What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I didn’t have any crazy jobs. However I have a degree in architecture and I have worked in the architecture visualization field for many years before dedicating myself to characters.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
As part of my work I had the opportunity to write several articles/tutorials for magazines like 3D Artist and 3DCreative. These magazines give me a lot of freedom regarding the images I produce, so they end up being very personal. I enjoy this creative freedom a lot and I think that I have produced some of my best characters for these magazines. Among these are the Boxing Kangaroo, the Barrio Guy, General Rhino and Lil’B, for example. Â I am also involved in the creation of sculptures for collectible figures and model kits. I am very proud of some of these characters, like the Cello Girl and Sasha, the welder girl.
How did you become interested in animation? Even though I am not an animator, we all have to agree that animation is a kind of magic. As many people, Disney films had a huge impact on me. Seeing these characters come to life is just.. Continue reading
What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Pablo Navarro; I’m an Animation Director and Senior Character Animator.  Right now I’m animating for the movie titled “The Congressâ€, the next project from Ari Foldman, director of Waltz with Bashir.  Besides that I teach animation as a part time job, and I do tutoring to students here in Barcelona and other cities of Spain.  Also I give lectures and conferences about animation and acting around the globe.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? Well, I work since I’m 8 years old, I used to work on orange and watermelon plantations helping loading the trucks, after that I was a waiter for many years in the family restaurant……although I am a formerly electro-mechanic technician, I never worked as such, I jump into animation right after finishing my studies.I wasn’t fond of those other activities to continue with them 😉  Don’t know if they’re crazy enough jobs…..but surely they don’t have anything to do with animation.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? The project I am most proud it is a movie called Nocturna. That is my favorite project so far. Â I really enjoy working with the same Directors of that movie (Adria Garcia and Victor Maldonado plus Alfredo Torres), they create a studio called Headless and I collaborate with them often for new projects and development.
How did you become interested in animation?
Well, I think that all my life I was interested in animation, but when you’re a kid it is difficult to find out, or to put it into words like say “I want to be an animator!!† My mother found out that the only way to keep me quiet and not doing too much trouble around the house was giving me a paper and a pencil and I could Continue reading
What is your name and your current occupation?
Ron Doucet, Animation Director.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? I harvested fish eggs for a couple summers when I was a teenager. Thousands of fish come in on a water-fed conveyor belt, you grab the females, slice open their bellies, remove the sack of eggs, slap them in a box, and repeat a million times. Not so much crazy… but incredibly boring.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? So far I have a few. Â The very frist production I ever directed holds a special place in my heart because we had so much creative freedom, the series was Olliver’s Adventures, a little cartoon that aired on Canadian and Australian television from 2002-2006. Â It was a lot of fun to produce, the crew turned out to be a well-oiled machine by the 3rd season, and we were creating our own stories and scenarios and having a blast doing it. Â I made an independant short film back in 2005. Me and a few others got together for a few weeks to create it, it was fun and spontaneous, and even though it was brief and made with no budget, it was pure fun. Â Another cool one was the MSTRKRFT music video for the track ‘Work On You’Â I sort of played the roll of Producer and FX Supervisor for it. Again, the enjoyment came from plenty of creative freedom, from developing a story, designing characters, to animating the whole thing. We were pressed for time (as always), but had lots of laughs creating it. The only direction the client gave us was “Make it feel like Astroboy, transformers and Akira.” — we were in heaven.
How did you become interested in animation?Â
My parents say I was drawing since the age of 2. But as far back as I can remember I was always drawing the cartoons that I’d see on TV. I had a chalkboard when I was 8 years old, and I’d draw scenes as Continue reading
What is your name and your current occupation? Suze Datz, Instructor at Gnomon School of Visual Effects and freelance fx recruiter.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? Handling the Paramount Pictures Corporation advertising for 10 years. Best job, though? Lifeguard on Long Island when I was 16.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? Babe, the Coca-Cola Polar Bear commercials, a Tiffany commercial, Seafari (a motion base ride in Japan.
How did you become interested in animation?
I have always loved cartoons! Continue reading
What is your name and your current occupation?
Erica Pitt….2D Flash animator.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? I haven’t had too many craaaazy jobs….my first job ever was working in a coffee shop bistro in my home town of Victoria, BC for 3 years. It was there that I saved up the money to go to animation school with. The summer of first year college I worked at a Dog kennel cleaning up dog s*** mostly, and the summer after did renovation work flipping houses. Between 3rd and 4th year though I got to co-direct a music video for a Canadian band called Elliott Brood which was a lot of fun. It turned out OK considering we had about a month and a half to do it in.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? Every project I’ve worked on has a special little place in my heart for different reasons. George of the Jungle was the very first show I worked on, and it taught me soooo much not just about animation in flash, but animation in general. Pucca season 2 was really cute and action packed so that was always pretty crazy fun. Seeing how popular My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic got as soon as it started airing was a special treat. We were still working on the episodes as they were coming out, so it was amazing to see how many fans there were and how crazy (in a good way) they were for it. I’ve never worked on anything that popular before. I’ve gotten a couple of marriage proposals from some of the fans who have found my youtube channel so that was a new experience being a bit of a celebrity of sorts. “Roy” a show we animated for Ireland was loads of fun and got me interested in possibly working abroad…which I am currently doing so it was cool that THAT project inspired me to travel and see new places. I never expected that I would get to work on a feature film doing flash animation…but was able to on the Top Cat movie. It was a pretty cool feeling going to the cinema to watch it when it finally came out.
How did you become interested in animation? I always liked drawing, but I remember discovering the X-Men Animated series on TV one Saturday morning and becoming really obsessed with it. When I found out it was a comic book I started buying every X-Men title there was and started trying to learn how to draw super heroes from them. My friend and I started making Continue reading
What is your name and your current occupation? I am a freelance CG artist. I am also on the crew for the upcoming animated shorts “Hullabaloo”.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? One time I was a security guard in a middle school. There had been great tension between two large groups in the school that culminated in a pretty large standoff. Imagine two crowds of about 250 people each about ten feet from each other ready to go to war. It looked like a scene out of Braveheart or something. Â The only thing between them for about thirty seconds was me. Luckily they didn’t charge. I have also been a dish washer ,gardener, and a lot of other things.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Certainly the project I have been most proud to be a part of is Hullabaloo. I have been lucky enough to know the creator, James Lopez, for several years now and have watch  it grow from sketches on the wall to a full on successful indigogo campaign. I have loved the Disney style of animation since I was a child so to be invited to be part of that team is a privilege and an honor. It’s not everyday you get to work with animation greats.
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
Well I was born in Buenos Aires Argentina but moved to Los Angeles when I was seven years old. Â I guess you could say I’m just starting out in the animation business with Hullabaloo as it is going to be the first animation project I will be a part of. Â Up to this point I have only worked on tv shows, games, and toys. How I got to this point is what I’m guessing aspiring artist would want to know. Most people would say hard work,determination, and luck. Although that last statement is true it doesn’t say much so I will tell my story. I took a job as a souvenir photo booth attendant at a special even at the Walt Disney Studio. Â The only reason I took the job was to get through the gates, which to me always felt like the hardest step in the process. In the soundstage we were set up across from where some Disney animators were giving drawing lessons to attendees. I was determined to speak to one of the animators and show them my work. Once I mustered up the courage I walked up and introduced myself to to to man behind the desk. The crowd had cleared but he was still doodling on the page (this is where the luck part comes in). The man behind the desk was James Lopez. Well to make a long story short he became my mentor and over a period of a couple of years he helped me improve my drawing skills dramatically. Around this time I also decided I would go back to school to learn the CG workflow for animated films. I enrolled at Gnomon School of Visual Effects. As one of my projects I decided to model the car from Jame’s personal animated project (Hullabaloo). It was, I think, at that point when he decided to let me help him with his project. Fast forward about a year and a half and here we are. So needles to say it does take time, hard work, determination, and luck.
What’s a typical day like for you with regards to your job?
Well my day usually consist of exercise in the morning. Then I get right to work. As I do freelance as a cg artist the jobs can always range from modeling, sculpting, texturing, and sometime design. I might be working at home in which case I crank up the tunes and work all day till my wife gets home. Or I might be working in an office. A work day can range from 1 hour to 18 hours long. If I have time I like to work on personal projects in the evening and on the weekends. Also I’m constantly looking for new techniques on how to create cool stuff. During my free time recently I have been working mostly on Hullabaloo. Continue reading
