Bobby Khounphaysane

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My Name is Bobby Khounphaysane (Koon-pie-san) and I am a 2d animator & Character Designer (with some storyboarding and background designs mixed in there) for DipDive Animation owned by Will.I.AM, which we are in the process of launching soon in the next few months or so.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I used to work at a box factory and received a crazy amount of box cuts on my arm doing assembly line.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Let’s see, there’s actually been a few, but the ones that popped into my head was getting the chance to do a Nick Halloween commercial. It was a 5 second spot and the segment was done all in Toon Boom traditionally, which was fun (and tiring) to do! Another was heading a pilot show where I got to helm the designs from the get go, from characters, to storyboarding, and backgrounds.

How did you become interested in animation? 
I became interested in animation ever since I was a wee lad, watching Saturday morning cartoons like Thundercats, GI Joe, and Transformers. From there, Continue reading

Joe Apel

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Joe Apel, Flash Animator at Cartoon Network Studios

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I worked a variety of jobs before I finally got my break in animation. I worked at a Comic Book store at the age of 13 organizing comics. At the age of 15-17, I worked as a camera man for the school district’s cable access station. I washed dishes for a catering service. I worked at a movie theater for 10 years and worked my way up from usher, to projectionist, to Assistant Manager, to Promotions Manager.One job that I thought I would love but ended up hating was working at the Warner Bros. Studio Store in a local mall. I worked in the “gallery” area of the store mostly. I was there to inform people on what the artwork was and sell them cels, maquettes, and limited edition art. I made commission if I sold artwork and they even had a payment plan. I was terrible at the job, I loved the Warner Bros. cartoons so much and I felt it was morally wrong to persuade people into buying animation art when they only intended to come to the mall to buy a pair of jeans. I believe I only worked there for about a month.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I storyboarded on the PBS series, WordGirl, which I find to be an educational and funny show. I created character designs for the pilot of Allen Gregory, which will premiere this fall on Fox. It was inspiring to…. Continue reading

Eva Bruschi

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My Name’s Eva Bruschi and I’ve just started working as 2d Layout artist for a feature film, that is “Iqbal – Tale of a fearless child” dedicated to Iqbal Masih. This is a co-production with Italian Gertie, Editions Montparnasse, Spectra Animation and 2d 3D Animation. I’m very honoured to be part of this team.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I used to work in a special archive made of lots and lots of audio and videos recordings which contain stories from italian popular music and traditions.  There we had to digitize all the old analogical recordings made by researchers all around Italy, from the 50s till our days.. and sometimes there were crazy weird things to listen to! I’ve been there for almost 4 years 🙂

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I’m proud of having been part first of all of “Ice Banana” team, the short film made by my class at Scuola Internazionale di Comics. Then I’m very proud about almost all the projects I’ve been working (yes, I’m an enthusiast!), starting from other feature films like Pinocchio by Enzo D’Alò in which I did animation assistant and Gladiators of Rome 3D by Rainbow cgi in which I was storyboard artist, until smaller one like some Italian TV series, with many drawings to do in a very few time! 😀 Those projects gave more certainty and awareness of my own work, even if the road has just started!

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from Florence, in the beautiful Tuscany and here I attended Scuola Internazionale di Comics like I said before. The school gave me the artistic and technical fundamentals and introduced me to Continue reading

Using Storyboard pro as an Animation package

This Animation was created using Toon Boom Storyboard Pro version 4.1 and a Wacom Cintiq. Background Art was drawn and Painted in Adobe Photoshop CS6 By Arshad Mirza Baig of A.M.B Animation who we interviewed some time ago. Arshad goes through the process on his blog.

From his site:

Flash is fine for demonstrating simple tutorials but extremely frustrating for anyone attempting to produce a high quality piece of drawn frame by frame character animation. The vector tools are extremely intrusive and inhibit the organic flow from brain to pen stroke making the whole process of animating extremely disjointed – much like the symbol style that Flash was created for. In my ignorance I held the word vector in disrepute and refused to work in Toon Boom Story Board pro purely because it was vector based. Then Toon Boom announced a bitmap drawing tool in it’s new version so I decided to give it a go. After a while of playing with the programme I thought I’d just try and see what the vector drawing experience was like in it and I was stunned. It was just as good as drawing with a marker pen and I had full control! I never looked back and spent last year doing most of my story boards happily in vector line work.

 

You can read his entire article here.

James Caswell

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What is your name and your current occupation?
James Caswell. I’m a freelance storyboard artist in Toronto (the GTA.) I also occasionally instruct at Sheridan College in Oakville.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’m not sure if it is crazy but I worked at a Famous Players cinemas (3 screens) for 7 years. This is where I first experienced multiple viewings/study of the same movie. (pre VHS and DVD days.) However, our cinema was targeted with mid 70’s action movies –Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, The Devil’s Rain and lots of early kung fu- Five Fingers of Death. Tarantino territory. I did get passes to all of the chains other theatres, so I also saw the other classics of the time as well. And I learned to make great popcorn.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I like working on different styles of projects with different directors. I like action comedy but these days, it is mostly pre school work. In the early ‘90s, I worked on Project Geeker. It was a show on CBS created by Doug TenNapel. I loved the mix of action, science fiction and goofy comedy. It was really fun to board and I was sorry when it ended. I also really enjoyed working with Brad Goodchild on Pepper Ann. Surprisingly, on a recent trip to China, it was the show in my resume the audience most responded to the most. The Disney machine exposes the world to different products and one never knows which will resonate.

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
Born in the wilds of northern Ontario, I learned to draw from a mix of Marvel comics (Jack Kirby) and MAD magazine (Jack Davis.) After I moved to southern Ontario, I studied briefly at Sheridan College in a comics program they had in the late ‘70s, then graduated in advertising illustration at the Ontario College of Art (now OCADU.) Asked by a prof what I was going to do after graduation, I replied: Continue reading