Knowing” “I, Robot”, “Star Wars Episodes 2 and 3”, “Virus”, “Red Planet”, “The Astronaut’s Wife”, “Sphere”, “Titan A.E” and “Time Machine”. Stephan was also the visual design director responsible for the games “URU, Ages Beyond Myst”, “URU, The path of the Shell” and “Myst 5”. He worked several years as Visual design Director for the game Stranglehold in Chicago for Midway games and later as Creative Visual Director supporting the visual contents for several other games including Area 51, Blitz, Ballers, MK vs DC and several un-announced titles . Stephan Martiniere is the recipient of numerous awards including the Hugo and two Chesley awards, two silver and a gold "Spectrum" Award, four Master and twelve Excellence “Expose” Awards, the Thea award, two BSFA Awards and the Seattle Show Award. In 2006 Stephan received the Grand Master “Expose” Award. Stephan Martiniere is currently Art Directing “Rage” for ID software and is an advisory board member of the CG society.

In this inspirational presentation, based on Joseph Gilland’s ground-breaking book about understanding traditional special effects animation principles, the author brings a fresh perspective to understanding the underlying energy behind elemental special effects such as fire, water, smoke, explosions and magic. Drawing on a life-long mission to capture the essential energy of the elements, Joseph urges his workshop participants to explore the natural world around them and inside them, to tap into the true nature of the elements and thus bring fresh, dyamic energy to the visual effects that they create regardless of the medium.

Traditional and digital artists, technical directors and computer programmers alike, will discover a fresh new way to approach visual effects animation.

Jeffrey Dates

CG/VFX Supervisor, The Mill NY

Jeffrey Dates has been immersed in production for nearly 15 years. He recently joined The Mill NY as a CG/VFX Supervisor. He brings a wealth of experience to The Mill as Character Animator, Creative Director, Animation Director, Motion Designer and Production Artist, encompassing the Features, Commercials and Gaming industries.
Dates began his career in 1997 at ReelFX, Dallas, where he worked his way up to Animation Director. His projects there included VFX for Robert Rodriquez’s Sky Kids 2, a GI Joe campaign for Hasbro, and the William Joyce-themed short film, "Man in the Moon".
In 2002, Dates co-directed (with Lee Lanier) the acclaimed "Day Off The Dead". The comedic animated short played over 50 film festivals, taking Grand Prize at SCTV Shortcuts Festival, Best Animation at Screamfest L.A., and Best Animated Film at the Memphis Film Festival, to note a few highlights.

The following year, Dates joined Janimation as Creative Director and Project Lead. During his time at the Dallas-based animation studio, he re-teamed with Robert Rodriquez on Spy Kids 3-D, directed the game trailer for John Woo’s Stranglehold, and directed “I Want To Hold Your Hand” a CG Music Video for The Smithereens. He also worked on game projects for titles such as Age of Empires, The Suffering, Area 51, Civilization and I-Ninja.
Dates left the Lone Star State for the Big Apple in 2007, after landing a job as CG/VFX Supervisor for Mass Market, the VFX brand to renowned live-action/animation collective, Psyop. During his tenure there, Dates worked on AICP honoree, Guinness “Dot”, as well as spots for Travelers, Infiniti, 7Up, HP, and Sprint.
Dates attended Sam Houston State University. He’s partial to Personal Creative Projects, Sailing and Mountain Biking.
For more, check out his glitzy site: www.kungfukoi.com

Rita Street

David Schaub
Animation Director, Sony Pictures Imageworks

Dan Kuenster

iStation, Storyboarding

Dan Kuenster has thirty years experience in the animation industry including positions at Disney and Don Bluth Studios. At Walt Disney Studios, he trained under the guidance of Eric Larson, one of the renowned “Nine Old Men”. Mr. Kuenster then joined Don Bluth Studios, where he was instrumental in a number of animated feature films, including The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, and co-directed All Dogs Go To Heaven. Mr. Kuenster won an Emmy for the PBS show “Jakers” for individual achievement in story boarding.

Mr. Kuenster is currently the Executive Vice President of Creative Services at istation.com where he uses his creativity for interactive education.

Johan  Klingler

Instructor, Art Institute of Dallas

Norma Klingler
Instructor, Art Institute of Dallas

 Norma Klingler is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts and began her career in the commercial industry of New York.   She became an artist for feature animated films doing character clean-up, animation, storyboarding, concept art and Character Design.   She started as a children’s book illustrator and has become a prominent Character Designer and Storyboard Artist.   She is earning a masters at Florida Atlantic University.       Chuck Jones stated she was his protégé in style of drawing when he gave his talk at The Art Institute of Southern California.  She earned an Emmy in most outstanding Storyboarding in the Industry after studying storyboarding from Johan Klingler, her husband.  She and her husband founded and Directed the School of Media Arts, a magnet program, for a decade in Burbank, California to pull gang kids off the street and train them to be artists for film.    Norma has worked for companies like Disney, Warner Brothers, Universal, Nickleodeon, Omation, and Kroyer films to name a few.   She is currently passing her knowledge onto students at The Art Institute of Dallas.

Paul Gaboury

3D Appliaction Engineer, Pixologic

Brad Clark

Co-Founder, RiggingDojo.com

An award winning artist and animator, Brad Clark has worked on a wide range of projects; from modeling and rigging for television and video games to editing motion capture for Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.” while at Weta Digital. 

A previous two time Autodesk Master Class instructor including co-authoring with Chad Moore,  the only class dedicated to custom character rigging with Motionbuilder- The Character Animator Toolkit for Motion Builder. Brad has twice been an instructor for the incredible Conceptart.org workshops and was lead author of “Inspired 3D Advanced Rigging and Deformations” with John Hood, and Joe Harkins. Most recently, Brad has provided custom training and consulting for Bungie, Disney Junction Point Studios and Reel FX on Motionbuilder, Maya and 3ds Max.

Over much of his career in animation, Bradley Gabe has been an active member of the CG community helping to develop technical approaches to CG production via consulting, and the publication of tutorials online as well as in trade magazines. He also teaches courses, seminars, and Master Classes at Siggraph and other venues.
Bradley's technical skills have been honed over the years working on high-end digital effects in commercial and feature film productions at Stan Winston Studio, ILM, and Quiet Man.
Bradley is currently the Senior Technical Animator at Janimation, Inc., an award winning animation and motion graphics production studio in Dallas, Texas, which focuses mostly on television commercials and game cinematics.

"Interactive Building a Crowd Simulation in Softimage ICE"

• The Pulitzer Collection
• The Pearson Foundation
• The Steinberg
• The Mead Library

Course  Description

The Society of Figurative Arts

At Dr. Sketchy's, we don't care if you picked up a pad yesterday or 50 years ago. Come to drink or to draw. We're happy to have you.

Course Description

Dr Sketchy Blog