About Me

My name is Miguel Tjon-Kon-Fat. I was born in the city of Paramaribo in the country of Suriname, South America. Right now I’m living in the Netherlands, Europe. My major is in Information Science. I did not go to art school. I’m a self-taught visual effects hobbyist who is currently working as a freelance web designer. In my free time I’m trying to learn as much as I can about 3D rigging, character animation, fx animation, matchmoving and compositing.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated by motion. When I first started out I had an interest in just character animation and effects animation. But as I learned more about the whole process of creating visual effects, I also started to get interested in matchmoving and compositing. I hope to someday work on movies for the big screen, animated feature films or commercials with others who share the same passion as I do. I want to make the audience go “ooh” and “aah” just like I did and still do when watching visual effects. I am hungry to learn everything I can about this industry and hope to someday meet and work with the best in the business. My long-term goal is to become a respected expert in my own right in one or more of the previously mentioned areas and pass my knowledge to others by teaching, giving seminars and workshops and maybe even write a book.

Inspirational CG work

I remember seeing a few episodes of the classic early 1940’s Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. The animation was amazing, and these cartoons probably inspired Batman: The Animated Series, Superman and the Justice League series. The movie that got me interested in the whole visual effects business was James Cameron's The Abyss (1989). You all know what I’m talking about, the aliens who can manipulate water and especially that scene where the snake-like pool of water moves its way around the rescue vessel and interacts with the main character Bud’s ex-wife Lindsey. Then in 1991 I saw James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The morphing effects in this movie still give me goose bumps! The T-1000 robot character with it’s liquid-metal construction was one of the coolest characters in a movie ever. And who could forget the ballroom scene with the smoothly 3D animated camera in Disney’s Beauty and The Beast (1991) where Belle and The Beast are dancing in this beautiful ballroom with a cool chandelier.

Disney’s The Lion King (1994) had this very dramatic wildebeast stampede scene during which Simba’s father Mufasa gets killed. It nicely blended traditional animation with 3D computer animation. One of my all-time favorite animated features ever! The DreamWorks’ Prince of Egypt (1998) scene where the Red Sea parts as Moses raises and slams his staff during the march of the Hebrew people to freedom was one of the most breath taking scenes I’ve ever seen! When The Matrix (1999) came out, who wasn’t blown away by the so-called ‘Bullet Time’ sequence, where Neo dodges bullets in slow motion as the camera spins around the action.

Although Disney’s Dinosaur (2000) wasn’t as big a success as some of the other Disney films, it still is one of my favorite movies and inspired me a lot. It combined beautiful digitally enhanced live-action backgrounds with photorealistic 3D computer animated characters. Blue Sky’s Ice Age (2002) is my favorite full-length 3D computer animated movie. It features cool characters, like that prehistoric squirrel called Scrat or the sloth who always gets himself in trouble named Sid. Also let’s not forget the jaw-dropping cinematics in the Blizzard Entertainment games (Diablo II, Warcraft III, World Of Warcraft). The Archangel Tyrael in Diablo II is my favorite game character.

Some of the more recent movies that had a lasting impact on me are Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Pixar’s Finding Nemo (2003) and The Incredibles (2004). The Balrogs in The Lord of the Rings, creatures with fire emanating from their bodies and armed with whips of flame, are still my favorite movie characters and take my breath away each time I see them.

What exactly is Okopipi?

Okopipi is the name used by the locals for a special frog in my country of Suriname, in the north of South America (above Brazil). This frog is better known as the blue poison frog (Dendrobates azureus). It is found exclusively in the tropical rain forest in the Sipaliwini district in the south of Suriname. This is the reason I chose that name for my website.

The Amerindians use the poison secreted from the glands on the skin of this frog (and other related frogs) to create a poisonous paste called curare. Curare is applied to the tips of the arrows and darts that are used for hunting. It has a tranquilizing effect on the animals being hunted. This is the reason that this frog and other frogs used in a similar fashion by the Amerindians are called poison-arrow or poison-dart frogs.

See the following websites for more information about the okopipi: http://www.worldwildlife.org/expeditions/rivers/wl_poisonfrog.htm
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Dendrobates_azureus.html