Some years ago, an off-the-cuff comment from a high school friend stuck in my head. Nowadays, I use the term as my calling identity. Tacky I know, but that’s what friends are for! I’ve since registered the trademark WickedP® and use it in various places for myself.
So, that’s the name. What about me?
I’m a born and bread Tasmanian, from down under Australia. We are, quite literally, down under, because Tasmania is underneath mainland Australia. The next stop south from us is Antarctica. Yes, it gets cold.
My journey into the world of digital arts probably started in the last year or two of high school. There I studied CAD subjects, and was one of only two students in the state at the time to use camera tracking techniques in an animation for a final project. I’m not sure who the other was, but we were quite possibly the first at a high school level there to do that. This was back in the late 90’s!
From high school, I did some casual work for a year before heading to university. To be frank, I didn’t enjoy uni. Our family went through a terrible time. Mum was in a coma for months. I had my own health issues, which included a facial reconstruction… I left uni feeling pretty low about things. But I won’t dwell.
Since leaving university I’ve done many different jobs. From manual labouring, to office and case management work, and freelance work, no two jobs have been the same. And all but one have not been in the field I studied. Still working on that one!
After work hours, I spend my time dreaming up moving image projects like animation stories and characters. I have a stack of them, just finding it hard to make them. Because, I want to make the difficult things. So, I spend time programming and building my own software to work with my film camera. I own two cameras, including a RED. To make my own software, I taught myself to program in C++. The image in the header is an experimental render from my own render engine called Hyperion (follow the link to read more).
I can also program in other web-based languages like PHP, HTML, JS etc. I don’t consider myself a seasoned programmer – I have no formal training – but I enjoy the learning challenge.
I have a 3D printer, which is a great way to waste material… But it can be fun making your own prototypes with. Below is a print of my ProxyMan figure. He’s the demo character for one of my pieces of software I’m making which is for applying motion capture data to a character. More of him and the plugin can be found in my project section and in various blog entries.
This website is just my personal bubble and a place to spew my own digital rubbish. I actually program the theme myself, mostly as a learning curve. I’m not a web designer though (can you tell?). So, I don’t really make this for anyone else. It’s kind of my digital diary. But, still, others can have a read if they like. I’m pretty open with things. I’m also developing WickedP Studios – a separate entity – which you might hear more about in the future too.
– WP