Category Archives: Artists Interviews

One Comment

Jeff Ermoian

  By

What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Jeff Ermoian and I teach Digital Media Design at Texas State Technical College in Waco including Character Design, 2D animation, and storyboarding.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Cabinet Power Sander (@ a speaker manufacturing company) and Arcade Tech. (human change machine)
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
When I was in the Air Force I helped develop the congressional briefing to get funding for the C-17. That aircraft has a lot to do with our current airlift capability. I also started a television show called The All You Can Eat Texas Music Cafe with my brothers that featured unsigned singer songwriters. It was aired coast to coast in the U.S. and carried internationally in over a hundred foreign countries.
How did you become interested in animation?
I can’t recall when I wasn’t interested in animation. I remember Wiley Coyote holding up signs I couldn’t read and being angry that I was missing the joke. I remember seeing a cartoon reel before the Continue reading

No comments

Shannon Muir

  By

What is your name and your current occupation? 
My name is Shannon Muir, and I’ve been a freelance writer since 2000, sometimes in conjunction with other employment and sometimes not. Right now I’m freelancing full-time, and also gone into self-publishing ebooks as well as being hired to format ebooks for other writers. In the past I’ve also been a production coordinator on animated series for studios such as Nickelodeon, SD Entertainment, and Sony. Most recently, I came out of over three and a half years in the childrens’ virtual world space; to be honest, I’m surprised the storytelling and technology elements between animated television and virtual worlds haven’t merged closer together yet. When I got into it back then, I was pretty convinced we were on the verge of most animation moving from television to the Internet. Then again, they thought that a few years ago with Icebox and the like, and we weren’t quite there yet either. I think it would be even harder now for someone without more technical and games experience to break into virtual worlds from an animated television background the way I did.  As to my writing, my animation scriptwriting credits are for the series MIDNIGHT HORROR SCHOOL, which was produced in Japan but never made its way to the United States (though it was dubbed in parts of Europe) because it was just too quirky I think to fit our kinds of programming. Imagine all the cuteness of a preschool show but the characters look a bit Tim Burton-like. I did five scripts for the show, three on my own and two with my co-writer Kevin Paul Shaw Broden Continue reading

No comments

Jeff Amey

  By

What is your name and your current occupation?
Jeff Amey, Storyboard Artist, Professor of Animation at Algonquin College -Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Night shift grocery store clerk!
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
The Undergrads, The Oblongs, Watership Down, Ren and Stimpy, Adult Party Cartoon.
How did you become interested in animation?
I always loved drawing and watching cartoons. I never realized I could do this as a living however. I guess I thought it just all magically was done in a far away land.  A girlfriend at the time pointed out that Continue reading

One Comment

Ashraf Ghori

  By

What is your name and your current occupation?
Ashraf Ghori. I am an artist and animation director. I also run my own digital design agency Xpanse CGI in Dubai UAE as its CEO.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was an artist at Six Flags Astroworld in Houston doing caricatures, I also worked for a year as a laser show animator doing some outrageous events in the UAE.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I am proud of my comic books and fantasy art that I made in Houston, and of my first short film ‘Xero Error’ which also happened to be the first CGI Sci-fi Film produced in the UAE.

I love the projects I get to do while traveling to different countries. I did a TV commercial for Lux Progress in Cape Town, where I had to create a blob of green liquid shooting through dirty plates and cleaning them in its wake. I could’ve easily done this back home in Dubai, but the client preferred to take the whole team there, No complaints from me!

I was the art director for Malal which was also the first Indo-Emirati film. We got to shoot this in a picturesque green hill station in Kerala, India. It was a wondrous week of very satisfying work while dodging blood sucking leeches from the forest!

How did you become interested in animation?
Prior to ’94 I was only into comic book & fantasy art. Then games like Continue reading

No comments

Robert Weaver

  By

What is your name and your current occupation?
Robert Weaver, Lead Cinematics Animator at Hydrogen Whiskey for Microsoft and LucasArt’s Star Wars Kinect game.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
Hmn, crazy?  I can’t think of anything crazy…  Washing dishes back when I was 14 maybe…What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
Shrek 2, Prince of Egypt and Spirit over at DreamWorks Animation.  Those folks put a lot of quality into every project, but those are the ones that stand out as special for me.  Medal of Honor (the relaunch) with EA/DangerClose and of course Star Wars Kinect with Hydrogen Whiskey.  How can you NOT love to get to animate Star Wars characters?

How did you become interested in animation? 
At the tender age of 16, I happened upon two animated movies that pretty much Continue reading

No comments

Michael Leo Ramirez

  By

What is your name and your current occupation?
Michael Leo Ramirez (aka MRAM) , Concept Artist / VFX Artist

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Process Server (Served Subpoenas) Probably would have had my a** handed to me a couple of times if I didn’t look intimidating.  =)

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Junior Designer on the “Fountains Of Bellagio” and “Mirage Volcano” casino projects for Steve Wynn in Las Vegas

How did you become interested in animation?
Saw Speed Racer for the first time in Continue reading