My name is Joshua H. Metz, and I am a writer/animator. I also play the guitar as my primary instrument of choice, and dabble with drums and various other instruments. Art is my passion, and I'm always looking to better myself with new techniques by researching the type of art I like.

I animate in Flash with a cheap Wacom tablet. I generally run off of out-dated equipment since it is what I can afford. When drawing on paper, I start with a black Bic pen and ink with a black .5 pigment pen. For added effects when using the computer, I use Photoshop.

When animating, I go for a traditional effect by using frame-by-frame techniques. I start with an animatic, which consists of all the basic motions with essentially stick-figure versions of the characters I am using. Then I do backgrounds. After that, I go back again and animate the final take. I color last.

I enjoy helping other people learn what I know. I do all my research on my own, since I cannot afford to go to school for this stuff. When I learn something new, I tend to blog about it or set up an episode on my podcast to interview someone who can talk about it. I work best when I have someone there to back-and-forth with, so the podcast is a huge help. When I'm just snooping around on the net, I tend to post my findings on my Twitter, which ultimately is linked to both my MySpace and FaceBook pages.

Thanks for reading! Feel uninformed? Feel like I left something out? Shoot me a message at joshua@smirkstudios.com and let me know what's missing.