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| 06.27.2007 |
What are you doing here? I'm no longer updating this section. Check the blog instead!
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| 01.01.2005 |
Happy New Year! Lots of changes... slight revamp of the portfolio area of the site, triggered in part by a change of hosting companies. I've been doing a lot of freelance work lately, which has resulted in the neglect of other areas, such as the conceptual design forum and updating teamgt.com. Check the individual pieces in the portfolio area for details.
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| 11.23.2003 |
I put together another short painting demo for the Joker painting I did recently. You can find it here. CGTalk.com also gave me some sort of award for the Batman piece and for the "Sacrifice" piece. Thanks guys!
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| 10.31.2003 |
Huge portfolio page update for me. I am using this lovely Gallery app, which makes it very easy to maintain and update the art collection. Please have a look and leave me some comments! Another cool feature of gallery®. I recently finished a couple of cards for Magic the Gathering which are supposed to be published next year sometime. I hesitate to write about it, because I seem to have a shaky track record when it comes to actually having stuff make it to the publishing stage. We'll see...
I switched web servers as well - teamgt.com is now hosted at creationstorm.com, a service with great rates and terrific support. I highly recommend them. The straw that broke the camel's back was an article at aint-it-cool-news.com, which had a piece of "production art" from Star Wars Episode 3 which supposedly shows a design for Anakin Skywalker. Hehe. Anyway, that story generated so much traffic to this site that I spent a fortune on traffic fees that month.
Happy Halloween!
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| 07.13.2003 |
OK that must be a record for no new updates, sorry. Some new art, mostly digital paintings that I have done recently in my spare time. I have a short story in Metal Hurlant that should be out sometime this month, in Issue #7. A while back I also contributed a small piece for Wildstorm's The Resistance, I think it was issue #7 as well.
I switched jobs again, this time going to work at Sammy Studios as a concept artist. Very cool project, very talented and cool bunch here, lots of veterans from other studios. Once again I can't say anything about the project, as it has only been in existence for a couple of months. I've cranked out a whole bunch of paintings and drawings for the preproduction period, so hopefully you guys will see something soon. I'm working on a new updated painting step-by-step which is slightly different in approach to the supermodel one.
Hopefully next update won't be a year from now...
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| 07.13.2002 |
Art updates - pulled out some older stuff, added a few new recent sketches and paintings. A few links updates as well, although those will be ongoing as I come across them and find a few minutes to add to them. Pretty long list last time I checked!
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| 06.23.2002 |
Does anyone read this page? It's a pain in the ass to keep on top of...
The links page is now updated with a lot of new artist links, and there are still a bunch on my pc at work that I would like to add. I removed all the nonsense unrelated links, a lot of which were dead anyway. I have some new art, but not enough yet to do an update to the portfolio page. I like to wait until there is a bit of stuff piled up before making a change there.
I recently did a tiny bit of art for a forthcoming Wildstorm book called "Resistance," being written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti. Check out their stuff here: CyberPitBull.com, and Paperfilms.com. I'm not sure when that will be out... It was fun, and I'd really like to do more.
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| 03.22.2002 |
How are you all today? I am fine.
I streamlined my portfolio page yet again, in an attempt to make the navigation as simple as possible. My goal is to be able to get to the art immediately from the first page. I want to also streamline the rest of the site, removing all the extraneous joke pages, family photo albums, dead links, etc. Let me know what you think.
I guess the other site-related issue I'm dealing with is figuring out how to keep the Conceptual Design Forum running without having to deal with %&*@$% ez-board. I really don't like their pop-up ad ransom technique for generating income. I've had a couple of generous offers to host the forum on an external server. I'm hedging a little bit on that because I'm also working with Patrick Shettlesworth of Polykarbon fame on a new project which might be able to absorb it. I'll keep you posted.
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| 01.31.2002 |
I know. Website neglect. Here's the scoop - new job keeps me very busy, and I still find that this site is not very well designed. Hard to navigate, hard to update and not as suave looking as it should be given all the trouble I went to to set it up. Anyway...
I recently put together a new tutorial (more like a blow by blow account of a fumbling process) showing how I went about painting a figure using photo reference from a Victoria's Secret catalog. I posted a link to the tutorial on a couple of art forums, and have gotten a lot of positive response from it online, so I figured I would add it to my still-scant tutorial and critique page. Here it is: Paint A Supermodel In Just Minutes A Day!
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| 10.21.2001 |
So OK - I have not updated for a few months, and for that I apologize. Swamped with work, changing jobs (and dealing with the new long ass commute), getting a PS2, a Game Boy Advance, a Pocket PC and learning how to use all those new toys, managing and contributing to the concept design forum, working on freelance, as well as spending some time upgrading the Spyder - well, the site fell to the wayside a bit. But you'll be happy to see that I have streamlined my portfolio section quite a bit, as well as adding a bunch of new art from various endeavors.
In addition to my job change, Linda has also started work at Zagrodnik + Thomas, the very place I worked at before leaving architecture to join the game industry at Presto Studios. They have changed locations since I worked for them - they are now in a terrific new space in an old converted commercial/industrial space. Lots of vertical space and natural light.
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| 07.07.2001 |
Hello! Some of you may be aware, but I have left Presto Studios and gone to work for Angel Studios as of about the beginning of July. The reasons for the change basically stemmed fom projects - I didn't feel very enthusiastic about the nature of the project at Presto. I do think it will be a great game, and the look of it is certainly not like most games I've seen on the market, so I think basically it's a good concept. Just not something that fits what I want to do. On the other hand, Angel Studios needed an art director for a project that won't be out for another year and a half or two years. I can't really talk about this project at all just yet, but basically the subject matter and art direction is exactly what I do want to do at this point in time. Plus the money was a lot better.
The cool thing about working at Angel is being able to work with Steven Olds, the new creative director. This guy has done some pretty incredible work, and the stuff on his site represents about 1% of it, from what I can tell. He was the creative director for the Oddworld games as well as concept designer for the upcoming Treasure Planet movie from Disney, as well as a lot of other films. The cool thing is that he got his start in the architecture profession, and so we have a lot of common ground that way. Very inspiring, and humbling at the same time.
I'm glad to see the Concept Art Forum going strong, although lately the general tone of the forums has gone slightly off topic into just general digital art stuff. That's not necessarily a bad thing, particularly when Dhabih's sijun.com forums go down. I'm sure that once he gets the Digital Art Forum back up and running the concept art forum will return to its more narrowly defined nature.
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| 05.29.2001 |
One of those mini updates. Basically I just added a couple of new artist links, some sites you really should see. I've also been studying cascading style sheets, and basically realizing what a giant load of work I've created for myself by not using them for this site. One good thing (maybe it's good) about having a big personal site is that you're not inclined to redesign it every few months, like I was in the beginning.
On another note, I recently downloaded a few songs by a Minneapolis band called Astronaut Wife from Napster. Legally - they are being promoted or sponsored or something by Napster. Anyway, their songs are really infectious, especially Pedestal. I'd recommend them if you're into the electronic pop/women singers thing. Great stuff.
One other thing - I recently whipped up a new logo/header banner for Spyderchat.com, a forum for owners and fans of the new Toyota MR2 Spyder, which I recently purchased using part of my profit share from the sales of Myst 3: Exile. Just kidding, but I really am a new owner. Cool car.
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| 05.09.2001 |
Hello again. Been an interesting month or so.
We bought a house, I got a new car, we shipped what is probably our biggest product to date, and consequently laid off several great artists. I don't want to get too worked up about it here, but let's just say it's a pretty crazy industry when after a year or so of killing yourself to make the best art you're capable of, you're sent on your way with no job. The house and car (both of which we had put off committing to for quite a while) came shortly before the layoffs were announced, and I must say that when it all went down I was passing some bricks. Fortunately I was spared this time.
I've revamped the digital art forum page in my portfolio to include basically any recent art I've come up with. Most of the time I will post it in one of 3 or 4 art forums, just to test it out and get some feedback. The new page is linked from the main portfolio page and is called "recent stuff." Not too imaginative I know.
Thanks for checking this site out.
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| 03.23.2001 |
Please pardon my absence. This is a minor update - no new art really, mainly adding some great new sites to the links page. A few of those links come from artists and designers who are frequenting the new Conceptual Design Forum. I started this as a resource for people who are interested in the field, whether in the context of games or movies, and also for those already in the industry who would be able to pass along feedback and words of advice. Please spread the word!
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| 01.28.2001 |
Here's a little overhaul of the art portion of this site. I realized that my "Sketchbook" section didn't really look like sketchbook art - it included a lot of Photoshop paintings, which although quick and "sketchy" don't really represent what I sketch in a sketchbook manner. Whatever that means. Anyway, that area now comprises strictly non-digital media.
We went to a show at a local club called 4th and B to see a performance by Eric Johnson, one of my favorite guitar players. It was a great show, brought back a lot of memories from my college days. The show was opened by Derek Trucks, a guy I had not heard of before, but who seemed to be pretty good with the slide. If you have not heard of Eric Johnson, and you are a guitar player (there can't be too many people in that subset), check him out soon. Even if you are not a guitar player, I urge you to check out some of his stuff.
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| 01.09.2001 |
Crunch time. Few updates. I added a couple of conceptual sketches I had done a few months ago for a freelance project which never seemed to get off the ground. I kind of liked the sketches, even though they were a little derivative of "The Matrix." Oh well.
Also, I'm seriously interested in getting some sort of artistic representation. Please drop me a line if you have any leads in this area - I have a good bit of freelance work, but I could use some help in managing and/or collecting for the jobs. More interesting and higher paying work would be nice, too...
Mail me at francis@teamgt.com if you gots some good leads.
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| 12.12.2000 |
Holy cow, you people must really love the Hong Kong photos! I mean, that's cool, but adding that page pushed me close to my provider's traffic limit. I'm glad they're such a hit! (Ba dum bum.)
We're beginning to have a lot of tv crews coming through Presto Studios. I was videotaped while mumbling some incomprehensible design speak for the "Making of" video which I think will be included with the Super Duper Deluxe Collector's Edition of Myst 3: Exile, so you might be able to see me move and talk and stuff someday. I won't be quitting my day job anytime soon.
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| 12.07.2000 |
Hello! Too busy for this web site updating stuff. New photos from Honk Kong - just images for now, will add some explanatory text later. Maybe...
Also, I will try to respond to all the registry entries soon, I promise, as well as all the emails. Sorry for the negligence, and thanks for your patience.
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| 11.12.2000 |
I'm trying to streamline this site a bit - realized that my art section was a little too deep. Is this any better?
We saw Hooverphonic a few nights ago. They opened for a guy named BT and his band, who we hadn't heard of before but who turned out to be pretty good. Hooverphonic was cool. Their new album rocks.
We also saw Charlie's Angels. Rental.
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| 10.31.2000 |
Isn't this the section that always gets short-changed in terms of updates? I had an interview with Adventure Collective, an adventure gaming site based in Canada, I believe. I think this was a slightly better interview than the one with Checkout.com - at least I put a little more thought into the answers.
Also, I've added several new pieces to the Digital Art Forum art page. Seems like most of the art I am doing in my spare time ends up there.
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| 10.01.2000 |
I was interviewed by Checkout.com games about the design of Myst 3 Exile, specifically the Age I was responsible for. You can read it and see some screenshots and concept art here. New additions to the Digital Art Forum collection.
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| 08.23.2000 |
Myst3.com site has been updated again. Now those guys are on the ball. In addition, I believe the Presto site has been updated with a new "Behind the Screens" feature as well, although I have not actually gone to check it out yet.
More art, you say? Check out a new page I've added called "Art from the Digital Art Forum," which is where I seem to be spending a fair amount of time lately. This online forum is a terrific place to interact with a lot of professionals from the game, movie and digital arts industries, as well as a lot of very talented up and coming amateurs.
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| 07.20.2000 |
Hello. One new picture, but it's really a few weeks old already. Also, the official Myst3.com site has been completely overhauled - please go take a look.
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| 07.09.2000 |
This month's "Behind the Screens" feature at Presto's site has some commentary and new concept art from Phil Saunders, Ron Lemen and myself.
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| 06.24.2000 |
One or two more pieces of art, plus my "Oni" fan art was published in this month's PSM magazine, which also happens to be their "swimsuit" issue. Right on. Also, we are testing out the ecommerce waters (sort of) with a new online T-shirt store. Right now there are just three different designs, but I plan to add to this set pretty soon. I got the idea after seeing the same kinda thing at polykarbon.com, a great anime art and tutorial site owned by Patrick Shettlesworth. Check it out if you can, it's a nice site.
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| 06.03.2000 |
This has actually been out a while, but you can see some concept art from Myst 3 at a number of different sites, including Gordon Currie's Rivenguild.com, or you can check them out here. Also, I've made a couple of contributions to a basic drawing skills thread on Dhabih Eng's Digital Art Forum that I've collected and posted here. These tutorials are very basic in nature, and are oriented towards people who have had little or no instruction in perspective drawing.
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| 05.10.2000 |
Okay, well I guess it's more or less official. "Myst 3 Exile" is the project that's been eating up a whole bunch of my time over the last several months. We've still got tons of production left to do, as well as a good bit of production design, but it's coming along great. Check these sites out for more info:
Presto Studios
Myst 3 Exile
Rivenguild's Myst 3 Exile site
Adrenaline Vault news article
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| 05.07.2000 |
I made some changes to my portfolio page so that there is (hopefully) less loading time. |
| 04.30.2000 |
I added a couple of quick Photoshop sketches, kind of based on Giger's look. Lately I've been working pretty long hours on the latest Presto project, so you may have noticed a lapse in updates and new content. Hopefully this new project will be officially announced pretty soon - getting tired of hinting at what it is. Should be official by the time E3 starts though - we've been putting together a cool trailer for that, which will be widely available for download after that. |
| 04.13.2000 |
Interesting month. I recently turned down some freelance work, which started out looking like an iffy job. It quickly became apparent that I made a wise decision, and while my making a whole page about it may be a little much, the overwhelming majority of responses I have received so far have been quite supportive. At this point however, I think I'd like to move on to more positive things. |
| 03.02.2000 |
Some stuff from Star Trek: Hidden Evil - mainly concept sketches, some of which may also be seen as you are installing the game. This stuff is copyright Activision and/or Paramount and is used without permission. |
| 02.16.2000 |
More Ron Lemen art. Also, most visitors probably will not have noticed, but our venerable host Hostsave.com managed to crash their hard drive and lose every last bit of this site. Luckily, I was able to find a backup and upload it to their (new?) machine. No harm done. I guess. |
| 02.08.2000 |
I've posted some art created by a friend and coworker, Ron Lemen, here. He kicks ass hard. |
| 02.01.2000 |
More 3D images in my portfolio. I've stopped work
on the space ship for the time being - as I get more proficient at Max, I've become more interested in trying some architectural imagery.
Also, look for a press release sometime soon regarding the next project we are
working on at Presto. This new project is a pretty significant one - stay tuned! |
| 01.12.2000 |
Hello. Some more art in my portfolio. Spent the eve of the millenium (this year or next, whatever) in glorious Lubbock, Texas. At least I got my barbecue fix. Still halfway through reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon - man, what an insane book. |
| 12.19.1999 |
Looroll, a British site which offers different wallpapers and desktop patterns and stuff has posted my "borg" painting
in a number of different sizes for your download pleasure. Check them out.
Plus, a HARSH review of Hidden Evil on Gamespot.com. Geez, I wonder what we did to piss this guy off? |
| 11.28.1999 |
Another damn site facelift. Why? Short attention span - easily bored. I call it version 3.5, because I like numbers. |
| 11.27.1999 |
Newly posted photos of some release party attendees. |
| 11.22.1999 |
We celebrated the completion of the Star Trek: Hidden Evil game with a fun
release party at the old La Paloma Theatre in Encinitas on Thursday evening. Look for photos of this event here soon.
Also, loonygames.com has posted a short article about me and my work. |
| 11.11.1999 |
Been a little bit lazy about this stuff. Star Trek: Hidden Evil went gold a few days ago. Stephen King will do the same shortly.
I've added (maybe prematurely) a rendering of a ship I'm creating in 3DS Max
to my portfolio. |
| 09.25.1999 |
Presto Studios is finishing up work on a Stephen King Desktop Companion CDROM
for Blue Byte Software. Cool games, graphics, trivia, screensavers and other stuff. I didn't
work on this project, but it looks pretty good. Lotsa dark humor, and our receptionist Kathleen gets killed a lot. |
| 09.11.1999 |
More art in the gallery, as well as a slight format tweak for the front page. Also, I've got a new pic or two up at gameart and a new site I came across called 3D-Palette. |
| 08.15.1999 |
Comic Con. More cool stuff, Lou Ferrigno again, a pretty impressive Lara Croft impersonator, coupla Klingons, plenty of crappy art, some really good, inspiring stuff (Dave Johnson), too many wrestlers (what is up with this wrestling shit?), astronomically priced Japanese toys, bootleg Spawn action figures, too many cool books at Bud Plant, the Ghost in the Shell soundtrack (finally), many, many fat, sweaty, unwashed geekazoids (no offense if you are one), and convincing the editor of the new Art of Star Wars Episode 1 book to let me see the galley proofs. It rocks. I will buy. |
| 08.04.1999 |
Due to a modicum of demand, I've added some sample comic book pages to my portfolio. These are pencils that I prepared for a self-published venture called "The Journeyman."
Also, please see the Rants area (at the bottom of the
page) for a touching account of Linda's experience with the kind hearted folks at her HMO-sponsored doctor's office. |
| 07.20.1999 |
A sneak preview article about Insurrection appeared on the IGN.com website
yesterday. |
| 07.17.1999 |
More puns! Also a bit more art, although I don't remember what exactly. |
| 06.28.1999 |
Gameart.com, a site devoted to the art of video game development, has posted one of my older paintings. You can check it out here. |
| 06.15.1999 |
PCGamer mag out with articles about Activision's new Star Trek games. Look for
a downloadable demo sometime soon. It'll be cooool. |
| 05.25.1999 |
Minor update - slowly building pages. Thank you for your continued support. |
| 05.23.1999 |
So we stood in line for five hours Tuesday night to catch the 12:01 a.m. showing of The Phantom Menace. It was probably worth it overall, but I had a couple of issues with certain things in the movie. Visually it was fantastic. The amount of design detail in each shot was just phenomenal.
New updates to Francis and Linda pages, although the links don't work just yet. Most of the effort was concentrated on creating the front pages of our individual sections. I suppose I could just wait until everything is done to post it, but I'm sort of an instant gratification kinda guy. |
| 05.17.1999 |
E3 sure was insane. Kinda like Vegas, except not as many obese nicotine-addled middle Americans. Lots more pale males in black clothing and excessive cyber geek wear.
Saw lotsa cool new games, including Oni,
Star Trek: Armada, and Quake 3, to name a few. Star Trek: Insurrection made its debut at E3 as well. So far the reviews have been pretty encouraging, although the main character's name is Sovok and not Sovar as Gamespot would have you believe. |
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05.12.1999
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TeamGT Studios web site version 3.0 online, though it's mainly just the front end for now. The links in this section mostly refer to pages in the 2.x version of the site. For now, I just plan to leave the old site
up and allow the links to those old pages. At least until I can come up with something better.
We are wrapping up production on the E3 demo. Combat is quick and responsive
and cutscenes look great, although our lack of lip-synching is slightly unfortunate - you have to choose your battles I guess - but it definitely looks and feels like a game. |
| 05.07.1999 |
Activision has officially announced the Star Trek: Insurrection game we're working on. You can see the screenshot and a brief description here, at the Adrenaline Vault site. There are three "Ensign Sovoks" shown on the screen, but in the game, there will only be one. A downloadable version of the game should be available pretty soon after E3, which is this coming weekend. |
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04.02.1999
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Added a little chunk of art called "cheesecake." It's just one new drawing, but I think this may become its own section. We are currently doing some early conceptual layouts for version 3.0 of this site. |
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03.12.1999
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Couple more things: another art page, some editing, and one or two additions to the existing art pages. |
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03.07.1999
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OO!! Mouseovers! Guest Book! Animated gifs!! All the irritating newbie web builder crap! And a new index pic. Maybe this will rotate on some irregular basis.... And, the little Mac dig on the index page is just a joke, okay? |
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02.22.1999
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Changes to Influences and Peeves. Had some stuff to get off my chest about the damn cats. |
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02.13.1999
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Some new art, some new photos. |
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01.10.1999
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At long last an update. No major changes this time, mainly maintenance type stuff. Also, a new email address, which comes with our new ISP (Cox @Home). It's a high speed cable connection. Also, we have moved into a new place. |
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10.06.1998
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Presto bio page online. |
| 08.25.1998 |
My friend Ric found some undeveloped film sitting somewhere in his palatial mansion in Texas. He developed said film and found some photos from our wedding in 1997. |
| 08.15.1998 |
Added new section on our visit to the Gamble House in Pasadena, although that visit occurred the same weekend we went to see the Getty.
Also this weekend, we attended our second ever Comic-Con. Our first time to attend happened to coincide with our honeymoon to San Diego last year, which was excellent. This year was a lot of fun, too. Presto had a booth at the con, mainly to recruit new designers and other staff. I found a copy of Masamune Shirow's art book for the Playstation version of Ghost in the Shell, and Linda picked up a copy of Shannon Wheeler's Too Much Coffee Man trade paperback, which she had him sign. |
| 08.03.1998 |
TeamGT Website Version 2.0 online. |
| 07.20.1998 |
My first day as an employee of Presto Studios. |
