Author Archives: Laura

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David VanTuyle

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is David VanTuyle. Currently I am doing storyboards at Renegade Animation.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Before working in animation I mostly worked at video game retail stores. Ironically, my first job in animation was working at a video game studio.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I have gotten to work with some amazing artists on all sorts of projects. From commercials, to mobile storybook apps, to title sequences for children’s television shows. Every project I have been a part of has been something new and exciting. That’s what I love most about animation, there are so many different types of projects to be involved in.  I am really excited about this new pilot that I just did boards on for Renegade Animation.

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I grew up in and studied animation and illustration in Michigan. I have wanted to work in animation since I can remember. When I was 5 my parents took me to Disney World and I was just hooked. I told my mom then and there that Continue reading

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Robert Rucker

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What is your name and your current occupation?
This is Robert Rucker I am a Background Artist in Animation.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I did art direction work for an ad agency a decade ago. I wore many hats to save the company money. Including Art Direction I performed as an Illustrator and a Graphic Designer.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I was proud to work on “The Proud Family”, “Loonatics Unleashed” and “High School USA”. They were major gigs in animation and some one thought I was good enough to join those teams.
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from Michigan and I got in by testing for “Duck Soup” where I was Continue reading
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Christina Chiusano

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Christina Chiusano, Compositing Supervisor on Penguins of Madagascar.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
My first Job out of college was a game tester at EA

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
When I started working at Nickelodeon for the CG department there were less then 15 people working here. Seeing this department grow from one show to more then 5 in production has been really rewarding.
How did you become interested in animation? 
I have always been passionate about cartoons and movies. When I was little I was always Continue reading

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Michael K. Foster

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Michael K. Foster, character designer and animator.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Not sure if they’re crazy, but when I was younger I was a stock boy for a health food store, talk about nut jobs.  I was a professional mover for three years and spent many of those nights sleeping in the back of the moving truck trying to keep warm in those dirty moving blankets because there was no time to go home.  My first art related job was designing yellow page ads.  Ever see those ads?  That’s pretty much the lowest design job there is.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Wow, um…I guess one would be a new product for Anagram Intl. a company I used to work for.  They’re a huge national and international mylar balloon company.  Not what you may think of when talking animation, but I was contacted by them with nothing more then an idea and told to make it work.  It was all based around the QR codes that you see everywhere that can be scanned with a smart phone.  I developed a line of character driven mylar balloons for children with themes such as pirates, skateboarders, princess’s & mermaids.  Each balloon had a scannable QR code printed on it and when scanned, a short fun animation played based on the balloon.  It was a way to “continue” the story from the balloon.  The balloons are being sold throughout the U.S.  It may not be a huge deal, but for me, it was something because it started as a blank idea and it turned into something bigger.  This also helped my approach for new clients because it showed that animation is not just for TV and Film, but many other industries.

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I was born in Ann Arbor Michigan and raised in Hillburn NY a small village about an hour north of NYC.  I got into animation some what by chance.  A company I used to work for was in need of some simple character driven animation to help promote a few new products.  My boss came to me and basically said, Continue reading

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Elliot Blake

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Elliot Blake, and I’m an animation producer and sometimes writer. I just wrapped up a lengthy gig with the fine people at Six Point Harness.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve kind of been lucky in that I haven’t had to do a lot of crazy jobs before getting into the animation business.  Certainly the most unusual job I had was helping to wrangle pigs one day when I was a p.a. on a low budget family feature called “Gordy.” And when I was in high school, I worked at a Cinnabon for two or three weeks. To this day, I can’t eat those things.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Well, I got to work on the original run of Futurama, all 72 episodes, as the design coordinator; that was fun, and I’m definitely proud to have been a part of it.  Working on that series was really the foundation for my animation production education, and it was great to get to see it all come together, from the initial design phase, all the way through to the final original episode.  I think my favorite projects were two I produced: Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider and Re\Visioned: Activision, both of which were web series
for GameTap, which was originally owned by Turner Broadcasting.  I won an Emmy for the Tomb Raider series back in 2008, which was a thrill, and also got to voice-direct Minnie Driver, who played Lara Croft. For a web series, the Tomb Raider project was obscenely well-funded, but unfortunately, not as widely-seen as we would have liked.  A few episodes are up on my website now , but at the time, the management thought putting the videos on YouTube would mean no one would come to watch them on GameTap.  The videogame company that publishes the Tomb Raider games recently put the episodes on YouTube, so now Continue reading

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Scott Adams

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What would you say has been your primary job in animation?
Background painter and color stylist. I’m currently remote freelancing for Warner Bros. on Scooby-Doo Mystery Inc. and Looney Tunes Show. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and used to work at Wild Brain before they relocated to LA.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was a bill collector for the credit card division of a big, unpopular bank in the early 90s. It was all done on an automatic dialer, the account would pop up on your screen and you’d have to quickly process what their situation was and try to get them to pay their bills. Sometimes it was depressing, sometimes it was fascinating and entertaining. People will tell you anything when they owe money. Mostly I just left a lot of messages and sketched in my book.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated is at the top of my list right now. It’s the coolest show I’ve gotten to work on, I’m a genuine fan.

How did you become interested in animation?
I’ve always been a fan of cartoons, of course, I wanted to do comic books, but never Continue reading