It's a Small World

The above sketch is only one of the many interesting characters, I mean people, that I saw at the Taste of Addison festival last Saturday. She was really quite nicely coordinated with her little yappy terrier. Believe me, there were times I wish I had brought my camera...just to be able to show later, "See! She/he actually exists!" There was a guy that looked exactly like Santa Claus, too.

....

I keep forgetting how small and inter-connected the creative community can be.

There was the time I was coming up out of the subway in Union Square one morning back when I was working in NYC heading for my office across the street...as I went up the stairs, one of my former co-workers who had joined with a different company based in Boston while I was in NYC, happened to be coming downstairs. We both just then looked up at the same time and saw each other. Fun!

Yesterday I found out that the sister of one of the tech department heads at my current job was at the WIGI event I was at a couple of weeks ago. She was one of the speakers who gave a presentation about her experiences as a woman in the game development industry. She had originally studied architecture at A&M (the first University I went to) but now happens to be a level designer for Ensemble Studios.

Today I got an email from a toy and boardgame company in Seattle that had picked up my resume from one of the various creative job boards that I frequent. They were curious to find out if I was available for a full-time position with their company. Interestingly enough, a couple of the principles with this company used to work at the toy company where I'm currently employed. Like I said, small world! If I was looking to develop my career further in the toy industry, then they would be someone I'd be interested in talking to further. However, I'm not interested in pursuing additional full-time experience in the toy industry - my goal is to find work in the animation industry. Possibly...maybe... in the PC/console game development industry. So, I basically replied, "Thanks! But I'm not available at this time."

Well, it happened once again. Turns out that Mr. Riley whose presentation on maquettes I'll be seeing this weekend, also did some work for one of my current co-workers when my co-worker was working with George Lucas and Skywalker Ranch for some new Star Wars promotional pieces; the client was Pepsi I think. Anyways, they did several life-size versions of characters like Watto, Yoda, Darth Maul and a few others and hired Riley for some product development. Riley seriously impressed my co-worker with the speed and accuracy of his sculpting of the Watto character.

And that Watto character happens to sit now in the cubicle behind me. And the poor thing wears a raccoon hat. There's a Yoda, too, up further over on the right. And a few other toys and props. Well, alot more, to be honest. We each have all sorts of toys and gizmos at our desks and taking up space in our cubes.

It's one of the perks of being a toy maker...you know, the need for reference material. ;)