BACKGROUND:
Originally arriving in Hollywood in 1983 to pursue a film and television career in acting, Mr. Gauba eventually fell into working behind the scenes, starting out as a special effects makeup artist which quickly morphed into getting a variety of creative gigs from sculpting custom specialty props and film sets in block-buster feature films such as Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes to Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, as well as Disney's first three Pirate's of the Caribbean films.
Mr. Gauba worked on prominent, and highly popular television shows such as CSI: Las Vegas working with a talented team of prop-makers creating the miniatures for the Miniature Killer series which ran on CSI: LV for almost two seasons. Other popular shows where Mr. Gauba created unique props were the Crank Yankers series as well as Chowder: Marzipan City animated series. The list of film, television and TV commercials is a long one.
Mr. Gauba was given the wonderful opportunity to work at Walt Disney Imagineering in 1990 where he worked, initially, in the Dimensional Design Department both as an architectural model builder and a sculptor. Working closely with the Sculptural Department, Mr. Gauba started landing more and more sculpting projects under the guidance of Valerie Edwards and Adolpho Procopio.
In 1995, Mr. Gauba left WDI to pursue a freelance career, and, because of his strong knowledge and expertise of everything Disney, this led him directly to Walt Disney Art Classic's Classics Collections division as one of several, very talented sculptors who sculpted Disney animated characters starting with Mr. Gauba being hired to sculpt all of the lead characters from the then recently popular Toy Story feature film cast.
Mr. Gauba moved with his Wife Ellen to Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2021 to pursue fun and entertaining projects with his best friend, Nick deSomov where he and Nick work, laugh and enjoy the fruits of their labors in an enjoyable, but very busy creative studio.