The bulk of my time is spent building the actual rig. From there I’ll send it back for feedback, and there may be some notes that come back, which is all part of the process. I take all that and bring it into Harmony to start rigging. Special poses, or if it has a mouth chart or pans. I then talk to the lead or director about what that character will do to see if there’s anything special I should know about. Sometimes the list includes just one main character, or it could be a bunch of incidental characters. James: I’ll usually have a list of assignments for the week, and so my day starts with reviewing that. Could you describe what a typical day as a rigging artist is like? Following that I worked with two more studios before going back to freelance, which is what I’m doing now.Īt LowBrow Studios, James had the opportunity to work as an animation director on Adam Ruins What We Learned in School. I did a lot of directing and helped them get their Harmony pipeline together. So I stayed with them for a few years, bouncing around to various projects they had on the go. I stayed on Archer for about a year, and then landed a full-time animation directing gig with LowBrow Studios. The test went well, and so I ended up moving to Atlanta to work on Archer. About a year into freelance work, I took a test for the show Archer, with Floyd County Productions. At the start I worked a lot for a show called Cyanide and Happiness. That first job went well and led to more freelance work. I got my first freelance job off of the Toon Boom jobs board, actually. After the program, I began freelancing out of Orlando. I took an online program called Animation Mentor. I grew up around animation, and my dad was hugely supportive when I decided I wanted to work in animation too. Then in the 90s, we moved so my dad could work as an animator at Disney Animation Studios in Florida. James: I was born in California while my dad was working for Disney in Burbank. Can you tell us about how your animation career started, and a bit about your career so far?

James recorded a two-minute video of Norm in action, inside Harmony 22 Premium.

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