All about Tommy Vogt...
Here is some background on who I am and how I came to be interested in animation and digital art in general. I got my first 3D modeling/animation program as a senior in High School back in 1997. The program was Truespace 2, and after a few weeks with it I was hooked! I was originally most interested in modeling. I spent almost every waking moment outside of school working on becoming better at modeling and rendering with Truespace. Even though I was not able to get where I wanted to I figured part of it was due to the software, so in the fall of my senior year, I took out my first signature loan and purchased a 21” CRT and a copy of 3DSMax R2.5! I spent a good deal of time learning NURBS and other modeling techniques. After a while I decided I wanted to work in games so I focused my attention towards polygons.
I was accepted into and attended the Kansas City Art Institute for a year before loosing some interest in it. I wanted to learn animation but at the time they did not have a very good animation program. After stumbling there and realizing what huge student loans I would have I redirected my attention toward IT stuff. I ended up getting a job with Deluxe (the check company) as an IT analyst. I learned a lot about programing and all sorts of stuff about IT work. I spent a majority of my free time learning programming. I even had several interviews with Nintendo at one point, although I did not get the job… While working for Deluxe I met my wife Melinda and we have been married for over 7 years now! I also started getting back into modeling. After leaving Deluxe and moving to and then back from California, I ended up at Hallmark Cards. First in IT, and then in Operations, as a Digital Engraver. During this time I learned a lot about modeling and progressed pretty far with polygonal modeling (box modeling). At one point though I decided that animation was what I really wanted to do and decided to dedicate myself to learning it. In the last term of getting my degree at Westwood Online, I started the Animation program at AnimationMentor. It was tough trying to do both but I got through it and was able to dedicate a great majority of my time outside of work to animation. I have spent about 6 years between getting my degree and completing AniamtionMentor, and I am not prepared to stop now!
