About

I'm Scott Buchanan and I work in 3D Animation and Visual Effects, currently living in Atlanta, GA, and I couldn't be more excited about what I get to do for a living!

I'm originally from Mississippi where I studied computer science at The University of Mississippi with all my electives being in art. After graduating, I worked for the university with most of my time being spent creating Flash animations and applications that included heavy use of ActionScript and database connectivity. It was there that I was introduced to 3ds Max R4, began to teach myself, and incorporate 3D animation with the Flash related work I had already been doing.

Moving to Atlanta in 2007, I continued to work with 3ds Max and Flash at Groundrush Media for a short time before heading to SCAD to pursue a Master's in Visual Effects. Being self-taught up to this point, I was excited to learn I had been accepted into the program. While at SCAD, I won first place in the 24 hour challenge, had multiple projects showcased at SCAD Night, was invited to interview with Pixar, and offered an internship with SideFX Software.

I chose to stay in Atlanta for various reasons, freelancing for awhile, and started working at Indigo Studios in 2015 as a CGI Artist. I worked there through 2020 and have been freelancing again, ever since. 

Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to wear many hats including, but not limited to, modeling, surfacing, lighting, rigging, match moving, compositing, live action integration, sound design, programming/scripting (I almost always write some code to facilitate things during each project), and working with CAD data, but my bread and butter is working with particles and dynamics which I can't get enough of. If I also get to do some scripting, even better!

I am grateful my job has allowed me to work on a variety of projects for companies, such as, Indigo Studios, The Discovery Channel, Caterpillar, Fox and Lion Digital, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Rheem, John Deere, Nordson, and Cisco. I feel I've only scratched the surface of the vast subject matter in my field and look forward to continued education and what the future may hold.

In addition to animating and coding, I have built entire networks from scratch that included fileservers (with active directory, VPN access, and snapshots), render farms, render management with Deadline, license servers, on-site & cloud backup solutions, etc.

When I'm not working, I enjoy backpacking and participating in various outdoor activities. Aside from that, I'm a seasoned musician, playing drums and guitar and, occasionally, I record and mix music.