I should stress that I am self-taught. In 1994, I sat down at a spare seat of Alias PowerAnimator and started hacking away. After several years and various trials by fire, 3D became a livelihood, a love, and an obsession. Along the way, I was fortunate enough to work with many talented artists at Buena Vista Visual Effects and Pacific Data Images. In 2000, I switched from PowerAnimator to Maya and have since logged tens of thousands of hours with the subject of this book.