I love to animate because I love to explore characters through their stories. I’ve always loved stories; watching them, reading them, creating them. I’ve tried my hand at telling stories through a variety of mediums, and when I first had the opportunity to try 3D animation, something clicked and I knew this was what I wanted to spend my life doing.

Originally I wanted to be a writer. I had friends who made short films, and always felt a bit jealous as it looked like a lot of fun, so after about a year of trying to focus on writing I decided to try my hand and made my first short film. I loved the experience, and applied for a bursary from the Exeter Phoenix arts centre to make my next short film. I met my husband making that film, and we won Best Bursary Film at the local Two Short Nights film festival that year.

After moving to Bristol we began getting requests for corporate videos, and set up our own little two person team. We had a lot of varied requests, from talking heads videos, to motion graphics explainers, to charity Christmas song covers. As we were such a small team I had the opportunity to try new things, learning as I went, and had my first introduction to 3D animation. The more videos we did, the more I was drawn to anything involving characters.

I began freelancing when COVID hit, and was given the opportunity to work on a small web series. I was teaching myself from youtube tutorials as I went along, and getting to animate characters all day. This was the ‘click’ moment for me, when I knew that 3D character animation was what I wanted to be doing

I was offered a job around this time working in motion graphics, and which was a great opportunity to experience working as part of a larger team. I kept working on improving my 3D skills, and when I was offered a freelance role animating toys for Kaiserberge’s Bababoo and Friends website I jumped at the chance.

It soon reached a point where I felt I had learnt all I could by teaching myself, so in January 2023 I began studying with Animation Mentor. I feel like I’ve learnt so much so far from this course. My understanding of the fundamentals of animation has made a massive difference to my work, and getting to learn from experienced industry professionals has been an incredible experience.

I’m really excited to keep learning and see where the journey takes me next!