Clearly I only update my website when I need to find a job again... D'oh.

After covid rolled me off from Laika, I worked for a month at House Special and had a blast.  What a fun place and group of people to work with!  I was snatched up for Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustaffson's Pinocchio immediately after and stayed until April... when I birthed a baby girl!

So it's been a busy couple of years.  At the moment I'm job hunting, hoping to land some more model making work soon because it's where I feel most fulfilled.  I adore everything stop-motion, but that's the place I enjoy the most.  Making things for tiny people is a huge area of problems to be solved and I adore having a problem to solve.  So here's hoping my unemployed period is coming to an end soon.  It's been great being a stay-at-home mom for a couple of months, but I miss model making.

Over the last year and change, I've been working as a model maker for Laika.  It's been a blast, and would have continued if it weren't for that darn Covid 19.  Alas, I'm being rolled off in September.  It's been a great summer hanging out with my little son, who learned to walk at the beginning of the lockdown.  Since then we've been exploring forest trails and the neighborhood around our home almost every day; it's been wonderful to watch him grow.

​But alas: time to update the website.  Hope y'all are well.

So in my time rolled off from Laika, I did this!

I finally finished a new one.  It's only been seven years since I finished my last reel... D'oh.  I guess I haven't needed to in a while.  Next on the list is my animation reel.

My nephews and niece came to visit the studio a couple of weeks ago.  They're the exact age to which stikbots are marketed, and the tiny place blew their minds.  Eli and Viv especially have been going crazy, making short animations ever since.  I'm such a proud auntie..!  One of the fabricators gave them a pile of stikbots to play with and they've been having a blast.  
I wish I had such things as a kid.  Not necessarily stikbots, but easy access to cameras and frame grabbing. heh.  Back in the day it would have been a heavy, sits-on-your-shoulder VHS camera that you press record and stop as quick as you can, and hope the movement worked when you played it back.  And after weeks of work you'd get the Ben Wyatt animation from Parks and Recreation.  Yay for claymaysh.

Anyway, it's been fantastic to see them creating and to have kinda spurred that on.  

I got Lasik surgery this year - one of the best decisions I ever made.  I love not wearing glasses, especially somewhere it tends to rain a lot.  I'd advise anyone who was going to do it to A) take a Xanax right before the surgery (my place required it), and B) DO NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES watch videos on how it's done.  It's creepy af.
I rolled off of Laika for about a month before landing into an animation job for a toy company.  Ozwest makes something called Stikbots, which are meant to be animation toys for kids!  It's pretty awesome.  More than just commercials, we make short films to show them what's possible and get kids creating.  My nephews and niece took a tour yesterday and one of the fabrication guys gave them a pile of Stikbots and accessories, and they've been making up stories for them constantly since.  It's kind of awesome.  I get to animate and periodically make a few props.  I've learned a lot and made some new friends.  And you should see some of the fan animations on youtube - those kids are adorable.
I miss film work though.  But it's a really convenient time to live in Portland for that sort of thing:  Laika's working on film 6, which should be crewing up sometime next year.  Henry Sellick is coming to Portland to work on Wendell and Wild, another stop-motion feature produced in part by Key and Peele.  Shadow Machine will be crewing up soon to make Guillermo DelToro's Pinocchio film... It's a good time to be into stop motion.

Well, it's about that time again.  Since I work in animation, I tend to work project specifically, and my time on Laika's film five is nearing its end. 

I've had rolloff dates before, but magically they'd gotten pushed back like eight times, so I've managed to be here for five years straight.  That can be rare for the animation world.

Anyway.  It's come time to update my website, reel, and resume!  Time to dust off the cobwebs and see about rebranding myself.  I don't yet have a return date for Laika, so I have to find something else to do with myself in the interim, however long that may be.

Wooooo.

Oh.  Also I'm getting LASIK surgery.  That'll be exciting and terrifying.