In this age of digital media, it is always rad to see your work in printed form. Ryan Tuerck was recently featured in the August issue of Inked Magazine wearing the American Steel Tee that I did for Drift Alliance.Just about every time I wear this shirt, someone says “great shirt… you ever seen them live?” I always reply “yeah, many times”… even though I’m talking about Drift Alliance, and they are talking about Judas Priest!

Over the summer I have had an insatiable urge to shoot video. Since my car has been out-of-order, I have been catching rides to out-of-town drift events every chance I get. While it is seemingly easy enough for me to go and shoot an event – life ramps up its speed, making it seemingly impossible to edit anything. This video sat nearly complete as a rough cut, sans a few effects and grading for two months. Well… over the holiday weekend I was able to put the finishing wrench-time in and complete my first drift video in two years. I tried a lot of new things with this video, which is really my driving force behind making them. I want to learn something with each project. This edit is no exception. I tried a lot of new things both behind the lens, and behind the keyboard. This video was a ton of fun to create… and even though it took me forever to finish it – I think it was worth it.

In January I was lucky enough to be able to attend the ASD Mob Seminar up in Charlotte. What an AMAZING amazing experience. Ian, Dave, and the crew as ASD know their stuff like no other team in Formula Drift. There. I said it. The fact that they wanted to give back to the grassroots community with a program like this is really too phenomenal for words. The things they taught us totally made me re-think everything in regard to car-setup for drifting. I seriously can never thank these guys enough!

In May, I ran in the Warrior Dash with (left to right) my brother Jonathan, Dad, Mom, Tom Hanks from Castaway, and parent’s friend Joel.

Everyone HAS to do one of these races. It is REALLY fun, and a very wild race! The obstacles are actually a nice way to break up the distance. I won’t lie – you get filthy dirty in ways you can’t really imagine until you do it. But it is an absolute RIOT!

Also, in May… I picked up another guitar I’ve always wanted. Definitely a staple for both heavy metal and rock and roll. An Epiphone Flying V. I also snagged a sweet li’l mini-stack by Marshall.

In June, Alex let me borrow his Honda Camino, and I went with he, Eugene, and the rest of the Swoop Jockeys on a 50+ mile moped ride from Cabbagetown all the way to Northpoint Mall for the Cars and Coffee meet. I don’t know what it was about these crappy old neglected things… but I kinda fell in love with them. As fate would have it, Chad wanted to get rid of his old Tomos A35… so I bought his!

I started sanding the paint off, put new bars, seat, controls, taillight, and made a super-sweet headlight cover with a broken Hella cover from the truck. I also made a nice chain guard out of an old ’71 Georgia license plate. I still need to get the rest of the teal off the bike – but it is definitely starting to feel more-and-more like mine.

rnEvery Sunday morning, I’ve been riding around Atlanta with these guys… having a blast. We rode through the historic Pullman Yard, and I happened to have my Contour on me. This was a really fun ride!

In light of riding basically mini-motorcycles, I decided to take an MSF class with Cody, Wes, and Alex. It is something I would recommend to anyone who wants to ride a motorcycle of any kind. We learned a lot, and I feel a lot safer when I ride now as a result. We all passed both the riding and written tests… so at the end of the weekend, we all got our motorcycle licenses!

I’ve been working a bit on tidying up the garage as well. I plan on putting up pegboard on the left-side wall to help free up some space. There isn’t a lot of room to move around in there, and I want to try and help it breathe a bit. The BMW has been sitting for a while, with the rear-end still broken. I’ve been too busy with work to really mess with it, but in the next month-or-so, plan to have it back up and running again!

When life picks up speed, the momentum can be somewhat overwhelming. In wake of that momentum, I have totally neglected my own site. Typically I hate the “Oh, sorry I haven’t been posting much, but hey… I’M BACK” entries. Yet, here I am. So much has happened in the past 8 months that I don’t even know where to begin. Over the next several posts, I would like to get things back up to speed with what has been what in my neck of the woods.The biggest change in my realm, is undoubtedly work-related. In late November, I was contacted by a local Atlanta studio to freelance on a showreel of animated print advertisements. The studio is Artistic Image, located in the King Plow Arts Center in west Atlanta.

The studio is really awesome, and does amazing work! After working on the showreel I got to work on some really fun spots for Cartoon Network LA. I was given all of the graphic elements to animate, and the concept was that ordinary back-to-school items would transform into giant aliens and battle it out. Really really fun spots to work on!

Then in January, the crew at Artistic Image asked me on full-time for a 6-month contract to work as a part of the team to revamp the historical Stone Mountain Lasershow.

The project would entail video-mapping technology to create the illusion that the mountain comes to life… giving the show an added element of dimension that the traditional lasers could not provide. It was an incredible project to work on, and took an immense amount of work to complete. Everyone on the team at Artistic Image did an amazing job. I had a chance to see the show’s opening July 4th weekend, and judging by the crowd’s reaction – this renovation was a HUGE success! I feel very honored that I was able to work on a project of this magnitude, and one that has such a historical significance to the state of Georgia.This spot on 11alive.com gives a little more insight to what we did.

June marked the end of my contract, at which time, I was offered a full-time position as an animator. I graciously accepted the position, for I have been wanting to transition away from designing for web/print for well over 5 years. I was finally able to make the jump to motion design full-time, and I am incredibly happy about it. Everyone on the team at Artistic Image is super-talented, and most of all – really great to work with! I’m really excited that they gave me the opportunity to come on board and be part of the team!