Meet Audrey Hopkins of Audity Draws

Today we’d like to introduce you to Audrey Hopkins.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I moved to southern California from the small town Petaluma (located in the SF bay area) with my then boyfriend now husband in 2015 to attend California state university long beach. I started out studying illustration but realized soon after that I much prefer animation, and character design and ended up switching my major. Before moving to long beach, I only drew cartoons for fun and was pushed to pursue more traditional types of artwork like painting and sculpture. It wasn’t until I started school at CSULB that I realized I could actually pursue a career as a character designer. I noticed how talkative, upbeat, and fun the animation students were. I would drool over their beautiful work in the school’s art lab, but I kept telling myself that I was no good with computers and could never make high-quality digital artwork like they did. That is until I took my first animation class with Kim Dwinell (an amazing and sweet art professor that everyone in the program calls “art mom”).

After taking her class, I immediately switched my major to animation and started learning how to make digital art. I had to play catch-up with most of the other students in the program but I learned quickly. By the end of my time there, I could not only hold my own among the other students but thanks to another professor, Walter Santucci, I had already worked as a character designer for DefyMedia on a show created by SMOSH called “Oishi demon hunter.” I was also accepted into the schools Bachelor of Fine Arts program and even graduated summa cum laude. Since graduating, I have worked as a freelance character designer for different large and small companies including Shadow Machine. I also worked for the CSULB Shark lab, helping them create an educational comic book called “Beach Days Share the Waves” all about beach safety and marine life. I drew the entire 32 page comic and wrote the dialogue for all its characters. The comic book was published through the department and distributed to the junior lifeguard’s program around southern California to be used as a teaching tool. On a side note, I also recently got married to my high school sweetheart of 8 years, Richard Conley.

As of today, I am still working as a freelance character designer. Most often, I work remotely from my home. I also run a fairly popular channel called Auditydraws on the growing App TikTok. A few months back a friend of mine, Sarah Black, who runs her own popular channel on TikTok called FruitzFriendz showed me the ropes and helped get me started making my own content on the app. Since June, I have posted over 100 videos and my channel has grown to just under 700 thousand followers and 17 million likes. My channel is centered around character design and drawing tutorials. TikTok, being an app mostly used by a younger audience, means I’m constantly having to keep up with new trends and memes. It’s amazing how quickly something that was popular on the app can become old news. My most popular series of videos on the app seem to be my cafe sketching videos (I go to cafe’s and draw people then video their reaction when I show them the drawings), my glow-up drawings (I take existing characters such as Patrick from sponge-bob and draw them older and in a different style), My drawing celebrities as cartoons series, and my zodiac series (where I draw the zodiac signs personified as human characters). I also make other videos about drawing and short animations.

I like making content that is funny or heartwarming or just ridiculous. I never pictured myself as an online content creator but I have to say I am thoroughly enjoying it. I especially love when people tell me that watching my videos has inspired them to draw more. It makes me feel like my work is becoming something more than just a cool drawing. One of the most unexpected things I’ve had happen is having people recognize me out in public sometimes. It’s obviously not too often but even so I was very surprised it would happen at all. I have even started selling merchandise online thanks to my husband. He took the time to set up an online store called auditydraws.com where people can buy t-shirts, phone cases, stickers and other items with my artwork on them. (he also created my portfolio website for me audreyjhopkins.com, he has always helped me pursue my art career anyway he can) It makes me smile to think I might pass someone in the street and see them wearing my artwork. I plan to start a YouTube channel early next year so that I can make longer videos.

Even though this is all still very new to me, I don’t plan to stop creating videos online for as long as I can. However, I still am pursuing my career as a character designer. My dream today is the same one I had when I was in college. I hope to someday be a character designer working at Pixar. Pixar’s films have a way of touching our hearts unlike any other. I love how interesting and different their films character designs are from others. I have and always will strive to be a part of their amazing team. Every time my husband and I drive up to see our family in northern California (which is usually around once every month or two) we stop in Emeryville to look at the Pixar ball and lamp through the fence surrounding the studio. It’s silly, I guess but we just stop and look and I dream a little.

I absolutely love character design. I believe that characters are our connections to films, books, TV shows, and video games. Without characters to connect to the worlds built around them, our stories wouldn’t hold the same significance. What would Hogwarts be to us if we didn’t have harry potter to guide us through its halls. What would Disney be without mickey mouse? Yes, we all feel connected to these worlds but only because we were first connected to their inhabitants. We see ourselves mirrored in these characters, they represent us, and through them we go on adventures, discover new lands, and learn about the universe. I want to create characters that will connect people into these fantastic other worlds, worlds that peoples’ imaginations can live in. Places they can visit and revisit even after the credits roll. These words and their characters help us grow, learn and give us hope. For now, this is where my story ends. A lot has changed for me in the last five years, some good things and some bad but its definitely been a journey.

Has it been a smooth road?
For the first year or so after moving here, I struggled with depression and anxiety. Two things I had not really experienced before moving here. It was hard moving from a small close-knit community to a big city. I grew up with farms around me but now around me I had buildings and concrete that stretched on forever. I always tell people that one of the first things that struck me about the LA area is that all the cites here touch each other. You can never really tell where you are unless you’re looking at a map. I was used to vast amounts of open space between cities and towns. Even the air quality was a shock for me, and I still have trouble being around all the car exhaust sometimes. After moving here, I missed my friends and had a difficult time making new connections with people. Everything moved so fast and there was always something going on. I was never a big party person. In northern California my friends and I would hangout at parks and just sit and talk. After some time though I gained some great friends here and have grown accustom to my concrete environment. And it didn’t hurt that the animation industry here is completely amazing!

It is also difficult to find work in this industry. Most jobs are not gotten because you apply and they hire you. Most people I have talked to in this industry say that the reason they got hired was because they had some sort of connection that led them to the job. This is why networking is the most important and crucial thing you have to do if you want to get a job. It can be very discouraging to apply to hundreds of jobs and either not hear back or be told that you are not what the company was looking for.

Going to events like CTNX and running from company booth to company booth getting portfolio reviews for hours on end for three full days, fighting your way through thousands of other artists just like you who are all desperate for work, can sometimes make you question if this is the right field for you. But then you see some beautifully animated movie or some incredibly art piece online and you get sucked right back into loving everything about being an artist again. completely willing to throw yourself into the most difficult projects, if only for the chance to put your artistic mark on the next big thing.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Audity Draws story. Tell us more about the business.
I am a freelance character designer who also runs a TikTok channel online called Auditydraws. I am very proud of this channel as it seems to be a source of inspiration for a lot of young artists on the App. My specialties are character design, with some experience in prop design, comic books, and character animation. I would say as of today I am most well known for my channel on TikTok or the comic book I created with the CSULB Shark Lab. The comic book was a big struggle for me because it was something I had never done before and I had to teach myself a lot about creating comics while at the same time creating an actual comic. I am very happy though that something I made can help people learn how to be safer at the beach.

I would say though, I am most proud of how far I have come with my character design abilities. It was less than eight years ago that I was learning how to paint still-life’s and portraits without a hope of ever pursuing a career related to the crapy cartoons I drew in the margins of my notebooks. But now I can create detailed character designs in a multitude of styles. I believe this is something that sets me apart from others in some ways. I do not try to have one sole style. You hear artists talk about finding their style or worrying that they won’t find their style. To that I say, DON’T! Who wants to draw one way forever? One style? No way! There are so many beautiful ways of drawing something why would you ever limit yourself to one? Any industry professional will tell you that its good to show you can draw in different styles. It shows them you have range. And its more fun anyway!

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Even though this is all still very new to me, I don’t plan to stop creating videos online for as long as I can. However, I still am pursuing my career as a character designer. My dream today is the same one I had when I was in college. I hope to someday be a character designer working at Pixar. Pixar’s films have a way of touching our hearts unlike any other. I love how interesting and different their films character designs are from others. I have and always will strive to be a part of their amazing team. That may be a hefty goal to have accomplished in the next 5-10 years but there is no way I am giving up on it!

Contact Info:

• Website: audreyjhopkins.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/audity
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@auditydraws

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