After graduating from the College for Creative Studies in May 2016, I have kept myself busy with various client work, and haven't stopped since. (To say the least, I've felt pretty fortunate through the pandemic!)
I started taking my first client work while I was still in school, starting small with a mobile app called Morphicons Inc making animated emojjis in a GIF format. Soon after, I joined Loogaroo Studios as a remote freelancer working on a few episodes of a show called “Terrificland.” At the same time, I spent much of my focus on my Junior thesis titled: “Intestiney,” and my Seinor thesis, titled: “Occultation,” of which both set off to participate inYoung Michigan Filmmaker’s Fest(s) and winning a couple different awards! (Occultation was my biggest achievement, winning 1st Best Animation and 2nd Best of Show in the 2015 Fest!)
Currently, I have been working with Essence Cartoon, where I’ve been working with our talented pool of remote freelance artists and Editors. I met them not even two weeks after I graduated, and since then we’ve been taking on numerous private client work. It’s been a real great learning experience, not just in animation art, but also selling our ideas as well, not to mention helping clients with a lack of artistic skill develop their own vision on screen. I am a Lead Animator on the team, meaning that I will often need to keep in contact with my clients, sharing my team’s work and seeking feedback, while also directing the team to meet the clients visions. It is a mountain of work managing a project, and keeping many people on the same page is quite challenging. I embrace this role with enthusiasm, however, because I love to discuss art and animation in a critical light (Without sounding tooo much like a snob, haha!).
As hard as it gets, it’s still a lot of fun, and I don't think it's a path that I'll ever turn my back on!