I was born on March 16, 1978 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. My mom was and is a special education teacher at the same elementary school I attended. My father started out in Vietnam in the Airforce, then spent time in the oil market in Oklahoma. When that went bust, he became a teacher and then a director a local vocational school.

I'm a voracious reader and like to reread and reread books until they really sink in. I think I'm on my 6th or 7th pass through the Harry Potter series. I like to fish when I have the time, and I love animation.

After high school, I spent a semester at college before deciding to go to basic training in the Marine Corps. I left in December of 1996. From there I wound up in Washington D.C. on Presidential Support Duty at the White House Communications Agency. It was an amazing experience as I got to travel the world hitting Ireland, New Zealand, the Dominican Republic and Italy along the way...oh yeah, we made a pit stop in Iceland somewhere around there. Through most of my time in the Marines I kept up my skills by doodling, designing unit T-shirts, or drawing tattoo art for my buddies. I also started to do freelance graphics work and named my company - J.J. Burton Studios. About that time, I decided I needed to figure out how I wanted to spend the rest of my life and kept coming back to my passion for animation and more specifically 3d animation.

My first experience, of which, was seeing the clock tower scene in Disney's "The Great Mouse Detective" and wondering how they did that. Seeing a behind-the-scenes special on it showed me how. Looking for a school that taught it seemed to be easier than I expected. The Art Institute of Washington had recently opened up and offered a degree in Media Arts and Animation. I couldn't start until April of 2001, so I got 3d Studio Max and began teaching myself the software.

Having spent two semesters at The Art Institute, I came to the conclusion that I wanted something else. So, I went back to the drawing board and looked at those company's web sites (Pixar, Big Idea, etc.) that I wanted to work at and saw which schools they recommended; Savannah College of Art and Design was on all of their lists. I moved to Savannah in November of 2001. I got a copy of Lightwave 3D and kept myself busy until school started.

While in school, I ran a web design/graphic design firm called New Eyes Media to pay the bills and graduated from SCAD in June of 2005. I started my first industry job at Midway Games in July of 2005 as an animator and enjoying learning some new apps and working with great people.