Hi there... My name is Kevin Phillips, and welcome to my personal website! Who am I? My Name is Kevin Phillips, and I live in New Zealand with my wife Marija, and our cat Max. I tend to be a major Computer Graphics geek, so you'll find a lot of what I talk about on this page will revolve around that particular theme. Last year (2004) we did plenty of travelling, spending 5 weeks in beautiful Dubrovnik (Croatia) and then a week in Los Angeles, taking in Siggraph 2004. I love travelling - Its just the need to spend money to do it that I don't like! What do I do? I've been in a few jobs over the years - General office work, Telecommunications I.T., Multimedia production to name the main ones. However I feel at last I'm in my chosen dream career path working with 3D animation, an area that I am very passionate about! I'm currently working for Flux Animation Studios (since 2001) where working daily with incredible artistic talent has been a great experience, and I've been teaching 3D modelling and animation part-time for Natcoll Design Technology (since 2003). I've also been involved with teaching and support for 3D modelling and animation for the AUT Faculty of Arts department on and off over the last 3-4 years as well, so you could say that I've got my fingers in many different pieces of the 3D animation pie! How did I get where I am now? Computer Generated art had always been a passion and interest of mine, right back to the 1980's where writing 3D sinewave graph programs in BASIC and Z80 assembler were geeky fun to keep the whole family amused! If I wasn't programming, I was doodling with cursor keys in Melbourne Draw on my reliable old Sinclair Spectrum... ...but enough of my geeky childhood... How'd I get into the job I do now? I had been moonlighting as a 3D artist for several years in my spare time, doing small jobs for people to spruce up those ugly powerpoint presentations, some video title effects and product realization. In 1997-1998, I realised that while the online community for my tool of choice (LightWave3D) was fantastic, I really wanted to meet people 'in the flesh' as it were, and it would be great to find out if anybody else in New Zealand had heard of LightWave... I was surprised to find out just how many more users there were! I started, and still run the New Zealand LightWave Users Group, fondly named 'KiWavers' (kee-way-vers). It started back around the end of 1997, and I'm still doing it! However, its been a lot of commitment to keep things rolling for so long - Its taken several years to build up to a point where users are sharing their work, and giving a bit of themselves back into meetings... For years it was me, my voice and charming personality! lol! The advantage of Kiwavers is that its given me a good reputation with a variety of people and its how doors opened for me, such as the studio and school jobs. Since I was doing most (if not all) of the tutorials and demos at meetings myself, it has been a great way to learn LightWave's tools too! So, where am I going? Recently, I completed work on the book 1001 Tips and Tricks for LightWave 8 alongside 30 of the worlds leading LightWave experts, and was also part of the Tech review team for the LightWave 8 manual. I've made plenty of good friends over the years, and its nice to be getting some recognition for all my efforts with such cool projects. My future plans are all directed in my chosen passion of 3D, with some upcoming new tools for LightWave in the works, as well as training materials and more... Keep your eyes peeled...