Shant Klebesadel

I'm a 3D generalist from Los Angeles, working primarily in Maya, Zbrush, and Substance Painter.  I earned my Bachelor's Degree in English from UCLA in 2013, then studied Entertainment Design and Modeling and Texturing at Gnomon School from 2013-2016. After graduating from Gnomon, I worked for Lightstorm on the Avatar Sequels 2 and 3 from 2016 to 2025. I worked in the Environments Lab from 2016 to 2018 creating assets, props, vehicles, vegetation, and animals as well as environment layout for a number of sets. The work I did involved realtime optimization and organization for our pipeline taking the digital sets to our virtual stage in MBS. These scenes were then passed on to WETA VFX in New Zealand for upres and finalization. I also worked in the Kabuki Facial Capture department from 2018 to 2025, processing the facial performances of the talent into animated 2D textures for previs to be passed on to WETA VFX for finalization. I processed facial camera data for dual camera dry takes, underwater GoPro takes, and helped develop the proprietary in house softwares for streamlining our pipeline. Since then, I worked a number of small gigs, including creating facial blend shape rigs for 10 characters in the upcoming META / Gravity Media VR experience “Survivors of Hate”. In my spare time, I enjoy painting in traditional watercolors. I am currently open to work. Download my current resume with the button below and contact me through the CONTACT tab above.