Author Archives: Laura

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Isaac Marzioli

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What is your name and your current occupation? 
My name is Isaac Marzioli and I’m a digital design clean-up artist on Tuff Puppy at Nickelodeon.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve had a few.  Two of the craziest were when I was just shy of 20 and still trying to figure out what I wanted to do as a career.  I answered an ad in the paper (before newspapers went extinct) and ended up in an interview where I agreed to sell knives door to door.  That didn’t last long because the idea of walking into a stranger’s house and pulling out sharp knives sounded sketchy…so I went one worse and started selling perfume in parking lots.  There’s nothing like approaching a random stranger, pulling a bottle out of your bag and asking if you could squirt them with it.  It was this job that taught me that school was very important.  I came home after a long day of chasing weirdos around an ATM parking lot and enrolled into Cal State Fullerton – more specifically, into the illustration program.  And then to get myself through school (and after I graduated, but before I was able to land a job in the industry) I sold ladies’ shoes.  The Al Bundy jokes weren’t the worst of it – I couldn’t believe what people would tell me about their feet.  Or show me.  This one lady had a fuzzy green square on the bottom of her foot that she wanted me to touch.  Then the smells.  There’s nothing like a hot summer day for people to come in and take their shoes off…So I’m really glad to be working in animation.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
It’s been great to be a part of the Butch Hartman cartoons.  It’s a little pandering, but it’s hard to stay employed in the animation business.  Shows don’t last forever, and cancellation usually comes as a surprise.  Being on Fairly Odd Parents, Danny Phantom and now Tuff Puppy – I’ve been employed steadily for the last 10 and a half years.

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m originally from Northern California – and I came down here to go to school at CSUF.  I hung out with a lot of animation students.  In our junior year they set up a meeting with a storyboard revisionist on Angry Beavers and I Continue reading

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Jeff Victor

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Jeff Victor and I work as an illustrator/designer for Nickelodeon Games. I work as an art lead on a online game called PetPet Park, designing characters, backgrounds, props, and more.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve worked many mundane jobs in my life, but one that is really pretty special to me is when I first moved to Los Angeles, I got work as a background performer, or “extra”. As I was unsuccessfully submitting my portfolio to studios, I made my living as a student/doctor/terrified pedestrian/casual onlooker, etc. I appeared in hundreds of TV shows and movies. As a huge film buff, it was incredible being on set watching some of my favorite directors work. You only earn a tiny paycheck, but being on set with Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese was a priceless experience. My other craziest job was working a few years at Universal Studios Hollywood. I was a show tech, which basically meant I had to set the stage explosives, hook the actors to their flying rigs, move set pieces around on stage, and in the case of Fear Factor Live, handle giant scorpions. All in a day’s work.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I am extremely proud of the work I’ve been doing for Nickelodeon. I enjoy that people all over the world have seen my work. I also really enjoyed some of the stints I had as a character designer at Warner Bros animation, and at East/West DVD, where I got to draw DVD covers for classic cartoons. It was my first real job in animation, and I am really proud of the work, even though it looks incredibly dated to my eyes today. (Of course, things I drew 3 weeks ago look dated to me, but that’s another story…)

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from the Chicago suburbs, and after receiving the “Art of Star Wars” book as a youngster, I knew I wanted to be an artist. I was obsessed with comic books and cartoons as a kid, especially Batman the Animated Series. I filled my grade school notebooks with Continue reading

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Sarmad Mohammed

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name Sarmad Mohammed & i am games designer .illustrator animator .artist & i currently a freelancing artist some of my project illustrated books & storyboards and character designs but i am usually designed games.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I was sculptor artist & my previous job it is children web designer.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I had been in any project as serial animation and as storyboard artist in many films.  1.story board for pana film. 2.storyboard angel’s friends I’m not proud of anything yet but I hope i’ll get this feeling some day.
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am originally from Iraq but i live in Turkey. I had worked 7 years in animation area as cleaner and later inbetweener then an animator but Continue reading

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Temris Ridge

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Temris Ridge, independent animator.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Not many. I went from high school to university to animation school with a little burger flipping and file sorting in between.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
One of my earliest, coolest projects was working on Sam Niemann’s project called “Ruby Rocket.” One of my favorite commercial jobs of my career has to be animating Pop Tarts commercials for TV, which includes GPS, Stuck, and Tour Bus. I was also very excited to get to do some animation for the end credits for the Laika feature film, The Boxtrolls.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from Washington State, born and raised Pacific Northwesterner. I studied art, film, and writing in college and then Continue reading

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Tom Riffel

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Tom Riffel, and currently I am working freelance, in addition to being a co-founder / content creator of the Toonocracy collective.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
Most of my non-animation experience was either slinging coffee or slinging data. Well, entering data. Neither one super crazy, but I did have one data entry job where I was inputting the personal information of women prisoners into what was supposed to be a prison pen-pal website. Needless to say, some of this information was, ah… Highly inappropriate, despite their surveys specifically saying not to include anything R-rated. Also, at the coffee shop, people liked using the walls as toilet paper. Not really sure how that works.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
I’m very fortunate to say that I have been pretty consistently happy with most of the projects I have been on, but my absolute favorite job was working on The Problem Solverz at Cartoon Network. Cartoon Network is my goal, and being able to work on a series produced entirely in-house and with really great people was a dream come true.  A close second would be the last non-freelance job I had, which was at Hot House Productions, working on a pilot. Like The Problem Solverz, it was all done in-house with a small crew of great people.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I grew up in South Florida, but didn’t do anything animation-related until I moved to Chicago. Initially I wanted to be a director, so I went to Florida Atlantic University for film studies and ended up with a useless BA in communication. After an aimless year, I went back to school for animation. Post graduation (Part 2), I was able to get a job doing animation for an internet startup company, and then moved on to doing some digital animation and traditional clean up for Calabash Animation. A few years later, I took the plunge and moved to Los Angeles.

What’s a typical day like for you with regards to your job?
Currently, I wake up, make the long trek from the bedroom to my office, and get crackin’ on work in silence. When I’m working at a studio, Continue reading

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Kimberly M Zamlich

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Kimberly M Zamlich and I am an illustrator/artist.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
Nothing too crazy; actually kind of boring…working at McDonald’s, at a book store, the community college. My first professional art job was working at Stormfront Studios in Marin County which was a gaming company. I was a computer artist there and did a lot of production work in the beginning, then later on started to do some visual development. That’s where I learned Photoshop.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
One of the most memorable jobs was at MGA Entertainment. I was new and suddenly had this card game thrown on my lap. No one else was available to do it and because I was new, my Art Director was sweating bullets. Can you draw Chihuahuas and animals, he asked me? What? Does a bear poop in the woods? My response was “And I get paid to do this?” I had about 11 illustrations done in 2 weeks, from start to finish for a card game called Andale! Andale! I gave myself 2 days to come up with a solid look of these characters, one I’d feel great in doing, and never looked back. And still to this day, out of all the things that are in my portfolio; it’s the Chihuahuas that everyone loves.
Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business? 
I am from the Bay Area, (Northern California). I worked 4 years at Stormfront and then it got real political. I had heard Disney Feature Film had been hiring after it’s Lion King success and I put in a figure drawing portfolio after Pocohantas was out. I was lucky. The time was ripe when Disney had it’s phenomenal success and Continue reading