{"id":27151,"date":"2024-04-22T10:58:37","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T17:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pugetsystems.com\/?post_type=case_study&p=27151"},"modified":"2025-06-17T09:51:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T16:51:22","slug":"clint-jones-a-lifelong-creative-journey","status":"publish","type":"case_study","link":"https:\/\/www.pugetsystems.com\/featured\/clint-jones-a-lifelong-creative-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Clint Jones: A Lifelong Creative Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Clint Jones: A Lifelong Creative Journey<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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Creative inspiration ran deep throughout Clint\u2019s family, giving him a lifelong passion that has infused his career on YouTube and led him to help educate the next generation of content creators.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt started when I was three years old,\u201d recalls Clint Jones, YouTuber, VFX artist, 3D animation artist, and educator. \u201cI was always drawing, coloring, building with Legos – always something creative!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creative inspiration ran deep throughout Clint\u2019s family; his father was a drummer so music was always present in the house. \u201cBecause of my dad, I also love music. It\u2019s another big part of my inspiration. Creativity was pulsing through my house as a kid!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t long before Clint\u2019s inspiration shifted to video and content creation. \u201cI grew up in the Chino Hills area of California. Right when I was about to start 9th grade, my family decided to move to Atlanta for my dad\u2019s job. But before I moved, a friend of mine came over with his mini-DV cam and started showing me how it worked. He started doing these cuts, and showing me how to cut from one scene to another – the basics of editing. My mind was blown!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His friend then made what seemed to be an off-the-cuff remark, \u201cYou know, you have this free software on your PC called Windows Movie Maker.\u201d Clint\u2019s father had built him a PC – his dad was technical that way too – but he had no idea that this magical video editing software was sitting right there, waiting for him to discover it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou mean to tell me I can film stuff, and then edit it on my computer?\u201d Clint recalls thinking. \u201cThat was it for me. I started filming everything. I mean, it was super grainy, noisy 480p stuff, but I loved it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cYou mean to tell me I can film stuff, and then edit it on my computer? That was it for me. I started filming everything. I mean, it was super grainy, noisy 480p stuff, but I loved it!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/div>\n Clint Jones<\/cite>\n <\/blockquote>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI wasn\u2019t really into movies, but I was big into Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, so I was always filming these fight scenes – and a lot of Tom and Jerry style scenes. It was fun!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clint also had another inspiration as a kid – the military! \u201cI wanted to be a Marine so badly! I would even patrol the neighborhood with my Air Soft BB gun. But then I started thinking, \u2018How do I add a muzzle flash to my videos?\u2019 So I started experimenting and discovered that I could export a frame of video to Photoshop, add a muzzle flash, and then bring it back into Movie Maker. That was a game changer and it opened my eyes to motion graphics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then Clint had to make the move to Atlanta, starting over. He had no friends to collaborate with or shoot videos with, so he decided to pour himself into learning as much as he could. \u201cThat\u2019s when I discovered Video Copilot! I had never seen effects this good before. I became obsessed with Andrew Kramer!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, at his new high school in Atlanta, he took a digital media class and started meeting a whole new group of like-minded creatives. They became his lifelong friends. And they started filming again. Stupid things. Shorts. Just having fun. And then in 2006, he discovered this new platform for posting videos. A site called YouTube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was there from the beginning! Before YouTube, I was just posting my videos to MySpace. But when I started my YouTube channel in 2006, I started getting a lot of views on these effects tests I was creating. I was also a huge fan of Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch, who ran the freddieww<\/em> channel together. And over time, we developed an internet friendship because Freddie and some other people on YouTube were also watching my stuff and commenting. We actually met in person finally at Comic Con, and in fact, that\u2019s where I met Sam and Niko – before they were Corridor Digital! I quickly became a part of this friend group of all VFX artists, filmmakers, creatives who wanted to tell stories, it was amazing!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Clint Jones Using Motion Capture to Animate Optimus Prime<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI was still in college working on my DMA when Freddie said to me, \u2018do you want to come to LA and help us on our videos?\u2019 So I packed my \u201889 Camry and left Georgia for LA! For the next 7 or 8 years, I was working closely with Freddie and Rocket Jump, Corridor Digital, and even on my own stuff. It was an amazing experience! It was only three years ago that I decided to break out on my own and start my own YouTube channel where I dove deep into 3D art\u00a0 – not just VFX. I also really started leaning into the education side of things. I also love traveling, exploring, and getting lost. I also developed an interest in photography and creating worlds with my imagery. So it was a natural progression to Unreal Engine. It\u2019s the most complex tool I\u2019ve ever used.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since rebooting his channel four years ago, Clint has been spending much of his time diving deep into 3D animation tutorials and how-to videos, and building a worldwide community around it. In fact, twice a year, Clint holds a 3D Community Challenge, in which he gives every participant a 3D template to create a project with a month to complete it. Thousands participate from all over the world, and the top 5 winners receive prizes from the dozens of sponsors he lines up to support the participating artists. It\u2019s a lot of work, but it\u2019s Clint\u2019s passion – one of them! He and his wife – on an inspirational, creative whim – traveled to Japan where they are recreating all of the popular Japanese tourist attractions\u2026using Legos! \u201cI\u2019m not sure how it will turn out, but I\u2019m hoping to launch a whole series of tutorials on the efforts and techniques that it takes for a project of this magnitude!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Discovering Puget Systems and Leveling Up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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With all of this going on and the intensity of all of the projects Clint is working on, it was becoming ever clearer to him that his current workstation was just not up to the task. It was time to level up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI learned about Puget Systems from my time at Corridor Digital; I loved those systems so much! I figured if I\u2019m going to embark on all of these projects, I\u2019m going to need to start with a great system. Puget Systems – it\u2019s a no-brainer!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI worked closely with DJ Bailey and Oscar Tirado from Puget to help me build the perfect PC. In fact, I was so inspired that I posted a video to my channel called \u2018What Digital Artists Need to Know About Hardware<\/a>\u2019 using a comparison to a kitchen and all its cooking tools as a metaphor to help explain it all. It was a lot of fun (and it\u2019s racked up nearly 200k views to date)!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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