Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Robert.
Hi Eric, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
Ever since I can remember I have always been drawing and coming up with ideas, but the moment I saw Jurassic Park that was pretty much the day I decided I wanted to do 3d animation. I was lucky enough to get one of the leading animation systems at the time to teach myself how it all worked as there were no actual schools at the time let alone youtube with all its resources. At the time, I was in South Florida, and there wasn’t much work for animation at the time; this was around the time Full sail was getting started, and seeing that the job market was bleak at best, I decided to go to full sail which was super intense with classes at all hours of the day. I pretty much went to school and home to keep studying on top of dealing with a cumbersome immigration process that my wife was in. Towards graduation, we had 3 hurricanes that hit Orlando so with the power out I had to race to get my final demo done once the power came back on, so that was fun. After school, I got a job fixing computers so we could stay in Orlando and I could move to an actual media job which eventually led me to work for a military subcontractor in the UCF area; this was tough as, at the time, the 3D system I was accustomed too was Maya, and they only used 3D studio max, fortunately, I was able to ramp up and got to work on some interesting projects while I was there. From there, I was able to work for a company that develops proposals, and that job was pretty intense as there were many nights till 1 -2 am trying to get jobs out the door, I remember one proposal they chartered a private jet to get the documents to their destination. Once the door closed at that location, I was able to do some freelancing which I really enjoyed but wasn’t enough income at the time, so I applied to a local animation studio in the celebration, where I was hired as a technical artist handling all the rendering and data management, but on my free time I would clean up the animations, and the director really liked how the shots were coming out so I was moved to an animator/clean up and I was able to work on my own shots and learn a lot while working there and still keep in touch with some of the team that worked there. That place eventually closed its doors, and I moved back into the military space doing technical illustrations as a contractor; once that was done, I landed a job doing animation for a company that does training for police and firefighters, there I was able to dive a bit into motion capture and data prep. While working there, I was offered a job to work on the movie 2012, but the pay wasn’t stellar, so I declined. Around this time, my parent had told me a movie studio was opening up in Port st Lucie, but I didn’t pay much mind to it during this time, I got another contract job at the previous company doing technical illustrations, I believe that time I did apply for a position at that movie studio, but there was not set up at the time. Literally, the day my contract ended, I got an email to do a formal art test in Port st Lucie. I got to the location, they sat me down, give me some direction, and I did the test 2-3 weeks later, I got a job offer to work there. The first portion of the job was to do a 3-month training, and to stay, you need to pass the test at the end of the training. At that time, I was traveling from my parents’ home to Port St Lucie every day and then back to Orlando on weekends. Finally, it was test day, and I passed apparently, I did so well they were going to move me up in position, but then they retracted that decision which I thought was odd, but I went with it. Once we got started our first show, and it was Transformers 3 dark of the moon, I was super excited to start working on films; at first, all was well, but once I saw I was in the middle of 3 managers competing with each other it became apparent this wasn’t for me. Regardless of all that, I did learn a lot, and in the end, the company closed up shop, leaving a lot of people out of work. When the studio closed, a buddy asked me if I wanted to do a game, I said sure so I worked for a couple of months to get all the art done for the game, and we launched it, and the game did ok it got through us through a whole year. I was eventually able to come back to Orlando I got a job at the same technical illustration company, and during that time, I was getting a lot more architectural rendering to the point that I had to quit the main job. By chance, I met a gentleman looking for help with an animated presentation for general contractors which was new to me, but I’m always up for a challenge. I worked with him for a stent and developed more processes that have helped me in my own business. At present, I’m helping my father with his company and have implemented what I have learned over the years and have seen the return on investment it has brought to his company; and I spun the company of his as many of his customers were annoyed with the lack of options for aviation sales system, I decided to develop my own, and now we help his customers scale their businesses.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been anything but smooth, but I have learned to be ok with that and use those opportunities as learning experiences and look back to see how to use that moving forward. Are there harder times than others sure, but that’s ok everyone eventually figures it out and sees what works best for them?
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I have been involved in pretty much all aspects of design and in various market sectors, from military to films to games to even Themed entertainment. As far as my specialization, I would say it’s in the realm of 3D content development. What sets me apart is my work experience and my ability to break down complicated ideas and or processes and simplify them as well as complete deadlines on time. If I had to say what I’m most proud of, I still find ways to surprise myself know something might be difficult but push through to the end.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
What makes me happy is knowing my wife is healthy and able to make the most of our time. Whether it’s going to a spring or going to garage sales to find items to resell, or doing impromptu getaways. I guess knowing we can do these things after all the work we had to do to get here makes it all worth it.
Contact Info:
- Website: workaholicstudios.com
- Instagram: workaholicstudios
- Other: https://vimeo.com/workaholicstudios
